The skin becomes red and puffy after a scratch. Dry skin from any cause is irritable and sensitive. Skin may be dry due to:. Dry skin tends to be itchy, especially if overheated.
The person is often using a number of products topically to try to improve this, and may therefore also develop a contact dermatitis. Dry skin Dryness due to ageing. All forms of eczema or dermatitis atopic , seborrhoeic , asteatotic, venous , etc. Eczema skin is usually itchy with a visible rash, which can further react to water, temperature, humidity and other environmental factors. Thus the presence of a second problem such as an irritant or allergic contact dermatitis to a product being applied to the skin may be overlooked.
Eczema of any type is a well recognised predisposing factor for the development of irritant contact dermatitis. Eczema Atopic eczema. Skin sensitivity may take the form of a reaction to sunlight photosensitivity either as easy sunburn , hives, blisters or sensory symptoms such as tingling.
There are many photodermatoses and these are described in more detail elsewhere on this website. Photosensitive eczema Photosensitivity. Cutaneous mastocytosis is a rare group of conditions there are an excessive number of mast cells in the skin which can release histamine following stroking, pressure, heat, etc.
This results in skin redness, puffiness and perhaps even blistering. The most common mastocystosis is called urticaria pigmentosa. Mastocytosis Urticaria pigmentosa in a child. Patch testing Day 1. If you use makeup, your dermatologist may recommend stopping all cosmetics for two weeks, and then adding each product back in one at a time. This will give you a clearer idea if any of your regular products are contributing to your skin sensitivity.
The American Academy of Dermatology Association recommends seeking treatment for your sensitive skin so that it does not become worse. If you have been experiencing dry or irritated skin, you know how hard it is to not rub or scratch it.
Long-term scratching can make the itchiness permanent and lead to skin infections. Long-term irritation and bleeding can come from scratching your irritated skin.
If you have experienced skin sensitivity, you know how frustrating it can be. Fortunately, there are solutions for most of the causes. Keep in mind any activities or environmental factors that seem to make your skin feel worse and develop a protection plan. Sign up for our Health Tip of the Day newsletter, and receive daily tips that will help you live your healthiest life. Sensitive skin: Review of an ascending concep t. Anais Brasileiros de Dermatologia. Brief analysis of causes of sensitive skin and advances in evaluation of anti-allergic activity of cosmetic products.
International Journal of Cosmetic Science. American Academy of Dermatology. Rosacea: Who gets and causes. Acne: Who gets and causes. Dry skin: Who gets and causes.
Colloidal oatmeal Avena sativa improves skin barrier through multi-therapy activity. Farage MA. The prevalence of sensitive skin. Frontiers in Medicine. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellHealth. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page.
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Contact Dermatitis. An Overview of Skin Allergies. An Overview of Rosacea. How to Treat and Prevent Dry Skin. Questions Your Healthcare Provider May Ask You can prepare for answering these questions: Where on your body do you experience skin sensitivity? Early signs include blushing or flushing more easily than other people. Long-term maintenance of rosacea usually involves prescription creams, so talk to your doctor about your symptoms.
Contact urticaria are hives caused by direct contact with an irritating substance. The reaction from contact urticaria is immediate. If you have contact urticaria, your symptoms should clear up on their own within 24 hours.
Treatment focuses on easing symptoms until the rash runs its course. Physical urticaria are hives that are caused by exposure to heat, cold, chemicals, plants, or exercise. This condition will probably go away on its own, but an oral antihistamine may help it clear up faster. Photodermatoses is an abnormal skin reaction to sunlight. The ultraviolet UV rays in sunlight can trigger your immune system, causing you to develop a rash, blisters, or scaly patches of skin.
Tell your healthcare provider if you think you might be overly sensitive to sunlight. Cutaneous mastocytosis CM is a condition in which too many mast cells accumulate in the skin. Mast cells are part of your immune system, so when they sense a threat, they release chemicals that cause swelling.
People with severe symptoms can undergo a type of radiation treatment called PUVA therapy. Aquagenic pruritus is a very rare condition in which any water that touches the skin causes itchiness. This can for last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Aquagenic pruritus can be difficult to treat.
If you think you have this condition, talk to your doctor. When you have sensitive skin, it can feel like everything is irritating. But with a few lifestyle changes, you may see significant improvement. There are a lot of different conditions that can cause skin sensitivity. Some require more serious and diligent treatment than others. If you suspect your skin condition involves an allergic response, you should consider making an appointment with an allergist. The development of consumer beauty, health and household products routinely includes intensive premarket product testing intended to ensure that any marketed product is free of irritant potential.
Nonetheless, it is not uncommon for post-marketing surveillance personnel to receive reports of unpleasant sensory reactions to such products not predicted by even the most robust development methodology 1.
The sensory reactions of consumers strongly influence purchasing decisions. These adverse sensations are usually transient and unaccompanied by classical visible signs of irritation 3. The underlying mechanism is neither immunological nor allergic 4. These unpleasant sensations cannot be explained by lesions attributable to any skin disease. The skin can appear normal or be accompanied by erythema. Sensitive skin can affect all body locations, especially the face. This definition of sensitive skin was decades in development.
The concept of sensitive skin arose in the s with the observation that despite the fact that previous safety evaluations had found no evidence of toxicity, some patients reported stinging sensations upon using a particular sunscreen that contained a derivative of P-aminobenzoic acid 6. A variety of methods have been used to identify individuals with sensitive skin Table 1. These have included tests to identify individuals with specific sensory reactions, such as stinging or burning, and traditional tests for irritation with enhanced means of detecting inflammatory responses.
Each of these tests has significant limitations. For example, an individual with sensitive skin may respond to one chemical that induces stinging, such as lactic acid, but be non-responsive to other sting-inducing materials. Enhanced detection methods may be able to identify otherwise subclinical irritation reactions, but those reactions may not be associated with sensory responses. Further complicating the use of irritant testing in identifying sensitive skin is the observation that there is profound interpersonal variability in individual responses to specific irritants 13 , 14 , even among chemicals with similar modes of action Sizeable variation exists within the same individual at different anatomic sites 14 , and even at the same anatomical site on symmetric limbs 9.
In addition, many people who profess sensitive skin do not predictably experience irritant reactions, whereas some who describe themselves as non-sensitive react strongly to tests of objective irritation Traditional irritant-testing methodologies have not proven to be good predictors of adverse sensory reactions. As a result, the investigation of the phenomenon of sensitive skin has progressed using epidemiological investigations implementing surveys conducted of the general population.
Such investigations rely on the responders' self-perceived adverse reactions to various products, chemicals, and other potential stimuli. When evaluating such results, it is important to consider that self-reported data can have significant drawbacks.
Some patients may experience adverse sensations that are related to underlying dermatologic conditions such as rosacea or seborrheic dermatitis. These conditions can also produce stinging sensations that can be interpreted as sensitive skin 7 , There are also psychological disorders characterized by similar symptoms, such as cosmetic intolerance syndrome Further, subject responses can be significantly impacted by the specific wording of survey questions.
Other survey instruments are more specific, drawing the responders' attention to a specific body site, such as the face, genital area, or scalp, and asking a responder to rate the degree of sensitivity e. Sensitive skin was initially believed to be an unusual reaction evidenced in only a small subset of individuals. However, over the last two decades, surveys on sensitive skin have been conducted in over 20 different countries on 5 continents.
This research has demonstrated that individuals with sensitive skin represent over half the population. Table 2 provides an overview of published surveys in which the responders were asked about generalized sensitive skin.
For those studies in which the responders were asked to rate the degree of sensitive skin e. Berardesca et al. In a publication, Misery et al.
An exception to the high prevalence rate of sensitive skin presented in Table 2 is China. It is noteworthy that this survey used the same questionnaire as other surveys we conducted in various geographies, therefore, differences in the wording and possible responses to the questions were not a contributing factor to this difference.
The clear difference in the perceived skin sensitivity between China and other geographies may be in part due to cultural factors.
An epidemiological study conducted in Europe lends support to the importance of a cultural component. A comparison of self-reported skin sensitivity among subjects in each of eight European countries found dramatic differences between national populations that are genetically very similar The authors proposed this difference might be related to more fashion and beauty-related advertising in specific European countries.
Another study was conducted in China in among subjects from large urban areas. Xu et al. Among the women in the survey, only This darker skin type would be expected to lower the prevalence of sensitive skin to some degree. Further, the authors pointed out a significant cultural component. Older Chinese subjects may have been less clear on the meaning of sensitive skin and, therefore, less likely to categorized themselves as such. Supporting this notion was the observation that the total prevalence of very sensitive and sensitive skin gradually decreased with age.
A possible explanation for the lower prevalence in this study was proposed by the author. It has long been recognized that the fair skin phototype is more commonly associated with self-reported sensitive skin compared to the darker skin phototype 19 , Differences in the self-diagnosis of sensitive skin also may be related to cultural differences, such as a lower interest in using cosmetic products or reporting adverse reactions to them For many, the term sensitive skin is synonymous with sensitive facial skin.
The face is highly innervated; therefore, adverse sensations may be experienced more acutely. Facial skin comes into contact with a wider variety of products compared to some other anatomic sites, such as, cleansers, cosmetics, and shaving products.
Since the face is typically uncovered, this site is also exposed to greater extremes in weather, climate changes, and other environmental insults.
Further, individuals may be more aware of appearance and visual signs of irritation on the face and, therefore, likely to perceive their facial skin as more sensitive. Several epidemiologic studies have specifically probed responders about sensitive skin at anatomic sites other than the face Table 3.
Overall, these investigators have found that the prevalence of perceived sensitive skin of the face tends to be higher than other anatomic sites. However, other body sites cannot be ignored with regards to sensitive skin. Interestingly, in one of our studies we evaluated responses to a sensitive skin questionnaire by comparing the severity of perceived skin sensitivity in general i.
When describing the severity of sensitivity of facial and body skin, we found that most participants gave responses that were either consistent with the perception of sensitive skin in general When describing the skin in the genital area, the pattern was slightly different. Less than half of the subjects gave the identical description of skin sensitivity in general and of the genitalia Subjects tended to describe their genital skin as less sensitive than their skin in general.
This demonstrates the importance of identifying specific anatomic sites in survey instruments designed to determine the prevalence of self-perceived sensitive skin. Table 3. Prevalence of self-declared sensitive skin at specific anatomic locations. The face has demonstrated to be the most common site of skin sensitivity Table 3 , predictable physiologically due to the larger and multiple number of products used on the face particularly in women , a thinner barrier in facial skin, and a greater density of nerve endings The nasolabial fold was reported to be the most sensitive region of the facial area, followed by the malar eminence, chin, forehead, and upper lip 15 , Saint-Martory found hand, scalp, feet, neck, torso, and back sensitivity followed facial sensitivity in descending order of prevalence Significant numbers of individuals experience sensitivity of the scalp 42 , In a study of 1, men and women, Significantly more African-Americans than Caucasians Rough fabrics were found to be the most common offender for sensitive skin in the genital area Earlier, mention was made of the variation in resulting prevalence estimates from the different studies presented in Table 2.
Such variation can also be observed in the data summarized in Table 3. There are a number of explanations for the differences in the findings of various studies with regard to the prevalence of sensitive skin. First, no standard survey instrument was used.
Rather, each investigator used a survey instrument tailored to his or her specific interests. Therefore, there is a great deal of variability in the wording of questions regarding self-perceived sensitive skin. Another reason why the prevalence of sensitive skin may vary is related to the year in which the study was conducted. There is evidence that reported prevalence of self-perceived skin sensitivity have increased steadily over time Therefore, earlier studies may record a lower prevalence.
Studies where skin sensitivity prevalence has been reported separately for men and women are fairly consistent in showing that a higher percentage of women perceive they have sensitive skin Table 2. The gap between men and women may be closing.
As skin care and personal grooming products specifically for men become more common, male consumers will likely focus more on skin condition. In a worldwide survey of dermatologists, most practitioners indicated they agreed or strongly agreed that they have noticed an increase in male patients reporting sensitive facial skin over the past 5 years As people age, certain marked changes occur in the structure and function of skin.
Skin becomes thinner and drier, with a loss of subcutaneous fat Characteristic morphological changes occur in the cell types in the epidermis, and physiological changes in aged skin include changes in biochemistry, neurosensory perception, permeability, and vascularization It is reasonable to expect that skin would become more sensitive with age.
However, this has not been a consistent finding in surveys on sensitive skin. In a study reported on , we found that perceptions of sensitive skin in general and of the face and body were not dependent on age. The perception of sensitive genital skin was dependent on age for the women, but not for the men
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