Cosmetics
Buy and sell cosmetics in Panama.
Most of what gets passed on comes out of a bathroom drawer: a foundation bought in the wrong shade, a palette swatched twice, a serum that did not suit, a shampoo meant for someone else’s hair. Make-up, skin care, perfume and nail polish all turn up side by side, sealed or barely touched, and in Panama the question behind every one of them is where it has been kept. A lipstick that rode around for a week in a car in David is not the same product as one that stayed in a cool drawer in Boquete, even when the two look identical in a photo.
Pumps, pots and lipstick bullets once the seal is broken:
a spray or a pump keeps fingers out, so a bottle that has been opened can still be perfectly sound. That covers most fragrances, many liquid foundations and the body washes in bath and shower. Squeeze tubes, the usual format in hair care and for hand creams, come close. Open pots, lipstick bullets, cream compacts and mascara wands are another matter: every use puts skin or a brush straight into the product, so for these the seal is the whole of their value. Much of make-up and a good part of skin care falls into that group, which is why one that arrives untouched is worth so much more than one that has been swatched.
Powders, creams and how long each keeps once opened:
dry formulas last longest. Pressed eyeshadow, blush and setting powder hold up long after the first use, while anything with water in it, from moisturiser to liquid foundation, starts ageing as soon as air gets in, and mascara has the shortest life of all. Nail polish from hand and nail care gives itself away: it thickens and turns stringy as it ages, so one stroke of the brush shows its state. Start with the shade and the formula that suit your skin, then decide whether you will take anything without its seal. A powder palette tried once on the wrist is usually a sound buy, an opened tub of cream rarely is, and an opened mascara never is.
The price of a foundation bottle, prestige or drugstore:
new in Panama, a prestige foundation runs around $45 to $60 and a drugstore one from about $6 to $15, and that spread decides what is worth listing on its own. A sealed prestige bottle, or a palette swatched once to check the colours, still finds a buyer at a fair discount, because the saving is real and its condition shows in a photo. At drugstore prices, replacing a single piece costs so little that it moves best in a sealed lot or a box of unused minis, where the buyer saves a trip to the shelf rather than a few dollars.
Heat marks on lipstick, powder and cream:
these do more to a product’s value than age, and in Panama they usually come from a car parked in the sun or a room without air conditioning. A lipstick that has softened and set again has a dented or slumped tip and tiny beads of oil on its surface. A cream compact or balm pulls away from the edge of its pan or splits across the middle. A pump that spits instead of dispensing has usually been cooked along with what is inside it. Pressed powder fails differently: oil from fingers and brushes builds a hard, shiny crust that no longer picks up colour, which can sometimes be scraped back but tells you how it was used. To rule out copies, check that the lid closes flush, the lettering is crisp and the shade name on the sticker matches the one on the box, which is where imitations tend to slip.
Sealed and opened cosmetics in separate listings:
buyers treat them as different purchases, and one opened lipstick in a sealed lot pulls the whole lot down. Photograph each opened item with the lid off so the surface and the level show, give the shade names, and say roughly when it was opened and where it has lived; a room with air conditioning is worth mentioning. If you only tried a shade on your wrist before realising it was wrong, say that too. An opened mascara or liquid liner is better thrown away than offered to anyone. And if you are meeting a buyer in a mall car park in Santiago, take the bag in with you rather than leaving a box of lipsticks on the back seat while you wait.