Development of a standardized procedure for testing the efficacy of workplace cleansers

Occupational skin cleansing is a risk factor for cumulative irritant dermatitis. Standardized methods are required to assess the cleaning efficacy of occupational skin cleansers, allowing us to choose the optimal cleanser with minimal irritation for specific workplaces.

To develop a standardized procedure for testing the cleaning efficacy of occupational skin cleansers.

In this single-blind, randomized, monocentric clinical trial in 24 healthy volunteers, the cleaning efficacy of generic reference cleansers was assessed against standardized test dirts. The test procedure included standardized dirt application, standardized washing with an automated skin cleaning device, and quantification of the cleaning efficacy by chromametry. For two cleansers, reproducibility of the cleaning efficacy assessment was studied. Furthermore, the performance of two cleansers was compared with that of commercial skin cleansers.

Cleaning factors ranged from 12% up to 97% for the respective model dirts. A high reproducibility of the washing and the assessment procedure could be shown. The comparison of the washing efficacies for two reference cleansers with those of commercial cleansers showed partly similar performances, but also a higher cleaning efficacy for some dirts of the reference cleansers.

The testing procedure proved to be applicable to a wide spectrum of cleansers and model dirts.