Can Soaps & Detergents Cause A Rash?
Medical Author: Alan Rockoff, MD Medical Editor: Frederick Hecht, MD, F.A.A.P. For years, patients have been coming to my office with eczema, complaining that they had changed their soaps and detergents but their rashes had not gone away. The first thing I always tell them is: “Contrary to what you’ve heard, eczema is rarely, if ever, caused by soaps and detergents.” I say this because it fits with my experience. People get rashes when they haven’t used anything different, and they don’t become consistently better if they keep shifting products in a futile effort to locate the culprit in the laundry. And now — at last! — there is published scientific evidence to back up my experience. In the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Donald V. Belsito from the University of Kansas and his colleagues in the North American Contact Dermatitis Group published an article entitled “Allergic contact dermatitis to detergents: A multicenter study to assess prevalence.” Their conclusion r
