E45 BATH COMPARED WITH PROPRIETARY BATH OIL ADDITIVES IN A SINGLE-BLIND, MULTIPLE-CROSSOVER STUDY

A single-blind, multiple-crossover design was used to evaluate the moi sturizing capability of E45 Bath compared with two proprietary bath oi l additives and involved ten healthy volunteers. One arm was soaked in a 0.04% bath oil dispersion in warm water, the other was soaked in wa rm water (control) for 10 min. All postimmersion measurements with Cor neometry showed that subjects receiving E45 Bath had significantly les s dehydration in the treated arm compared with the control at all time s postimmersion (P<0.05). In a second study, the reason for the superi or moisturizing effect of E45 Bath was investigated in six subjects. T he amount of oil left on the skin after immersion in a suspension of t he oil was measured using a Sebumeter. E45 Bath left more oily deposit s than two other bath oil additives; these differences were significan t for one comparator only (P=0.05). The first study showed that E45 Ba th was significantly better at minimizing dehydration than the two bat h oil additives with which it was compared. The results of the second suggest that this may be because E45 Bath leaves more moisturizing res idues on the skin than other bath additives.