The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of daily bathing with emollient in children with atopic dermatitis. A group of nine children aged 5 months to 13 years were studied at weekly intervals for 1 month. The parents were asked to bathe the child once per week in a bath with emollient (Oilatum) at a standard concentration. Additionally, the parents were asked to select one of the child's arms for a 15 min daily soak in a basin of water with emollient. The children were objectively assessed by an observer who had no knowledge of which arm was receiving the daily soaks. After 2 weeks, in eight of the nine children the arm that was soaked daily was visibly worse than the unsoaked arm. Mean clinical scores for the nine patients were determined at weekly intervals and in the two-tailed pairedt-test thePvalues at weeks 2 and 3 revealed a statistically significant difference between the arms. There is thus no evidence from this study that routine daily bathing in emollient is helpful as has been claimed. Indeed the results suggest that soaking for 15 min daily is harmful in chronic stable atopic dermatitis in children.