The skin condition eczema is characterized by symptoms ranging from rashes and bumps to flaky or thickened skin patches. It is typically caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

People with eczema often have questions about how frequently they should take a bath or a shower, concerned it may worsen their inflamed skin. A recent study offers encouraging news. British researchers have found that how often people with eczema bathed did not make a difference in managing their symptoms.

One group bathed or showered once a week; the other bathed or at least six times a week.

The Eczema Bathing Study included almost 440 children and adults with eczema across the U.K. Participants were placed at random into two groups. One group bathed or showered once a week; the other bathed or at least six times a week.

Participants continued using their usual eczema treatments during the study and recorded their symptoms once a week for the four weeks of the study.

The results? Bathing more often made no difference in eczema symptoms. “The findings of our study are great news to people living with eczema,” Lucy Bradshaw, lead author on the study and a senior medical statistician at Nottingham Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Nottingham, said in a statement. The results mean that people with eczema are free to bathe as much as they like.

Many things in daily life can inflame eczema, Amanda Roberts, a co-chief investigator on the study who also has eczema, explained; so it's reassuring to know that how often one bathes or showers isn't one of them.

The results mean that people with eczema are free to bathe as much as they like.

People in the U.K. are encouraged to join the Rapid Eczema Trials, a citizen science project working with researchers on studies that answer questions about how best to manage eczema. The five-year project began in 2022 and is led by researchers at the University of Nottingham and Nottingham University Hospitals National Health Service Trust.

“Together, we are starting to answer questions about living with eczema that have not gotten much attention in research until now,” Bradshaw said.

The study on bathing is the first completed as part of the project. Next, is a look at how long patients should use the steroid creams prescribed to manage eczema flare-ups.

The study is published in the British Journal of Dermatology.