Hairdressers are exposed to numerous
skin-damaging factors, such as wet work, skin irritants, and thermal changes.
Skin protection is a very important factor for the prevention of occupational
skin disorders. Therefore, we evaluated a hand cream that was specially
formulated for highly stressed skin with regard to its capability to reduce dry,
rough, and scaly skin. The objective of this study was to conduct a controlled use
test of a barrier repair cream containing pseudo-ceramide and demonstrate its
efficacy for hairdressers with dry, sensitive hands and/or occupational skin
disorders. A total of 30 hairdressers (29 females and 1 male, aged 20 - 67) participated in the study. All
subjects suffered from dry hands. Subjects applied the test cream on their hands
for 28 days (four weeks). For each subject, the skin surface topography of the
hands was measured by the Surface Evaluation of Living Skin (SELS) system at
day 14 (week 2) and day 28 (week 4). Dryness, scaling, cracking, redness, and
itchiness were evaluated and graded by experts at week 2 and week 4, and then
compared to baselines. All 30 subjects completed the study. A comparison of the
changes from baseline to endpoint revealed a statistically significant
reduction in skin roughness, scaling, and volume measured according to SELS.
These data were confirmed by photographic documentation. The results were
further supported by the expert evaluation. For the symptoms dryness and
scaling, improvement could be observed in almost all regions of the hands. In
addition, according to subjective assessments of overall hand skin condition
and the hand cream, subjects reported clear improvement over time (p value
below 0.001) and good efficacy of the product. In this study, the test hand
cream showed excellent skin compatibility. Therefore, the hand cream may be
effective for hairdressers with dry, sensitive hands and/or occupational skin
disorders.