How to Do a Skincare Inventory (And What to Do With What You Find) | Pandr

At some point, most skincare collections reach a tipping point. You go to buy a new SPF, it's on sale, surely it would be wasteful not to, and somewhere at the back of the bathroom cabinet, behind the half-used toners and the serum you impulse-bought in January, there are two unopened tubes from the last time it was on sale. You just forgot they were there.

This is the skincare inventory problem. Not that you have too much, not exactly. Just that you don't actually know what you have.

A skincare inventory fixes that. It takes about an hour, it's mildly horrifying, and it's one of the most useful things you can do before starting any kind of Project Pan — or before buying anything new at all.

Here's how to do it properly.

Step 1: Pull Everything Out

All of it. Not just the stuff on your shelf that you can see. But also everything in the bathroom cabinet, the drawer, the box under the sink, the travel bag you haven't unpacked, the bedside table. Every cleanser, toner, serum, moisturiser, sample, SPF, eye cream, exfoliant, mask, oil, mist, and balm.

Put it all on a flat surface. A bed, a table, the floor.

This step is important not because you need to organise it physically (you can put it all back where it was afterwards) but because seeing everything at once is the point. Most people have no idea how much they own until it's all in one place. The pile is the wake-up call.

Step 2: Check What's Still Good

Before you catalogue anything, do a quick cull of the obvious casualties.

Look for the PAO symbol on each product — the little open jar icon with a number and an M, which stands for months. A "12M" means the product is good for 12 months after opening. If you opened it two years ago, it goes. If you can't remember when you opened it and it smells off or has changed texture, it goes.

Unopened products last longer — most are fine for two to three years from manufacture — but check the batch code if you're unsure. There are free tools online like CheckFresh that can tell you the manufacture date from the code printed on the bottom.

Be honest here. Keeping expired products because you feel guilty throwing them away is how the pile grows back and is not good for your skin.

Not sure what PAO means or how to read expiry symbols? This guide from Certified Cosmetics explains the symbol and how to use it.

Step 3: Sort Into Categories

Once you've cleared out anything expired, sort what's left into categories. Something like:

Cleansers
Toners / essences
Serums & treatments
Moisturisers
SPF
Eye care
Exfoliants (chemical and physical)
Masks
Oils & balms
Body
Anything else

Don't overthink the categories — the goal is just to see how many of each type you own. Because this is usually where it gets interesting.

Most people find they have two or three cleansers open at once, five serums at various stages, and roughly seventeen things that could all be described as "hydrating." That's not a moral failing — it's just what happens when you buy things one at a time without being able to see the full picture.

Step 4: Record What You Have

Now write it down, in whatever format works for you.

Pen and paper is fine if your collection is small or you just want to do this once. A simple list by category, noting whether each product is open or unopened and roughly how full it is.

A notes app works well if you want something you can check before shopping. Quick to update, always with you, searchable.

A spreadsheet is worth the setup if you have a large collection or want to track things properly — you can add columns for PAO dates, purchase dates, percentage remaining, and whether something is a duplicate.

For each product, try to record at minimum:

Brand and product name
Category
Open or unopened
Roughly how full / how much is left
PAO (if open)

That's genuinely enough. You don't need to log every ingredient or purchase price to get value from this.

We're building a tool that makes this faster — scan a product, and it logs itself. Join the waitlist if you want to try it when it launches.

Step 5: Look For What You Actually Have

This is the part that makes the inventory worth doing.

Once everything is recorded, look for:

Duplicates — the same product twice. Two open moisturisers from the same brand, three of the same SPF. Finish one before opening the next. Simple.

Redundancy — different products doing the same job. A hydrating toner, an essence, and a hyaluronic acid serum can all essentially be delivering moisture before your moisturiser. You might not need all three in the same routine. This isn't about cutting things ruthlessly — it's just worth being aware of. Finding dupes already in your stash is a good next step once you can see everything laid out.

Forgotten unopened products — things you bought and never started. These are worth paying attention to. Before you buy anything new in that category, ask whether what you already have would do the job. Often it will. Give it a go first, and if you genuinely prefer the new thing, at least you'll use up the old one in the process.

Things you don't like and will never use — if you've had something for over a year and keep skipping it, it's probably not going to happen. This is what destashing is for — finding it a better home rather than letting it expire on your shelf.

The Point

A skincare inventory isn't really about decluttering, though that often happens. It's about making better decisions going forward — spending less, wasting less, and not finding yourself in the sunscreen situation again.

Most of us buy skincare in a state of partial information. We know roughly what's on the shelf, but not all of it, and not how it all relates to each other. The inventory fixes that. It takes an hour and you only need to do the full version once — after that, keeping it up to date is easy.

And before you add anything new to the collection: check what you have first.

Pandr helps you track your skincare stash, spot what's redundant, and make real Project Pan progress. Join the waitlist to be the first to try it.