Understanding and Managing Contact Dermatitis (Recording)

This webinar was recorded on August 26, 2025

Enhance your patient education skills to reduce errors and improve outcomes in Contact Dermatitis care.

Contact dermatitis is a complex condition requiring precise identification of triggers and effective patient education to prevent flare-ups and improve quality of life. This session will equip patients with strategies to better support patients in managing their skin health.

Join allergist and pediatric expert Dr. Ama Alexis for a patient-friendly webinar on allergies and skin health. Learn practical, evidence-based tips to better understand your condition, improve communication with your care team.

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

• Learn how contact dermatitis is identified and what common triggers to watch for

• Get guidance on avoiding triggers and practicing healthy skin care habits

• Explore treatment options tailored to your needs to help manage symptoms

• Gain confidence in managing chronic skin conditions for yourself or your family

Speaker:

Ama Alexis, MD, FAAP, FACAAI

Dr. Ama Alexis is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics affiliated with NYU Langone Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medical College. She is double-boarded in Allergy/Immunology and Pediatrics and a Fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Alexis is passionate about educating and empowering individuals and families affected by atopic dermatitis and food allergies, advocating regionally and internationally.

This webinar does not offer CE credits or a gift card.

Transcript: While this transcript is believed to be accurate, errors sometimes occur. It remains your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of the information in this transcript. This transcript is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice.

Bethany: Hello, everyone. I’ll give everyone just a moment to get logged in. Thank you so much for being here . I will go ahead and get started. Think you for being here today, and hello, everyone. I’m Bethany Burkhardt, I’m Director of operations and I’m excited to welcome you to this afternoon’s webinar. We’’ve got a great session plan for you today. I’d like to mention a few housekeeping rules before we dive into today’s program. All participants are muted to minimize background noise. Today session is being recorded and will be available on her website within a few days in case you’d like to review it or share it with your family and friends. This webinar will last up to an hour, including time for questions at the end. Feel free to submit your question in the Q&A box at any point. You will find it at the bottom of your screen. Someone from our team is monitoring the chat so if you need help or have issues, just let us know. We will do our best to answer any questions you may have. You will receive a few — a follow-up email a few days from now with additional resources and a link to download your certificate of attendance. Please note, while we are not offering continuing education credits or gift cards for this session, we will provide a certificate of attendance. With that, let’s jump in. Today’s resident tape — presentation is title, understanding and managing contact dermatitis. It’s a common skin condition affecting millions of Americans each year. It’s one of the most common skin condition seen in both primal — primary care and especially setting, yet it often remains undiagnosed or mismanaged. Contact dermatitis is commonly caused by reactions to certain products, materials, or environmental exposures. In this webinar you’ll learn what contact dermatitis is, what causes it, and how to prevent and manage flareups in your daily life. You’ll be guided through the process of identifying contact dermatitis, uncovering potential triggers, like everyday products or jewelry. Without further ado, I like to introduce Dr. Ama Alexis. She is a clinical professor of pediatrics affiliated with the in my you Legome Medical Center and will Cornell medical College. She is a double boarded allergy, immunology and pediatrics, and is a fellow at the American Academy of allergy, asthma, and immunology and at the American College of allergy, asthma, and immunology and the American Academy of pediatrics. Dr. Alexis is passionate about educating and empowering individuals and families at — affected by contact dermatitis. Thank you for being here today, Dr. Alexis. I will turn it over to you.

Dr. Alexis: Thank you for the kind introduction. I like to welcome you and thank you for joining us today, and again, the presentation is understanding and managing contact dermatitis. We will jump right in. These are my disclosures, and I don’t intend to discuss unlabeled or unproven uses of drugs or devices in this presentation today. So this will not affect the presentation today. The learning objectives today include expanding our jacks are reinforcing your knowledge, I will give an overview of irritant and allergic contact dermatitis, then we will jump into a few clinical cases of patients with contact dermatitis, we will highlight a few important allergens and we will talk about patch testing and how to manage and avoid allergens going forward. Let’s start with a few definitions and some statistics. Contact dermatitis is an inflammatory skin disease in the eczema family. In other words, it basically is a skin condition that occurs when your skin comes into contact with an allergen, especially if you are prone or have sensitive skin. In my mind we don’t talk about it often enough, especially since contact dermatitis is the fifth most common, more prevalent skin disease in the United States. It’s more common than acne, or atopic dermatitis. There are two types of darn — dermatitis, contact dermatitis and allergic contact dermatitis. How often do we see contact dermatitis? In about 20% of children, sometimes even higher, and 20% of adults. Let’s dive in a little bit more into irritants in allergic contact dermatitis. There almost two different sides of a coin. Most cases are due to irritant contact dermatitis, up to 80%. This triggered by external factors and it’s due to a nonspecific response of the skin to direct chemical damage. What does that mean? Any bus can develop irritant contact dermatitis under the right circumstances. For example, if we all start washing her hands about 20 times a day, we all develop irritant contact dermatitis. Or if you think of diaper rash, that is due to irritation and an allergen in the diaper. So what about allergic contact dermatitis? About 20% of patients have it. It’s also triggered by an external factor. But this is different, let’s think about poison I’ll be. The first time you touch toys and that’s poison ivy, nothing may happen, but your body becomes desensitized to it. Henri exposure, you then develop a rash, and it may take hours or days to appear because the cells that cause allergic contact dermatitis are really slow, it takes time for those T cells to get to where they need to go. A great example of allergic contact dermatitis is either poison I’ll be or a nickel allergy. Let’s zoom in a little bit in terms of irritant contact dermatitis. It can be heterogenous, we can see redness or discoloration, we can see swelling, scaling, and if it goes on for a long, can see Fisher’s — fissures. This is a nonspecific trigger, a nonallergic response column yes, so under the right circumstances we can all develop in — irritant contact Irma Titus. It can be acute. Lesions of irritant contact dermatitis he’ll really quickly if you remove the triggering agent, so we call that decrescendo. Common triggers are soaps, detergents, plain water, acids, adhesives, solvents, oils, disinfectants, kerosene, just to name a few. You have now developed this rash, it’s not going away, so you can either see a dermatologist or an allergist, and there are few things that we like to do. We always start with taking a good history and a good physical examination. These are questions the doctor may ask you when you present. We always start with the onset of symptoms, how long has this been going on, has it been a week or has it been several years? We want to know about the claimant — about the chronicity , and then how did you develop the rash, how often does it come and go? A big airline company a few years ago updated their uniforms and all of a sudden half of the workforce developed a rash, possibly due to irritant garment — contact dermatitis. In that case is important for you to let us know you got the uniform at work they about wet work, cleaners, people who work construction, can be nurses, hairdressers, where their hands are constantly wet with their work.

Again, hairdressers and nurses often have increased numbers of irritant or contact dermatitis. Then we want to know about other exposures, have used a new cream, lotion, maybe a facial mask, have you changed detergents, do you get your nails done all the time? What about topical medication? Have you moved into a new environment or had other major life changes? We ought to ask about hobbies, have you started playing a new sport or a new instrument? You can develop a rash to what you are now exposed to. We also would like to know if you’re treating the rash, is anything helping, and often what I hears that patients it better when they treat the rash, but then it comes back because they keep exposing themselves to that allergen. On exam we can see redness, discoloration, scaling, patients often describes not just in its but burning. We can see swelling and sometimes listers. And the location of the rash, the area around the eyes, the skin is quite sensitive so we often see eyelid Irma Titus. We can see reactions on the lips, the neck, there’s a difference whether you have a rash in the under arm or the rash is around the under arm. We can see rash on the trunk, on the hands and feet as well. Let’s walk through a few cases. Let’s start with this young lady, she is seven years old and she just started first grade. The teacher on the first day just kind of says how important it is for the kids to wash their hands on a regular basis and she’s like, challenge accepted, and she wants her hands a few times a day and she uses the SOAP at school. After a few weeks, mom brings in the child and her hands are really dry and read, you can take a look at the picture. You can see the redness on the knuckles, the hand is really, really dry, and she says the hands burn and they are itchy. So what do you guys think is going on? It’s irritant contact dermatitis from frequent handwashing with the harsh soap. So you say, you’ve done great, the teacher will let you know when to wash her hands but use a different soap and a mild moisturizer afterwards and the rash resolved without medical intervention. This is the case of a young woman, to — 23 years old and she has a history of sensitive skin since early childhood. She presents with a rash that’s been going on for a few weeks. It will last a few days and comes and goes. It’s redness and burning, mostly on her face, her eyelids are involved and her neck. Again, the rash gets better and then he comes back. She’s having a hard time trying to understand what is triggering this rash.

On exam her eyelids are really swollen and red and we can see some scaling and redness on her forehead, eyelids, and neck. On further exam we also see a rash around her nail beds. You can see redness and scaling right around her nail beds. So we just guide — decide together we will talk about patch testing. My colleague published a helpful article where it kind of shows you where the rash is and what could be the trigger. It’s really helpful, so on her patient, we see accommodation of eyelids, her neck and face. Can see this due to ectopic turn next dermatitis, meaning the triggers probably here but the rash is somewhere else. Ectopic dermatitis from now polish and acrylic nail dermatitis. We see that often, actually. Sort turns out, once we changed her nail care regimen, the rash all over was resolved. A young man, 22 years Oklahoma had a history of eczema as a child. He has had a life change, we talked about life changes being a trigger. His rash started eight weeks ago when he moved in with a roommate in college. So he presents with his in partes — hint tire face has turned red, happens almost daily and his face is red and scaly. We patch tested him as well and you can see the three things highlighted in red are actually fragrances. Balsam of Peru, Hydro peroxides of limiting and fragrance makes number one. He loves to break — his roommate loves to spray cologne in his shared bathroom. When he walks in the bathroom every day he’s exposed to fragrance on his face. A helpful chart, you can get a full face rash which we see with our patients with airborne contact tents, facial cleansers and makeup foundation. The next case is a middle-age man who has no past medical history, nothing significant and he has a rash that started about four weeks ago. He said it is uncomfortable and he is itchy all the time but it’s also a burning sensation. He’s not taking any new medications we see immediately these red patches all over his trunk. So we patch test him, and it turns out he test positive to fragrance mix number two. This is an interesting one because it turns out it comes back to his detergents. You can either get allergic contact dermatitis, so it was a fragrance that caused the reaction, or you can get an irritant contact Irma Titus. That’s is due to an irritant in the detergent, not necessarily an allergy. So the plan was to change detergents and add an extra rinse cycle, and again, the rash was resolved. This is case of young woman, 31 years old. She has type two insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and she has a red circular patch on her arm. This is the reason why. Continuous glucose enters in insulin pumps are amazing and really improve the life — quality of life of our patients with diabetes, but it turns out almost 18 chemicals including tin acrylate’s have been reported to cause allergic contact dermatitis. The next case is a young woman, she presents with a rash, and itchy rash on her neck. Always on one side. The rash comes and goes, and burns and is uncomfortable and doesn’t look very nice. She does have a history of sensitive skin. We chat and we talk and we discuss what could be the cause of this rash, and we couldn’t figure it out, so again we decide to patch test. She let me take a picture, so it’s one of her bags that is causing the rash. On the patch test she tested positive to potassium Akron made which we can see in tanning leathers and a green pigment for textiles, and there it is. It really wasn’t obvious before, especially because contact dermatitis doesn’t happen right away, it happens after a day or two or three.

Let’s say she wears a back on Friday, she’s going to be fine, maybe on Saturday, but on Sunday she develops the rash. Those aren’t always easy to put together. Another few examples, if you use have upper eyelid involvement it may just be due to an irritant. If he have added plus facial involvement it could be due to a facial cleanser. If you have eyelid plus scalp or facial involvement it could be due to a hair product you’re using such as lotion, spray, gel, or a moose. If it’s the upper and lower eyelids that extend beyond the orbit, it could be due to shampoos and or conditioners. I keep talking about patch testing. Let’s take a closer look at the patch test itself. The way we figure out exactly what you are allergic to is to patch test. The way we do that is we place these patches on your back and have to stay on your back for two days. What we offer news put them on on a Monday, we take them off on Wednesday and then we document any reactions, and then we read the test again on Friday and in some cases we do one more time seven days after placement. Here’s an example from two of these patch test. On one side we see the true test which test for 35 allergens and its approve for patient six years and older. In the middle we see the North American standard series that test for 80 allergens. So it casts the net a little bit wider. We are looking for T cells can capture specific T cells, another question is about the brick test. We precure skin and wait 15 minutes for a response. We can do that with foods, environmental allergens like dust mites, cat, dog, pollen, and mold for example. Again, this is a completely different test call the patch test. We had this amazing article, what do we need to patch test for? It turns out in only 30%-50% can we really understand what is causing it, there are different patch test, we just looked at two that test for 35 allergens and the American contact dermatitis society or Elgin series that test for 80. We had the North American series, this what we do in office that test for 70 have an 80% but there are others as well. We have specialized series where we can just test for mental or dental allergens, there’s a hairdresser and fragrance series. If we can capture what’s positive on the North American, there are some specialized tears that we can delve into it a little bit more. So what are we looking for? 3000 allergens have root been reported to cause allergic contact dermatitis, but it usually a few dozen the cause most of the reactions. One — those are the most common allergens, metals, fragrances, preservatives, they are great ensuring our personal products on become moldy, then we can see textile dyes, rubber chemicals, topical medications, sunscreens and acrylate’s. I love pull questions and we have one. What is most common primary side of contact dermatitis? I’m going to move that ride back to the middle and give you little time to respond. If you think about when we go through our day, what do we use a lot? Where do we come in contact with allergens throughout the day?

I will let you guys decide what you think would be best. We will give it another few seconds so you can make up your minds. It’s the hands, the feet, the face or back. Have 04 feet so far. We got one for face, four feet. OK. The winner is Hans. Let’s see whether that is true. Let me close that window here. Hands number one, phase number two. Let’s take a look here, there we go. Here is the answer. There he go, very good. We have hands here. The North American contact dermatitis group is the largest group in the U.S. that actually publishes patch test results, and they just published this article just a few weeks back where they look at patch test results from 2021-2022. They looked at about 3000 patients, about three quarters white, through quarters were female, the average age was 45 years, and those common primary site are the hands, that’s correct, followed by the face and then followed by having a generalized scattered pattern. Hold on, there we go. They also published what patients reacted to. This is the top 10. This is for the year 2021-2022. We have three big categories, number one is metals. Nickel Hosey number one spot for a very long time. We have metal, cobalt and gold. We have three fragrances, hydroxy peroxidase, fragrance makes number one, and we have three preservatives. They have long name so we love to use abbreviations. So it’s MCI, MCI am I, three preservatives. My colleague from Boston sees a lot of pediatric patients and published his results in regards to the pediatric data that we see here highlighted in the middle. The picture here we see of a young lady who responded with a rash in her armpit when she started using deodorant. The pediatric population, nickel again is number one. We see fragrance, cobalt, Balsam of Peru, neomycin and Baxa trace and are popular antibiotics. Formaldehyde is another preservative and gold is eight metal. It’s kind of similar but we see with different exposures we may get different numbers of one — what patients respond to. This helpful article was published as well, he looked at patch testing of patients and skin color. We do see different allergens in different populations and we do believe that’s due to different exposures. He also made it, that we do have some of the data in regard to African-American patients, Hispanic and Asian patients that are not as frequently patch tested. In African-American patients, PPD is found in black hair dye. That’s number one. The number one Elgin, Balsam of Peru, which is a fragrance, Axa trace and, fragrance mix and nickel, and in Hispanic patients we see rubber accelerators, nickel, formaldehyde resin, PPD and neomycin, and in Asian patients, nickel is up there, fragrance and back roommates.

Let’s highlight a few allergens. We said nickel is worldwide number one the leading contact allergen in most industrialized countries worldwide. Nickel is a durable come in expensive metal that is present in many silvery objects and is encountered re-every single day. I always ask can you — have you ever had issues with earrings, some say unless it’s 100% gold I can’t tolerate it. We see issues with rings, necklaces clasps, genes button, eyelash curlers, tweezers and metal instruments. This is a great resource I like to share with my patients. This is nickel alert kits. The way it works, you can buy this little fluid, you put in a Q-tip and rub it on anything that is silvery or shiny because silvery things don’t come with a tag. If it turns pink releases enough nickel for it to cause a reaction. So we have nickel alert kits and we also have the reveal and conceal, it works in a similar way. You rub the little nickel reveal marker and if it turns pink, it contains nickel. They also have a container where you can cover your nickel and you’re probably able to tolerate whatever you’re using so that’s kind of nice to have as well. Fragrances, fragrance art natural or synthetic substances used to impart an aroma to a product, usually a nice one. Perfumes are mixtures of fragrance substances which on evacuation release a pleasant scent. We have fragrance makes number one, number two, we have Balsam of Peru and then the new kids on the block are Hydro peroxides of Linda Lulu and limiting. They can be found in personal care and hear products, soaps, creams, deodorants, shaving cream, sunscreens, baby wipes, scented candles, and if you walking to some hotels and apartment building, the now circulate fragrance through ventilation systems, so when you walk into a place that smells great, very pleasant, which is great, unless you have contact dermatitis, then it’s not great because patients can definitely react to that exposure as well. Acrylate’s are polymers and they’re used in all kinds of blues. And we use loop pretty much all the — pretty much all the time, one of them is superglue, one of them is HEMA which is used in nail polish. You have a nine fold increase of an allergen risk if your hairdresser or beautician. So much so that 2-HEMA has been restricted only to be used by professionals in Europe.

The first five exposures are all in nail related. Artificial nails and long-lasting nail lacquers, shellac gel, and can also be found in industrial glues, dental fillings and in he sibs, orthopedic cement, artificial eye lens implants and soft contact lenses. So can be found in different spaces. Neomycin is a topical antibiotic, it’s often in the top 20 in patch tests, and you can buy it over-the-counter in a triple on, neomycin, in three antibiotics. Often patients who are responsive to neomycin also react to Axa trace and — bacitracin. Wound care ointments, scar treatment, ulcer preparation, medicated powders, dental root canal fillings, and this is important. Interestingly enough, also in pet food and veterinary animal feed as well. You’ve gone to the doctor, you’ve been patch tested, he went through this whole week with these on your back, we figured out what you are allergic to, so now what? You want to avoid the allergens. There are fantastic resources to help you do that. This is from the American contact dermatitis society. They have a fantastic database called CAMP for short. They have really — overhauled it and it is really user-friendly now, called CAMP 2.0. They have these fantastic hand out talk about what you are allergic to, what are different names for that allergen and where you can find it, and then you can plug in whatever you tested positive to to the database and will push out this fantastic list of safe products that are safe for you to use and you can email that to the patients. There’s also an app, so once you have your codes of the things you’ve tested positive to come you can use that app when you go to the store and make sure you only buy products that don’t contain products you test positive two. Another great resource is called skin safe, it is a great database that lists their products in terms of what products you are alleging — allergic to. You can search by diet, it’s really helpful. They SUV free access and they have premium benefits as well. So you don’t have to be a member to join this, it is a great and helpful resource. This is another great article by a colleague of mine, I did spend all this time about how important it is to patch test, but it turns out you have to take three days off to be patch tested and you may live really far away from your allergist or dermatologist, or it may take you a long time to get into be patch tested and there are a few things you can do while you’re waiting to be patch tested. We talked about the on its being there sensitive, so if you have eyelid dermatitis, it could be due to metal, nickel or gold. Fragrances, accolades which areglues, Balsam of Peru, you can consider a trial of fragrance or avoid rings, earrings, and make sure you use eyedrops without preservatives. What about Lib dermatitis — lip dermatitis, think of fragrances, or even just sunscreen. That can be an allergen as well. What can you do? You can switch to plain Vaseline lip balm, use flavor and fragrance free cosmetics and oral care products, and what about your hands?

The most common site, the most commonly implicated allergens are fragrances, surfactants, rubber accelerants and nickel. By fragrance free soaps and hand sanitizers and if you have to use gloves, switch to vinyl gloves. Therapy is fairly easy, it’s a treatment for contact dermatitis , you really want to understand what the trigger is of your contact dermatitis, and I thought this is really interesting come the rash may take 6-8 weeks to resolve if you start taking away the allergen, so it doesn’t just resolve overnight. At the heart of contact dermatitis is avoidance of triggers if you can. Other things you can do is protect the skin barrier, use short lukewarm showers, use fragrance free moisturizing creams or ointments. If there’s a lot of inflammation we sometimes treat with topical therapy like a tropical’s — topical steroid or if there is widespread inflammation we can use oral steroids to treat, so it’s systemic therapy. Let’s take a look. Another poll question, what percent of the population suffers from contact dermatitis? I think I mentioned that at the beginning. Let’s see whether you guys paid attention. Options are up to 40%, up to 30%, up to 20%, and up to 5%. This was at the very beginning, you may have missed it, but I had this little figurine with a mom and a child or an adult and a child at the beginning and I mentioned how many people developed contact dermatitis. We will give it a few more minutes to see comment to Nick between 40%, up to 20%. It’s interesting because we asking that up to, I gave just a number, but we will see what we get there. It is evenly split, I think. I said 20%. So there is something to think about, about 20% of patients. In kids it’s higher but in adults it’s about 20% of patients of the general population. OK, awesome. Great. In summary, contact dermatitis is a common chronic skin disease that affects up to 20% of the population. Allergic contact dermatitis prevalence is similar across all patient populations, old and young. The location of the rash and exposure history can give us important clues which are absolutely helpful, but the patch test which goes on your back and stays on your back for two days really is the gold standard in treating allergic contact dermatitis. I like to thank you very much for taking the time, and I think we have time for a Q and a session.

Bethany: Thank you so much, Dr. Alexis, for that insightful presentation on managing and understanding contact dermatitis. Let’s dive into a few questions. If you have any questions, please put them in the Q&A box and we can try to get to those. The first question is, do allergies to red and yellow dies because dermatitis?

Dr. Alexis: Red and yellow dies specifically are not on the patch test. But dispersed blue and orange are common, so dies can cause contact dermatitis, specifically yellow and red. The best way to figure it out would be again to patch test. But dyes can cause contact dermatitis for sure.

Bethany: Thank you. And can food allergies trigger dermatitis or is it only for skin contact?

Dr. Alexis: I have a few patients who may peel shellfish or shrimp they developed contact dermatitis to the shell but they can eat the food without an issue. Also I mention balsam of Peru which is a fragrance which can be found in some foods including catch-up or sodas like Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Some foods when taken internally can cause contact dermatitis. Another interesting one is nickel. Most patients who have a nickel allergy actually have to touch the metal to have a reaction but a few patients are really sensitive and if they eat foods that are rich in nickel they can develop what’s called decide grosses where they get clear — which is called dyshidrosis. A few foods can cause contact dermatitis. Shellfish is interesting in that you can get an ash — get a rash you know if you not truly allergic. And in babies I see it all the time, especially those who have eczema. There sometimes a question of do you feed the food, it’s a messy meal and there’s a rash where of the food touches the skin. I don’t want you to stop giving the food because the child is not truly allergic. Another great question, so thank you for that. So yes, we do see contact dermatitis to foods.

Bethany: We have a new question, with women’s underwire bras, have you ever seen that as a trigger for contact dermatitis?

Dr. Alexis: Yes, I have, and sometimes it’s tricky because the underwear is symmetric and the rash isn’t always symmetric. It can either be the material or it can be the material itself like the rubber within the material that can cause contact dermatitis, so that is a yes. See your frilly neighborhood allergist or dermatologist, absolutely.

Bethany: Are there safer alternatives to steroid creams or long-term management that you seen or anything like that?

Dr. Alexis: The goalies really to identify the trigger and get rid of the trigger. Because the rash will only occur if you get into contact with that allergen. Once you can identify the trigger and avoid the trigger the rash will go away and stay away. That’s really the goal, especially with patch testing. This is where it gets tricky, there are other non-FDA approved therapies to treat dermatitis in general, absolutely, and we have a lot of options in terms of steroidal and nonsteroidal options. But in terms of FDA approved, it really is avoidance of the allergen. But to your question, we have lots of creams that treat dermatitis, yes.

Bethany: This one is just an advocacy question. How can a patient advocate for themselves if a rash keeps coming back or at the allergist office?

Dr. Alexis: Advocating for yourself is fantastic. Coming in with a good history is always helpful. If you can explain to your provider how long the rash has been going on but it keeps coming back, where on your body you get it, and it you have not seen specialist, get a referral or see a specialist. As allergist, we see this all the time, and it’s always funny how patients are like, have you ever seen this? If you’re having a hard time with your local provider, see if you can see a specialist who can help you. Speaking up and just explaining that this has been going on for a long time are not even a long time, trying to understand why you get the rash is helpful, which is interesting. Which is definitely there for contact Irma Titus. For atopic dermatitis, it’s a whole different ballgame. It always depends on what kind of rash you have.

Bethany: Thank you. One last question, you mentioned lip dermatitis. Are there any Vaseline allergies?

Dr. Alexis: I haven’t seen one yet in 16 years. Aquaphor is interesting because it contains lanolin and I’ve definitely seen reactions to lanolin. Cera-ve healing ointment does not contain lanolin so that would be an alternative to Vaseline. It can be occlusive and sticky in the summer especially when patients are sweating a lot, but in terms of lips, as allergist were always very cautious on what we put on our lips. Lip balm’s losses and things that smell nice can all cause contact dermatitis.

Bethany: Thank you so much for that. We really enjoyed your talk today and we hope you enjoy this insightful webinar. You will receive an email shortly, a certificate of attendance, some information on today’s webinar along with some resources, and an evaluation. So think you for today’s presentation. I think maybe Linda would like to say something.

Lynda: Thanks for this really good presentation. I had a little kid with food allergies for all those years and I was reading labels religiously. And here I’m reading labels again because I found out I’m allergic to propylene glycol and it send all kind — it is in all kind of cosmetics. So before I bite mascara my think it was eyebrow something, there are hair products in it, it’s crazy. But it’s just one of those things were label reading is keeping me from having it again.

Dr. Alexis: Isn’t it so powerful to know what you are allergic to? It takes the guessing out of it. If you use products without propylene glycol, which is a preservative, you should be fine.

Lynda: Yes, that’s what I do now. It’s a little crazy gig –, but here I am reading labels again.

Dr. Alexis: It’s powerful to know what you’re allergic to so you can avoid it.

Lynda: Well thank you for this wonderful presentation.

Dr. Alexis: Thank you everybody for joining, have a great day.