Development of a novel in vitro strategy to understand the impact of shaving on skin health: combining tape strip exfoliation and human skin equivalent technology

Tape strip removal is a common dermatological technique, in this study we demonstrate a novel application of tape stripping, to mimic barrier damage and inflammation associated with a dry shave. We validate this method, comparing it to razor-based shaving in vitro and demonstrate the propensity of suitable shave- and skin-care formulations to mitigate damage. This provides a novel methodology to examine grooming associated damage and a platform for screening potential skin care formulations.

Well-characterised human skin equivalent technology was combined with a commonplace dermatological technique of tape stripping, to remove cellular material from the uppermost layer of the skin (stratum corneum). This method of exfoliation recapitulated aspects of razor-based shaving in vitro, offering a robust and standardised in vitro method to study inflammatory processes such as those invoked by grooming practices.

Tape strip insult induced inflammatory changes in the skin equivalent such as: increased epidermal proliferation, epidermal thickening, increased cytokine production and impaired barrier function. These changes paralleled effects seen with a single dry razor pass, correlated with the number of tape strips removed, and were attenuated by pre-application of shaving foam, or post-application of moisturisation.