A once-daily pill beat placebo in two phase 3 vitiligo trials
In STOP-V1 and STOP-V2, oral povorcitinib roughly tripled the share of adults reaching 75% facial repigmentation at a year — but even on the drug, fewer than one in five got there.
FDA clears remibrutinib for symptomatic dermographism, a second hives use
Rhapsido becomes the first drug labelled for the itchy welts raised by scratching or pressure. In the RemIND trial, 29.3% on the pill cleared the provocation test at week 12 versus 14.0% on placebo.
A sham-controlled trial tested ear acupressure for rosacea — and reported a real signal
In 204 patients already on standard therapy, pressing a seed on one ear point three times daily left 56.9% clear or almost clear at 8 weeks versus 35.3% with a sham point — a single-centre result needing replication.
A patch that makes vitamin D in skin worked in mice — but not in people
The UV-free TransVitD patch raised vitamin D in animals and lab-grown skin. In a randomised trial of 108 volunteers it was safe but did not lift blood levels beyond what a small oral dose would.
An IL-1 blocker helped hard-to-treat hidradenitis — but its lowest dose lost to placebo
In a phase 2 trial in people whose hidradenitis suppurativa had already failed anti-TNF drugs, two lutikizumab doses beat placebo at 16 weeks. A third did not, and the placebo response was high.
A JAK-inhibitor cream cleared skin in lichen planus, in a small early trial
Ruxolitinib cream beat a placebo cream for cutaneous lichen planus over 16 weeks, but the phase 2 trial randomised only 64 patients and was funded by the drug's maker.
Do hyaluronic acid serums work? They hold water at the surface, and the size matters
Short trials show topical hyaluronic acid improves skin hydration and, in low-molecular-weight forms, wrinkle depth. It is a humectant on the surface, not a replacement for the acid skin loses with age.
Why do I bruise easily? Usually fragile skin and blood thinners, not a blood disorder
For most adults who bruise more than they used to, the cause is thinner skin from ageing, sun or steroids, plus the aspirin and anticoagulants many older people take. A few patterns point elsewhere.
What do your nails say about your health? A few signs matter; ridges rarely do
Nail changes can hint at systemic disease — clubbing, spoon-shaped nails, splinter haemorrhages. But the everyday worries, like lengthwise ridges and little white marks, are usually harmless.
What actually treats toenail fungus? Oral pills clear it best; creams work slowly
Two Cochrane reviews put numbers on it: oral terbinafine and azoles cure far more toenail infections than placebo, while newer topical solutions work but cure a minority — over nearly a year of daily use.
Seborrhoeic dermatitis: antifungals and short steroid courses are what the trials back
The flaky, red patches on scalp, brows and nose folds are an inflammatory reaction, not poor hygiene. Ketoconazole cream cut treatment failure 31% against placebo, and short steroid courses tripled clearance.
Melasma is driven by sun and hormones on ageing skin — and no cream fully clears it
The brown facial patches come from overactive pigment cells in sun-aged skin. Triple-combination cream beats hydroquinone alone (risk ratio 1.58) and tranexamic acid helps, but relapse is the rule.
'Chicken skin' is harmless and stubborn: what actually smooths keratosis pilaris
The bumps are plugged hair follicles, not dirt or a deficiency. Keratolytics help modestly and temporarily: lactic acid cut lesions 66% and salicylic acid 52% over 12 weeks, but they return when you stop.
Hives that keep coming back are usually not an allergy — they are your own immune system
Chronic hives are mast-cell driven and usually have no external trigger. Antihistamines clear some cases; at 12 weeks omalizumab cut a weekly itch score by 9.8 points at 300 mg, against 5.1 on placebo.
Do vitamin C serums work? Split-face trials show smoothing, but the evidence is thin
Topical vitamin C is a real antioxidant that helps skin build collagen. Split-face studies show measurable smoothing, but a systematic review found only seven usable trials, almost all mixing it with other actives.
Do ice facials do anything? Cold reddens and dries skin more than it firms it
Rubbing ice on your face constricts vessels for a moment, but a controlled cold study found lower skin hydration and more redness, not firmer skin — and prolonged cold makes vessels reopen.
Do hair-growth vitamins and gummies work? Mostly on people who are deficient
A JAMA Dermatology review found the best-evidenced products — Viviscal, Nutrafol and a few others — but flagged weak studies and industry funding. For people who eat normally, the case is thin.
Impetigo in children: what clears it, and why guidelines now start with antiseptic
Topical antibiotics beat placebo in pooled trials, but UK guidance now recommends hydrogen peroxide cream first for mild cases — a deliberate move to spare antibiotics.
Do sheet masks do anything? A short-term hydration bump, on thin, industry-run evidence
The trials behind facial masks are small, brief and mostly run by the products' makers. They can show a real hydration and comfort effect — but not the lasting anti-ageing results on the packaging.
Does niacinamide do anything for skin? For blotchy pigment, the trials say a modest yes
A split-face melasma trial put niacinamide within reach of prescription hydroquinone with fewer side effects. But much of the anti-ageing evidence comes from the ingredient's own manufacturers.
Does retinol work? On skin that had never been treated, a 24-week trial says yes
Topical retinol is the over-the-counter cousin of prescription tretinoin. In the cleanest test of the pure ingredient, three-times-a-week retinol beat its own vehicle on fine wrinkles and built new collagen — slowly.
Are 'natural' or 'clean' beauty products safer? Not by default
'Natural', 'clean' and 'organic' have no agreed regulatory meaning on a cosmetic label, and some plant-derived and fragrance ingredients are among the most common triggers of allergic skin reactions.
Head lice: what actually clears them, and why old treatments fail
Insecticide shampoos increasingly meet resistant lice. Trials favour physical treatments — a silicone lotion and methodical wet combing — that lice cannot evolve around.
Do silk pillowcases help your skin or hair? The best silk trial found no added benefit
The beauty claims for silk pillowcases — fewer wrinkles, less acne, smoother hair — have no direct trials behind them. The most rigorous test of silk fabric on skin, in eczema, found it added nothing.
How long does minoxidil take to work — and for how long must you keep using it?
The trials that licensed minoxidil ran for 24 to 48 weeks, and a five-year follow-up shows why the honest answer to 'when can I stop' is: you probably can't without losing the gain.
Does scalp massage grow hair? Two small studies hint yes, and both have catches
A nine-man study found hair fibres thickened from 0.085 to 0.092 mm after 24 weeks of daily massage. The larger dataset was a self-reported survey — run by a hair-loss website.
What stops an ingrown toenail returning? Surgery, and phenol makes it stick
A Cochrane review of 24 trials found surgery beats non-surgical care at stopping an ingrown toenail coming back; adding phenol to the operation cut recurrence from 41% to 14% in the one head-to-head study.
Lichen sclerosus: an under-recognised vulval condition where treatment lowers cancer risk
The chronic skin disease is often missed for years. In a cohort of 507 women, those who kept up topical steroid treatment developed no vulval cancers; those who did not had a 4.7% rate.
Does red light therapy reduce wrinkles? A trial found smoother skin, more collagen
Red-light masks and panels promise photorejuvenation without lasers or needles. A randomised trial of 136 volunteers backs the collagen claim — but it is one good study, and 'red light' covers very different devices.
Is a higher SPF always better? What the sunburn evidence shows
A high number does buy measurably more protection — in one real-use trial far fewer people burned on the SPF 100 side. But how much you apply, and whether you reapply, moves the needle more than the label.
Do gua sha and face rollers do anything? A trial says a little, and only briefly
A head-to-head trial found both tools nudged facial measurements over eight weeks, but the effects were small, mechanical and short-lived. There is no evidence they 'sculpt' the face or drain toxins.
What actually works on dandruff? Antifungal shampoos, the trial evidence shows
Dandruff is the mild end of seborrhoeic dermatitis, and Cochrane reviews of that condition back the medicated-shampoo ingredients: ketoconazole and ciclopirox clear flaking better than placebo.
Teenage acne: what actually clears it, according to the evidence
Acne is not caused by dirt or bad washing, and it does respond to treatment. Guidelines strongly back benzoyl peroxide and topical retinoids first, with oral isotretinoin reserved for severe or scarring acne.
Childhood eczema: what actually calms the itch
Regular moisturisers and short courses of topical steroids are the mainstays, with modest trial support. Most children improve with age, and popular add-ons like bleach baths are no better than plain water.
Dark spots and melasma: the creams the trials back, and what newer studies only hint at
Sun-driven brown patches are hard to shift. A Cochrane review found a triple-combination cream beat hydroquinone alone; newer meta-analyses point to tranexamic acid and PRP, on thinner evidence.
Why do we get goosebumps?
The reflex that stands body hair on end in the cold or at a stirring piece of music is largely a leftover from furrier ancestors — but new work shows the same wiring quietly keeps hair able to regrow.
Does shaving make hair grow back thicker or darker? No
The belief that a razor makes hair return coarser, faster or darker is one of medicine's durable myths. Controlled studies going back decades find no change in thickness, colour or growth rate.
Does biotin grow hair? Only if you're deficient — and big doses can skew blood tests
Every documented case of biotin helping hair involved a deficiency. In people who are not deficient the evidence is absent — and high-dose supplements can skew blood tests, including a heart-attack marker.
What helps a cold sore: antivirals shorten it slightly, and only if started early
Cold sores heal on their own in about a week, and nothing clears the virus for good. Creams and pills shave hours to roughly a day off an episode — but only if started at the first tingle.
What clears athlete's foot? Antifungal creams work, and the evidence is solid
A Cochrane review of 67 trials found topical allylamines and azoles cure far more foot infections than placebo, with allylamines slightly ahead. Oral pills are reserved for stubborn or failed cases.
Is coconut oil good for your skin and hair? What trials found
For dry, eczema-prone skin and for shielding hair from wash damage, coconut oil has real randomised evidence behind it — narrow, not miraculous, and not the same claim as being good for every skin type.
Does at-home microneedling work? The controlled evidence is thin, the risks real
Narrative reviews call it promising for scars and wrinkles. A Cochrane review of 24 trials rated the controlled evidence very low quality — and home dermarollers add an infection risk clinics design out.
Skin tags: what causes them, whether they signal anything, and can you remove them
These soft flaps are harmless. Their real interest is metabolic — one study tied them to diabetes with an odds ratio of 1.89 — but a 2026 cohort found no link to prediabetes. Removal is cosmetic, not a home job.
Does rosemary oil regrow hair? One small trial, drawn with minoxidil, is the whole case
A single randomised trial found rosemary oil and 2% minoxidil produced statistically indistinguishable hair counts at six months. It is the strongest evidence rosemary has — and it is thin.
Why hives keep coming back, and what the trials say actually calms them
Chronic hives can flare for months with no allergy to find. A Cochrane review of 9,759 people found modern antihistamines such as cetirizine clear them in a minority, not everyone.
Why do fingers wrinkle in water? It is the nervous system, not swelling
The pruning of fingertips in a long bath is an active job done by the sympathetic nerves, not water soaking in. Whether the wrinkles are useful is a genuine, unresolved argument.
Does sunscreen prevent wrinkles? A four-and-a-half-year trial says yes
In the one randomised trial to test it, adults who used sunscreen daily showed no detectable increase in skin ageing over 4.5 years — 24% less than those who used it as they pleased.
Chronic dry skin: moisturisers are the evidence-backed fix, but effects are modest
Xerosis is a barrier problem, not dirt. Cochrane found moisturisers cut eczema flares 60% and spared steroid use; in care-home residents a twice-daily emollient roughly halved skin tears, on weak evidence.
Can stress turn hair grey? In mice yes, and greying can reverse
A Nature study traced stress-driven greying in mice to sympathetic nerves that deplete pigment stem cells. Separate human work shows some grey hairs regain colour.
What helps a sunburn? Comfort measures only — nothing speeds the healing
No cream, pill or gel reverses a sunburn or shortens it. Cool compresses, moisturizer and painkillers ease the days it lasts; the burn itself is UV damage that heals on its own.
Does collagen powder do anything for your skin? The trials say a modest yes
Pooled randomised trials show real improvements in skin hydration and elasticity versus placebo, but the effect is moderate, the measures are instrument readings, and the evidence base is shaky.
Itchy skin all over: causes worth ruling out, and why treatment evidence is thin
One in five people get chronic itch at some point. When no rash and no cause turn up, a Cochrane review found almost no trials at all — leaving guideline experts to work from indirect evidence.
Skin-lesion AI is accurate on paper but weaker on darker skin, two 2026 reviews find
Pooled diagnostic accuracy is high in specialist settings, but performance falls on Fitzpatrick IV–VI skin and on smartphone images, and most studies never report skin tone at all.
Hairmaxxing: what the minoxidil and finasteride trend gets right and wrong
Young men are starting hair-loss drugs early and stacking them with dermarolling and oral minoxidil. Two drugs have decades of evidence; the trend's framing runs ahead of it.
A Treg-boosting drug cut eczema severity by 61% in a mid-stage trial
Rezpegaldesleukin works by expanding the immune system's regulatory T cells rather than blocking an inflammatory signal — a new mechanism for atopic dermatitis, tested so far only in a phase 2b study.
Skinmaxxing: the 'glass skin' routine, and where stacking actives backfires
Two ingredients carry most of the real evidence. The rest of the multi-step routine adds cost and, when actives are layered too hard, a damaged skin barrier.
Rosacea has real treatments. None of them cure it, and each one targets a single feature
Cochrane pooled 106 randomised trials in 13,631 people; a phenotype-led update reached 152 studies. The best evidence is feature-by-feature — brimonidine for redness, ivermectin and azelaic acid for pustules.
Acne runs on hormones and heredity. Diet is a real signal, but a weak and messy one
A parental history of acne carries a pooled odds ratio of 2.91. Dairy carries 1.25, from observational studies with demonstrated publication bias — and diet appears nowhere in the treatment guideline.
An interferon-beta blocker improved dermatomyositis fast, in small phase 2 trials
Dazukibart eased skin and muscle disease within weeks and held up for nearly two years — but the trials were tiny, manufacturer-run, and the makers say a phase 3 is needed to confirm it.