Skin-friendly materials

Skin safe materials – visible for the consumer

Your skin, the body’s largest organ, is your shield against the world. It deserves the best care, not just from cosmetics, but also from textiles and materials you interact with daily. Whether it’s braving harsh weather or ensuring safety at work, your skin deserves nothing but the best.

At Dermatest GmbH, we go beyond theory and lab tests. Our “skin-friendly material” seal is your assurance. It’s not just about legal limits, ingredients, and material composition. We put products to the ultimate test – on real people, in real-life situations. We want to make sure you never have to worry about skin reactions.

As the largest organ of the human body, the skin forms a protective barrier between the body and its environment. Not only cosmetics, but also textiles and materials come into close contact with the skin on a daily basis. In this context, textiles and materials in particular are often even intended to provide the skin with additional protection against environmental influences such as cold and rain, or as protection against physical influences such as friction and pressure. Textiles and materials are therefore also used specifically in occupational safety. These products should therefore also be compatible with the skin.

Unlike theoretical and laboratory testing, in which the compatibility of textiles and materials is determined by evaluating the ingredients and material composition within legal limits and, if necessary, by additional physical abrasion, perspiration fastness and washing tests, the testing of the “skin-friendly material” seal is based on long-term and everyday application testing of the products on humans. This is intended to provide the greatest possible safety in order to be able to exclude subsequent skin reactions of the consumer and user group as far as possible.

Same testing method – new seal design

In a dynamic market, it is important to stay ahead. That’s why we are introducing our innovative “Consumer Line” seals. Through claims and corresponding visual elements, they provide direct information about what has been tested – for your customers, this means instant clarity.
Get in touch with our experts about the possibilities of the new seal.

Ensuring skin compatibility and functionality

The aim of our application studies of products that are in close contact with the skin is to test them for their tolerability and, if necessary, functionality according to clinical dermatological criteria. As a rule, at least 20 test persons use or wear the product to be tested at home for a period of at least four weeks according to the manufacturer’s instructions. In the case of textiles and washable products, multiple washes of the products are planned. The products are used on the intended skin area and in the specific application, i.e. menstrual underwear is tested during menstruation, sports and functional clothing is worn during training and the glasses frame is placed on the nose. Furthermore, specific groups of test subjects are also chosen to represent the target group of the product. For example, baby textiles should be tested on babies and toddlers and bicycle grips on cyclists. In addition, the final survey of the test persons can provide a reliable representation of the effectiveness and functionality over a longer period of time.

Certifying skin-friendly products

Products tested in this way receive the “skin-friendly material” seal after successful completion of the study. Studies with this distinction go beyond determining the potential for skin irritation. Among other things, a sensitizing potential can be largely ruled out by the four-week application. In addition to skin compatibility, additional measurements specifically selected for the requirements of the respective products can optionally be commissioned (e.g. testing of the sweat-reducing effect of shoe insoles or evaluation of the skin-tightening effect of pajamas containing Q10).

Characteristics of the “Skin-friendly material” seal are

Conduct of the study under dermatological control
Use of the product by at least 20 test persons with specific requirements (sportsmen, small children, etc.)
Test period of at least 4 weeks
Application on intended skin areas (e.g. socks on the feet, glasses on the nose, etc.)
Final, obligatory questionnaire
the subjective evaluation of the skin tolerability of the test product by the test persons must stand comparison with known or commercially available products
optional measurement of physiological skin parameters
optional consultation with other specialists (pediatricians, ophthalmologists, gynecologists, etc.)

Advantages of the seal

Consumers want products that confirm through seals that they are safe for the health of the body and skin. Numerous seals, e.g. those of the textile industry, certify the safety of products based on laboratory methods and testing of material compositions. Furthermore, some seals focus almost exclusively on the origin of the textiles and the fair production chain. This means that there is virtually no evidence of skin compatibility for the end consumer.

The seal “skin-friendly materials” offers the possibility to close this gap and to give the consumer the assurance that not only the materials and textiles used are safe, but also the combination of seams and closures as well as the functionality in the end product is “skin-friendly” in everyday use, even under long-term use.