Patients with Diabetes Mellitus present with skin lesions induced by their disease. Use of moisturizing creams, specially those containing urea in variyng concentrations, has proved to be beneficial to treat xerosis in these patients. OBJETIVE: to study the effectiveness of a 10% urea lotion for diabetic skin. RESULTS: Prospective study with 40 diabetic patients with disease-related injuries of the skin. Biophysical characteristics of the skin were assessed before and after I month showing an increase of hydration, elasticity, extensibility and tonicity and a decrease of skin thickness, TEWL and corneocyte desquarnation. This biophysical improvement was paralleled by clinical improvement. CONCLUSIONS: The 10% urea lotion significantly improved the biophysical alterations of the skin.

The addition of secondary surfactant to a primary surfactant is carried out in cosmetic formulations destined to the body and hair hygiene in order to modulate and/or improve the physicochemical and dermatological properties of the primary surfactant, reason for which the alkylolamides have been thoroughly used.

Synopsis The study of ternary systems leads to the understanding of the physico-chemical aspect and allows the contribution of the different components to a cosmetic formulation to be developed. The present investigation was centred in the zone of transparent get belonging to a previously studied ternary system containing a broad variety of different structural compositions. The possibility of including an active sunscreen as well as the ability to increase the water content of the gel was studied. The microscopical study of the compositions with polarized light allowed us to assign the corresponding different structures. A correlation between these structures and their physico-chemical properties, with special emphasis to rheology, has been established.