Objectives The risk of irritant skin damage associated with hairdressing was estimated with the individual occupational exposure and other relevant factors having been taken into consideration.Methods A cohort of 2352 hairdressing and 111 office apprentices was prospectively followed for the duration of their vocational training (3 years), 3 examinations having been made and 3 years of recruitment having been used [1992 (hairdressers only), 1993, 1994] in 15 vocational training schools in northwest Germany. The information of the final follow-up examination was used for the analysis.Results A multifactorial analysis taking several (constitutional) risk factors, which were unevenly distributed between the 2 groups, into account revealed a significantly increased risk for hairdressers when compared with office workers (odds ratio approximately 4.0) with a marked decline in the most recently recruited (1994) apprentice group. Other significant factors increasing the dermatitis risk were (i) low ambient absolute humidity, (ii) young age, and (iii) a certain higher range of Aatopy score@. If the individual profile of occupational exposure among hairdressers was also considered, unprotected wet work of more than 2 hours per day was found to be a significant risk factor.Conclusion Good skin protection, as operationalized in the present study, can diminish, but not eliminate, the risk of occupational irritant hand dermatitis among hairdressers.