Abstract
Touch sensation is one of the important factors to create emotional value in cosmetics. It has been reported that gentle facial touch, which is one of the skin-care behaviors, arouses pleasantness, and this consecutive facial gentle touch for 4 weeks improves the skin appearance scores evaluated by experts. To reveal the underlying mechanism of improvement of skin appearance by pleasant touch, we examined the involvement of oxytocin which is one of the hypothalamus hormones in healthy Japanese adult women. As a result, cheek-brush stroking on the forearm, which has been shown to arouse pleasantness and increase oxytocin levels, twice a day for 4 weeks increased basal salivary oxytocin levels, and the participants realized the changes in skin condition themselves after the consecutive pleasant touch. Additionally, basal salivary oxytocin levels showed weak but significant positive correlation with the skin appearance scores of fine skin texture, uniformity of skin tone, and radiance. Moreover, after the above-mentioned skin-care behavior improving the skin appearance, the differential changes in pleasantness ratings showed weak but positive correlation with the salivary oxytocin levels. Taken together, our results suggest that the increase in oxytocin levels induced by habitual pleasant touch in skin-care could be partly responsible for improving the skin appearance in healthy Japanese adult women.
