Dermatologists are medical professionals who specialise in treating skin, hair and nails. Many rightly hold their opinions in high regard when it comes to state of the skin and treatments for it. This spills into skincare products with many brands claiming that their products are ‘dermatologically tested’.

What does this mean? Those 2 words mean exactly that – the products have been tested by a dermatologist. Just as no government or association has a trademark over the word ‘organic’ or ‘natural’, there is also no restriction on how the term ‘dermatologically tested’ is used.

The product could be tested by one dermatologist or a few dermatologists. This is not clear from the label ‘dermatologically tested’. Medical degree qualifications from one country are not always recognised in another country. So while customers’ questions such as ‘who are the dermatologists who have tested this product?’ or ‘where have the dermatologists qualified from?’ are valid, there is often no information easily available on the dermatologists’ names or qualifications to be verified. Would the practitioners recognised as dermatologists in the country where the product was ‘tested’ be satisfactorily recognised as a dermatologists in the country where the product was sold?

There is also no information on how the product had been tested by the dermatologists. Was it the efficacy of the product that was tested? Did they check the safety of each ingredient? Did they check irritation on patients’ skin after using the product? What is actually involved in testing is not defined. Thus, how one company considers their product to be ‘dermatologically tested’ will very likely have been tested different to another company that claims the same of their product.

Was the product tested on one person? Was the product tested on 50 people? Again, with the lack of regulation over the ‘dermatologically tested’ term, it means there is no one standard answer. The product could have been tested on one person successfully, and there is still truth to the term ‘dermatologically tested’. Or, are the products actually tested on animals instead?

In short, there is no regulation over the term ‘dermatologically tested’. What is it about the term ‘dermatologically tested’ that gives you the assurance that the product is safe? If you’re looking for a product that is actually safe and does not contain toxic chemicals, it would be better to look for products that have been independently certified by a reputable organisation to be natural or even better, organic. Stay away from products bearing claims that cannot be verified. Instead, choose products that carry the logo from a reputable organic certification company. You would be better assured that the ingredients in the product have been found to be safe.

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