Dermatitis - What are the symptoms?

Seborrhoeic dermatitis causes your skin to flake. These flakes tend to be a white or yellowish colour. They can sometimes be greasy. You may also get red patches of skin that look a bit like sunburn.

Seborrhoeic dermatitis usually affects parts of your body that have hair, or where there are folds or creases in your skin. These are the parts of your body with lots of sebaceous glands. These glands make oil to lubricate your skin. Sebaceous glands give seborrhoeic dermatitis its name.

You can get seborrhoeic dermatitis on:

Your scalp (dermatitis can cause dandruff)
Your eyebrows
Your beard, if you're a man
Your face and nose, especially between your nose and the corners of your mouth
Your ears
Your chest, especially under your breasts if you're a woman
Your armpit
Your groin.

Skin affected by dermatitis may be itchy. Itching can get worse if your skin becomes infected. Be careful about scratching patches of dermatitis. Scratching too hard can break your skin and make an infection more likely.

If dermatitis affects your scalp, it can cause bad dandruff. But not all dandruff is caused by dermatitis. Most people get a few flakes. This happens because your top layer of skin flakes away naturally, as it's replaced by new skin cells. Dandruff caused by dermatitis usually means you get bigger, oily flakes. Shampooing helps to get rid of flakes, and medicated shampoos also help to treat the cause of dermatitis. To read more, see What treatments work for dandruff?

Babies often get dermatitis on their scalp. This is called cradle cap. To read more, see Cradle cap.

Glossary

gland: A gland is any group of cells in the body that makes and releases something for use by another part of the body. For example, the thyroid gland makes a hormone called thyroxine. This acts on receptors within cells. By acting on the receptors it gives the cells a message to speed up their metabolism and work harder.

This information does not replace medical advice. If you are concerned you might have a medical problem please ask your Boots pharmacy team in your local Boots store, or see your doctor.