6 genius hacks that make your beauty products last *forever*

After doing your research, heading to the store, and spending your hard-earned cash on beauty products, you’ll want to you get the most for your money. And if you really fall in love, you’ll want to make it last forever. Luckily, there are a few hacks to make sure you always get the most out of your favorite products.

While it’s tempting to just add water, makeup artist Jeannie Vincent explains that’s a huge no-no.”You should never add water to a product to make it last longer,” she explains. Such a “hack” can introduce bacteria.

To learn the right way to stretch the life of your best beauty buys, keep on scrolling.

Hack your way to longer-lasting beauty products

1. Use the back of your hand to apply

At the end of the fourth episode of  the latest season of Queer Eye, hair stylist and beauty expert Jonathan Van Ness shows us the best way to apply liquid products like moisturizer and foundation.  Take your product, put some on the back of your hand, then dab it on your face and rub in, he explains. “That way, you’re wasting excess product on your hands,” Van Ness says.

2. Repurpose broken blush

If you drop your favorite blush and it shatters, makeup artist Mary Irwin recommends crushing what’s left of your blush into powder, putting it into a little container, and using it as a loose pigment.

3. Scoop out remaining lipstick when you hit the tube

“When you get to the end of a favorite lipstick, there is always a lot left in the base of the tube,” explains Vincent. “Scoop it out into a little sample jar and you can still use it with a brush on your lips, or try it as a cream blush by dabbing it onto your cheeks using fingers.”

4. Rehydrate gel liner or brow product

“If you have a gel liner or brow product in a pot, you can add something like Inglot Duraline ($12), she says. “But never, ever add water!”

4. Use a toothpaste key on products that come in tubes

To make sure you get every. last. drop., use a toothpaste key ($4) to squeeze out your product.

5. Add moisturizer to almost-empty foundation

“If you find yourself low on foundation, or you just want to make it last longer, use a full coverage but sheer it out with a moisturizer or sunscreen,” Irwin says. “You get customized coverage and use less of both products.”

6. Flip the tip on felt-tip eye liner pens

When your felt-tip liner pen starts getting dry, beauty vlogger SofiaStyled shows that you can take a pair of tweezers and pull out the felt tip. In most cases, the tip will be double-ended, so you can flip it over, place the dry end into the tube and voilà, your liner pen is good as new.

There are 40 million foundation video tutorials out there, here are the only seven you need. And if a mascara tube and an eyelash curler had a baby, these tubes would be it.