Open Study for Dermo-cosmetic Evaluation of a Spot-on Formulation Composed of Essential Oils and Essential Fatty Acids for Dogs and for Cats in Japan

An open study was carried out for dermo-cosmetic evaluation of a spot-on formulation composed of essential oils and polyunsaturated fatty acids. The spot-on formulation was used on animals as sole therapy, or concurrent therapy with previous treatments which did not affect the evaluation of the test product. Each animal was treated with the spot-on by application of one pipette per week (total of 4 applications). In all cases, clinical features including sheen, hair loss, dandruff, odour and skin balance (dry or oily) were scored with criteria used in human cosmetics to obtain the improvement evolution (improvement %) and the percentage of improved cases (positive response %), before and after 30 days of treatment for each clinical feature. The following results were obtained on 22 dogs: sheen improvement % was +40% with a positive response of 73%; hair loss improvement % was +51% with a positive response of 77%; dandruff improvement % was +36% with a positive response of 55%; odour improvement % was +36% with a positive response of 50%; skin balance improvement % was +31% with a positive response of 64%. The following results were obtained on 8 cats: sheen improvement % was +64% with a positive response of 75%; hair loss improvement % was +64% with a positive response of 88%; dandruff improvement % was +67% with a positive response of 88%; odour improvement % was +13% with a positive response of 50%; skin balance improvement % was +52% with a positive response of 88%. Improvement percentages were statistically evaluated with a t-test analysis (p=0.05). The results were statistically significant and no significant adverse reaction was observed during the test. Based on these findings, it was suggested that the spot-on formulation could have dermo-cosmetic effects.