No abstract

No abstract

Surfactants are commonly used in personal-care products to increase cleansing performance and to create pleasing foam. However, surfactants can also damage the skin by removing skin lipids and causing corneocytes to swell, resulting in increased skin roughness and transepidermal water loss. Newly established methods help to quantify these effects in controlled consumer studies. In addition, in vitro experiments with skin cell cultures show the potential inflammatory action of surfactants, which in the in vivo situation may provoke skin irritation. These detrimental effects are even enhanced by frequent treatment with surfactant-based personal-care products. Together with the use of mild surfactant combinations, the addition of surfactant-compatible lipid compounds has proved a convenient way of not only counteracting the negative side effects of surfactants but also exerting positive skin effects. In a controlled consumer study, analysis of skin lipids after skin cleansing revealed the lipid-layer strengthening efficacy of lipid/surfactant mixtures that can be solubilized in the personalcare formulation or dispersed as waxy particles. As a result, skin roughness after cleansing treatment, as measured by fast optical in vivo topometry of the skin, is improved, and consumers perceive that their skin is smooth and cared for. FIG. 8.Penetration of glyceryl oleate into the stratum corneum after treatment with a shower gel containing a refatter. Error bars indicate SEM. The differences after 1-d treatment are highly significant compared to untreated (P < 0.01). The differences between treatment-1 d vs. treatment-1 wk are highly significant (P < 0.01). FIG. 9.Skin roughness measurement values after a 3-wk period of shower gel use containing a refatter and a shower gel with no refatter. Differences between the products are highly significant for both Ra and Rz with P < 0.01. See final paragraph of the Materials and Methods section for explanation of Ra and Rz.

No abstract

No abstract