The skin cleaning is a very common and often underestimated but that must be addressed very carefully without disdaining the advice of the specialist in relation to the type of skin and its needs.With the cleansing is done something very important is to remove the excess secretions, dirt environment, and it also contains the microbial flora and go away, the cells of the stratum corneum surface. However, this measure also has negative side which leads to damage of the lipid structure of the stratum corneum with subsequent drying and loss of buffering with reductions in defense against chemical and bacterial attacks.

It based on traditional cleansing surfactant which forms the basis of traditional soap. The surfactant (of which the most widely used is sodium lauryl sulfate) is a substance that can bind to both the oil phase to water is causing the removal of dirt.

The negative effects of this action are well known to all: damage to the skin barrier, increased dryness.
For this traditional soaps tend to be increasingly replaced by syndet, both solid and liquid detergents produced without the process of saponification, which meet more skin pH and which may be added substances with special protective action.

What is important from the viewpoint of dermatology is that the cleansing is no longer just a cleaning action but increasingly a treatment of the skin. So depending on the type of skin and dermatological we use different cleaners.

In the case of atopic dermatitis skin or xerosis to use bath oils possibly without surfactants; in rosacea use of lipid-free detergents, cleaners of acne acidifying or delicate, depending on the treatment performed in the prevention of fungal folliculitis and detergents added by special substances be allowed to act for at least five to ten minutes. In individuals allergic or intolerant cleaning substances should be dealt with without any preservatives.

Far from being a trivial act hasty and cleansing confirms an increasingly complex and sophisticated instrument, capable of not only play its own role, but also constitute a real therapeutic act.