The experiment begins with taking pictures of participants initial conditions of their palms. Afterwords synthetic carpet soil diluted with water to form paste (5g/20ml) and a quater size is placed in the palm of one hand. The participant rubs their palms together for 20 seconds covering their entire palm and fingers and then the participants rinse their hands for 20 seconds with 2 squirts of soap. Afterwards, the participants blot their hands dry for 20 seconds and then air dry for each time after recording their answers for cleanliness, rinsing, and skin conditions. Skin conditions are recorded at 1 minute, 5 minutes, 20 minutes, and 60 minutes after rinsing and drying hands.
Soap A: Consumer Product Partners A74AE Luxury Hand Washing Liquid Soap
Soap B: Mrs. Meyers Clean Dry
Cleanliness Ratings:
- 1 - No signs of soil
- 2- Only in fine lines
- 3- intermittent spots and fine lines
- 4- multiple spots
- 5- continually covered
Rinsing Ratings:
- 1 - easily rinsing, no residue
- 2 - easily rinsing, some residue
- 3 - hard rinsing - no residue
- 4 - hard rinsing - some residue
- 5 - hard rinsing, lots of residue
Observed skin condition at 1, 5, 20, and 60 minutes:
- 1 - smooth and dry
- 2 - some dryness
- 3 - Dry hands, turning white
- 4 - skin stiffening
- 5 - very dry, cracking of skin
The average clean rating among all 6 participants for product A was 3.4 and for product B 3.2. The average rinse rating among all 6 participants was 1.8 for both products. For each rating of time the average rating of skin condition was between 1 and 1.5. Photographs of each subject’s hands before soil, after soiling and after cleaning were taken to document cleaning results.
In summary, product A was comparable in overall performance to the comparative product B.