New to forum & product shelflife question

[Mr. Burns]

Hello All, I've been trolling this forum for a while and finally decided to post a couple questions.

Being relatively new to the art of detailing (as a hobby and for therapy), I quickly acquired all kinds of products; including paste wax, liquid wax, ONR, a couple AIOs, sealants, shampoo, polish, etc. As it turns out, I have more products than time.

First question - are there any rules-of-thumb about product shelf-life? Do certain product-types (i.e., carnauba wax, shampoo) last longer on the shelf than others?

Second question - other than storing everything in a cool, dry place, are there any tricks to prolonging the shelf-life of products?

Thanks

[Setec Astronomy]

Keep the products tightly capped. I used to squeeze excess air out of the bottles but that doesn't really seem to help.

Unfortunately, the older products that had a lot of solvents in them seemed to last longer than the newer water-based stuff. Also it's been reported that recycling issues cause mfrs. to use bottles today that are more permeable than in the past.

But if you keep things in a cool dry place most items should last 5 years or more. Things like shampoos seem to be the most stable. It's considered good practice to shake products like polish and waxes up periodically to prevent them from separating (they will normally separate but it's generally thought if you shake them back together frequently it will help keep them from separating permanently...however logical this sounds, I'm not sure it really has anything to do with the permanent separation).

PS Cool, dry, and DARK is probably best, in case you have any clear bottles and photosensitive ingredients, if not dark, at least out of sunlight.