Although the shelf life of this preservative free cleansing balm is listed as 4 months in the e-book, I have been using and testing it a while longer.

It was made in Sept 2018 and has been living in my bathroom ever since. Although the balm is packaged in an air-tight PET container, has been stored at room temperature and used occasionally, I have been meticulous about keeping the contents free of moisture at all times. For the first half a year or so, I used an applicator, but then started dipping directly into the product with (dry) fingers.

Above is a little video I made of the very last bit of the jar. Time since date of production: 19 months.

While I cannot recommend letting a preservative free product stand around for quite this long - even if it is anhydrous - this little exercise demonstrates how packaging, storage conditions and how the product is dispensed can have a considerable influence on the shelf life of a product. Also, using fresh, quality ingredients and observing proper GMP is always going to be imperative to the success of a product of this type.

The formula for the Gentle Cleansing Balm is featured on page 92 of the book pictured below. If you’re a fan of chocolate-scented anything, I can recommend trying the (pictured) version with raw cocoa powder.