Dynamic thermal imaging analysis in the effectiveness evaluation of warming and cooling formulations

• Image analysis allows qualitative assessment of the rate of skin temperature changes.
• Skin temperature perception is not correlated with the skin temperature.
• Major factor lowering the skin temperature is the weight of the applied formulation.

Warming cosmetics and medicines are used to accelerate recovery from injuries whereas cooling preparations are used in the pains of muscles, joints, spine, bruises or edema. The paper verifies subjective heating or warming sensations with respect to the measured temperature changes. The influence of three formulations, labelled C1, C2, W1, on skin reaction was tested. The first two formulations (C1, C2) had a cooling effect while the formulation W1 had warming properties. Two hundred thermal images with a resolution of N×M=120×120 pixel were acquired with the Flir i7 infrared camera. The paper also shows how to analyse low resolution thermal images and their practical usefulness. For this purpose, a dedicated algorithm for image analysis and processing, which uses morphological operations, segmentation and area analysis, was applied. Application of both C1 and C2 resulted in subjective perception of feeling cold. Approximately 7 min following application of the formulation C1, the skin temperature returned to baseline levels. The minimum skin temperature after using the formulation C1 was 27.5 °C and it was registered at the time of application. Application of W1, which by definition is a warming formulation, caused a sensation of coolness in the first minutes following the application. The perception of cool and warm sensations after the application of topical formulations is in no way correlated with the skin temperature assessed using a thermal imaging method.