It's hard to really use these up if u dont use these professionally. Actually what me and a friend are doing is buying several of them, then we split them in half, so that each of us has half a bottle of pigment. Half will still last you forever. Im still scraping the lid of old gold and i use it once a week..lol. Our main issue was where to put the other 1/2 if u dont get the original pigment bottle. I ended up geting empties on ebay...I have to have the containers,..its just not the same in any other container..lol