Around 40% of industrial workers will suffer a skin problem at some point in their working life, and over a third of all reported occupational skin disorder cases come from manufacturing alone. The average reported case of dermatitis costs an employer around £6,000 once treatment, cover and lost time are counted. None of that is inevitable.
What makes skin damage unusual among workplace risks is that the damage is usually done by the cleaning, not by the soil. Every wash removes some of the skin's natural oils. Wash with a cleaner stronger than the job needs, several times a day, and the skin never recovers between shifts — which is how a mild dryness becomes cracked, painful and finally a reported condition.
SC Johnson Professional's answer is a four-step system — protect, cleanse, sanitise, restore — built around the 3-Moments for Skin Care: protect before work, cleanse during it, restore after. We stock the full range. This page explains which product goes where, and which cleanser suits which soiling.
A protect cream applied before the shift reduces contact with contaminants and makes cleansing quicker and easier. It also helps retain the skin's natural lipids and moisture, improves comfort under gloves and grip on hand tools.
Wash with a cleaner matched to the soiling — the weakest one that will do the job — then re-apply protect cream if returning to work, or restore cream if stopping for a break. The strength of the cleaner matters more than the frequency of washing.
An alcohol-based sanitiser for the moments where water is not available. It does not replace washing; it keeps hands hygienic in between.
A conditioning cream applied at the end of the shift, and at breaks, puts back what washing removed. This is what stops damage accumulating across a working week.
The step most sites skip, and the one that changes how easily hands clean up later. A protect cream forms a light barrier before exposure, so contaminants sit on the skin rather than in it. It also holds in the skin's own lipids and moisture through the shift, which is what limits the drying that turns into cracking.
Stokoderm® Protect PURE (UPW1L) is the general-purpose starting point — universal, perfume-free and dye-free, for light to moderate exposure to water and oil-based substances. Move up by exposure: Stokoderm® Universal PURE for general workplace contamination, Stokoderm® Grip PURE where hands are wet or gloved and grip matters, and Stokoderm® Aqua PURE for water-based exposure in food production areas. For heavy oil-based soiling — solvents, metal-working oils, mechanical dirt — Travabon® Classic is the specialist choice.
Working outdoors, add Stokoderm® Sun Protect 50 PURE or Sun Protect 30 PURE. Both give broad-spectrum UVA, UVB and UVC protection, are water resistant, and come in the same 1L cartridge format as the rest of the range.
This is where most skin damage is actually done — not by the soil on the hands, but by a cleaner that is stronger than the job needs. An over-strength cleaner strips the natural oils the skin needs, and repeated stripping is what produces dermatitis. The rule is always to use the weakest cleaner that will do the job.
Light duty covers most general work: Estesol® FX™ (EFM1L) is an industrial foam for oil, grease and general grime, and there is a perfume-free Estesol® FX™ PURE (EPU1L) for sensitive skin. Estesol® Lotion and Estesol® PURE are the lighter, lotion-format options, and Estesol® Hair & Body covers showers and changing rooms.
For heavier work, Solopol® Lime handles medium-to-heavy soiling, and the heavy duty tier is Solopol® Classic, Solopol® GFX™ (GPF3LEURO) and Solopol® Classic EXTRA (SCU2LT) — all solvent-free, using natural scrubbing agents rather than aggressive solvents. Where soiling goes beyond oil and grease, into paints, inks, adhesives, sealants or bitumen, Kresto® Citrus and Kresto® Special are the specialist tier. And in food handling, OxyBAC® antimicrobial foam wash is HACCP certified and kills 99.999% of many common bacteria.
Sanitiser is not a substitute for washing — it is what keeps hands hygienic between washes, at a desk, on a loading bay, or before touching anything shared. It has to work without water and without leaving hands sticky.
InstantFOAM® Complete (DIS1000ML) is a broad-spectrum alcohol-based foam that kills 99.999% of common germs, and is proven bactericidal, virucidal, yeasticidal and mycobactericidal. It is perfume-free and dye-free, non-tainting to food, suitable for gloved hands, and proven to prevent skin dryness — which matters, because a sanitiser people avoid using is not protecting anyone.
The second most-skipped step, and the cheapest one to get right. A restore cream applied at the end of the shift puts back what washing took out, supporting the skin's own barrier overnight so the next shift does not start from a worse position. Without it, damage accumulates across a working week.
Stokolan® Light PURE (RES1L) is the everyday choice — mild, perfume-free and dye-free, designed for moderately dry skin and for hands that are washed frequently. For skin that is already sore, cracked or eczema-prone, Stokolan® Sensitive PURE (SSP1L) is enriched with higher levels of moisturisers and is hypoallergenic. Stokolan® Hand & Body covers larger areas such as forearms, and Swarfega® Restore does the same job in the workshop range.
For workers without a permanent washroom nearby, the Swarfega Van Cradle keeps essential hand care products together in one convenient, accessible location.
The compact system brings three key stages of professional hand care together: protect, cleanse and sanitise, providing convenient access to suitable Swarfega products from a work vehicle or other appropriate location.
The Swarfega Van Cradle is ideal for a wide range of working environments, including construction and building trades, automotive professionals, engineers and maintenance teams, service and fleet vehicles, mobile workshops, work cabins, industrial and manufacturing environments, and tradespeople working across multiple sites.
By keeping professional hand care products close at hand, businesses can give workers convenient access to the products they need throughout the working day.
Find the contaminant, then use the weakest cleaner that clears it. Stronger is not better — it is what causes the damage.
| What is on the hands | Use this | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| General dirt and grime, light oils | Estesol® FX™ · Estesol® Lotion | Light duty The default for general workshop and warehouse work. |
| Frequent washing, no heavy soiling | Estesol® PURE · Azure FOAM · Clear FOAM | Light duty Gentle enough for repeated use through a shift. Azure and Clear FOAM are the PURE washroom options. |
| Food handling and bacteria control | OxyBAC® Foam Wash · OxyBAC® Extra | Antimicrobial HACCP certified; kills 99.999% of many common bacteria. |
| Medium to heavy oil and grease | Solopol® Lime | Medium-heavy Solvent-free, with a lime fragrance. |
| Ingrained oil, grease, carbon black, lubricants | Solopol® Classic · Solopol® GFX™ | Heavy duty Solvent-free paste or gritty power foam, both using natural scrubbing agents. |
| Extremely heavy, deeply ingrained soiling | Solopol® Classic EXTRA | Extra heavy The strongest solvent-free option before moving to the specialist tier. |
| Solvents, metal-working oils, mechanical soiling | Travabon® Classic (protect) + Kresto® Special | Specialist Protect first — the cream does much of the work before the cleanser is needed. |
| Paints, inks, adhesives, sealants, bitumen | Kresto® Citrus · Swarfega® Extreme | Specialist For contaminants ordinary hand cleaners will not shift. |
| No water available on site | Kresto® Specialist Wipes · Kresto® Universal Wipes | Wipes Tough, extra-large wipes for use without water. |
Every product named here is stocked by DEB Disposables. If you are unsure which tier your soiling needs, send us a photograph of the hands at their dirtiest and we will match it.
Anyone working outdoors — on site, at a yard, on a delivery round — is exposed to UV for far longer than a holidaymaker, and usually without noticing. Stokoderm® Sun Protect 50 PURE and Sun Protect 30 PURE give broad-spectrum UVA, UVB and UVC protection in a water-resistant, perfume-free formula, supplied as a 100ml tube for personal use or a 1L cartridge for a dispenser, so it can sit alongside the protect and restore creams rather than being an afterthought.
Yes, and this is the single most common gap in a workplace skin care plan. Hand washing alone does not maintain skin condition, because every wash removes some of the skin's natural lipids. The 3-Moments for Skin Care standard, developed by a coalition of occupational skin health experts and published in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, sets out three moments: protect before work, cleanse during work, and restore after work. Sites that adopt all three see better skin condition than those relying on cleaning alone.
They cover different soilings rather than different strengths. Solopol® is the solvent-free heavy duty family, using natural scrubbing agents to lift oil, grease, carbon black and lubricants without aggressive solvents — Solopol® Classic, Solopol® GFX™ and Solopol® Classic EXTRA. Kresto® is the specialist tier for contaminants that are not simply oil and grease: solvents, metal-working oils, paints, inks, adhesives, sealants and bitumen. If a Solopol cleaner leaves hands still soiled, the soiling is specialist and Kresto is the answer.
For a busy site, usually yes. Foam cleaners are dosed as a measured shot of lather rather than a pumped blob of lotion, so less product and less water are used per wash — SC Johnson Professional puts the foam cleaners at around twice the efficiency per cartridge of an equivalent lotion. Foam also spreads into the webs of the fingers more readily, which is where industrial soiling actually sits. Lotion formats still suit lighter and gentler use, and the Estesol® Lotion and PURE ranges remain the right choice where soiling is minimal.
PURE marks the perfume-free and dye-free version of a product, formulated for people with sensitive or allergy-prone skin. Several are additionally skin hypoallergenic and tested against ECARF criteria — the European Centre for Allergy Research Foundation standard for skin tolerability. If a site has anyone with existing dermatitis, eczema or a known fragrance sensitivity, specifying PURE across the four steps is the sensible default.
Several are. HACCP International certification covers products suitable for food facilities operating a HACCP-based food safety programme — OxyBAC® antimicrobial foam wash and Solopol® Classic EXTRA both carry it. The certifications are listed on each product page and on the SC Johnson Professional guide, so check the individual product before specifying it in a food-handling area.
SC Johnson Professional dispensers are guaranteed for life against normal wear and tear, and the push buttons carry BioCote® silver-ion technology, which inhibits bacteria, mould and fungi on the surface. That matters more than it sounds: a dispenser that is treated as disposable gets skimped on, and a site that skimps on dispensers ends up skimping on the product inside them.
Tell us what your teams handle — the oils, greases, solvents, paints or food — and how many people wash their hands each shift. We will put together the required steps for your site with trade pricing on the cartridges and the dispensers to go with them.
