Product Expiration Date Code Decoder
Learn about the final digit.
The final digit is called the 'check digit,' and is automatically determined by putting the previous 11 digits through a mathematical formula. The purpose of this is to catch printing errors. While fake UPC barcodes do exist, usually created by companies who don't understand that they need to apply for one, it would be easy to include the correct check digit, so this is likely not a reliable method of finding fakes. (For that purpose, look it up in the official database instead.) If you're curious or enjoy doing math for fun, you can enter your barcode into a GTIN-12 check digit calculator, or follow the checking formula yourself:
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Date Code Calculator
The final digit is called the 'check digit,' and is automatically determined by putting the previous 11 digits through a mathematical formula. The purpose of this is to catch printing errors. While fake UPC barcodes do exist, usually created by companies who don't understand that they need to apply for one, it would be easy to include the correct check digit, so this is likely not a reliable method of finding fakes. (For that purpose, look it up in the official database instead.) If you're curious or enjoy doing math for fun, you can enter your barcode into a GTIN-12 check digit calculator, or follow the checking formula yourself:Some brands use codes consisting of a letter (A is for January, B is February.) and two letters to denote the date. So D13 equals April 2013. But beware: Things get kind of funky in this coding system since, for some reason, the letters that represent the months are not strictly sequential. Select a brand of your cosmetics, and write your batch code. Then the Cosmetics Wizard calculator can decode the batch code for you. If you find a 13-digits code like 3 10 together with bar, it is not a batch code. It is a normal barcode which is to define a kind of product. There is no production date information included in the barcode.
Makeup Product Expiration Date Code Decoder
- Add all the digits in the odd positions together (the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th digits).
- Multiply the result by 3.
- Add to this the sum of the even-positioned digits (the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th) - do not include the check digit itself.
- 'Chop off' everything except the final digit of your answer, the number in the ones place.
- If that number is 0, that is the check digit.
- If that number is any other digit, subtract it from 10, and the result is the check digit. For example, if the previous step resulted in an answer of 8, you would calculate 10-8=2. This answer should be the same as the final 12th digit of the barcode.