Stress Relief Properties of a Cosmetic Routine

Everyday life psychosocial challenges may negatively impact health and well-being, contributing to the onset and/or progression of psychological and psychosomatic disorders. Pharmacological treatments can moderate our stress response, but they usually bring about addiction/tolerance and a number of other side effects. Therefore, it is relevant to identify alternative stress relief strategies that are devoid of these unwanted drawbacks. Moreover, the effects of such alternative interventions should be objectively quantified by means of reliable psychobiological parameters. The goal of this study was to quantify the acute and persistent effects of a cosmetic routine based on the self-administration of a cream enriched with essential oils, namely Juniperus Phoenicea gum extract, Copaifera Officinalis resin, Aniba Rosodora wood oil, and Juniperus Virginiana. This aim was achieved by measuring the (re-)activity of the autonomic nervous system (via heart variability indexes) and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis (via salivary cortisol levels), as well as through psychometric and behavioral assessments. Participants' informed consent signature for adhesion at the study was initially requested. With their acceptance, parameters were recorded anonimously, identified by their initials and an alphanumeric code. Data were transferred on Excel worksheets, utilized for descriptive analysis related at every variable. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 25 software package and statistical significance was set at p\<0.05.