The soap chamber test. A new method for assessing the irritancy of soaps.

The chamber test for assessing the irritancy of soaps entails five weekday exposures to 8% solutions with readings of scaling, redness, and fissuring on the following Monday. Eighteen well-known toilet soaps were evaluated. Great differences were noted. Most had an appreciable irritancy potential. These results contrast with a number of studies which failed to show differences among soaps or which concluded that soaps were innocuous.