Neosporin.

"We recommend Vaseline or Aquaphor instead of Neosporin. Hate Neosporin. I just saw a Neosporin allergy the other day post-surgically on someone that was putting it on their knee surgery scar and got a big nasty rash from the Neosporin. So, use Vaseline instead."

"Neosporin has neomycin, which is a very common allergen. I see it all the time. Whenever I see a geometric rash that looks like something from the outside gone in contact with your skin that's irritating it, leaving it with a blistered red rash, I'm going to ask first thing, are you applying Neosporin? And usually the patients will say yes. So do not use that. I would never pay money for that. Dermatologists do not like Neosporin. Just apply Vaseline, Aquaphor, Cetaphil healing ointment, some kind of petroleum ointment over your wound or burn, a small burn that's not infected. If it's infected, definitely go see your dermatologist or your doctor to get antibiotics, whether it's a topical antibiotic or oral antibiotic."

"Do not use Neosporin, guys. Also, avoid basitracin, triple antibiotic, polysporin. All of those have to be removed from the shelf. If I were to ask me what's the worst ingredient in these, it would have to be neomycin over bacitracin. But if I were to rank the worst, neomycin is the worst, most allergenic over bacitracin. But I do see a lot of bacitracin allergies. And these contact dermatitis rashes can be quite serious and very blistering."

"Neosporin is probably the biggest villain in the dermatology world because if someone comes in with a geometric rectangular rash or a circular rash, I'm going to suspect something got on your skin to make that rash. It's too well made, too well formed, so I'm going to ask did you apply Neosporin, and a lot of times people will say yes I've been using Neosporin. Neosporin has neomycin in it, and a few years ago it's been named as the allergen of the year. You can't get over the counter in other countries like the UK, you can't go into a grocery store and pick up Neosporin. It's prescription for their topical antibiotics, and my UK colleagues say they don't even use Neosporin anyway, so they don't see that as an allergen or an issue in their countries, but in the U.S., we're spending so much money, so much time diagnosing allergic contact dermatitis from things like Neosporin. Neosporin is probably a more common culprit for causing contact dermatitis. When you have that rash, people get misdiagnosed with an infection because it presents as red, hot, swollen, itchy, and sometimes can be painful if it starts making blisters because the reaction can get really bad where it blisters the skin."

"I'd rather have you apply that than Neosporin Bacitracin triple antibiotic which causes a lot of irritant or allergic contact dermatitis. It can mimic an infection. It can get blistered in the area. So big thing is avoid Neosporin and those topical antibiotic ointments that are over the counter."

"Don't ever use Neosporin over your cuts, burns, wounds. Neosporin has neomycin which is a common allergen. When you put this on, it mimics a skin infection or cellulitis. And many times people go on antibiotics unnecessarily. So instead, use Aquaphor or Vaseline over your scrapes."

"If you have a cut or scrape, I don't care for Neosporin. I like petrolatum whether it's Aquafor or Vaseline or the Cerave healing ointment. For wound care, use petrolatum for a non-infected wound to help protect it and then cover it with a Band-Aid."

"Using antibiotic ointment that's over the counter, Vasitracin, Neosporin, Neosporin has neomycin and bacitracin and both of those are common allergens that have commonly caused contact dermatitis in my patients, allergic contact dermatitis specifically. When I have a patient coming in with a rash that looks like an outside job, meaning looks like something got on their skin causing a geometric rash or a linear rash like poison ivy, I'm going to ask them certain things like have you been using Neosporin or bacitracin? Triple antibiotic a lot of times patients will say yes. In Europe they don't have over-the-counter antibiotic ointments. In the US we do and we overuse it. Not only are we getting resistance with our antifungal creams, we're seeing more fungi getting resistance to those over-the-counter treatments because we're overusing them, but we're also getting allergic rashes to these antibiotic ointments. I've seen patients come in with really bad severe redness, blistering, and it actually can turn from itchy to painful where it mimics a skin infection."

"There's still a good amount of people coming out with rashes from Neosporin. Over time the neo in Neosporin is a common allergen that can cause a blistering reaction, a bad skin reaction that mimics a bacterial infection. I even saw a patient who was on long-term antibiotics and had a PICC line inserted into her arm just to get IV antibiotics long term for her leg cellulitis. They thought it was a bacterial infection that wouldn't go away so they kept adding on more and more IV antibiotics that she'd have to get infused at home, but really it was just them putting Neosporin on the cellulitis on the leg over and over and it just kept festering and worsening rash. Once we stopped the Neosporin, I put some topical steroids on that I prescribed the leg, and just cleared up very well and we were able to remove the PICC line. I saw the Neosporin for kids at Target. They're really trying to target the young kids by adding a little promoxine in it to help with pain relief as well. I don't like any of that stuff."

"Do not use Neosporin on cuts or bites or anything of that sort. All it does is breed anti-microbial resistance and also is a very common reason for contact dermatitis. Just use its base, which is plain petroleum jelly. Neosporin is just antibiotics, neomycin and polymyxin plus petrolatum."

"It's much better to use petroleum jelly than an antibiotic ointment like Neosporin because these antibiotic ointments, they're in a petroleum jelly base, but they have antibiotics in them that are not particularly helpful and often times end up causing more harm than good for many people and just put unnecessary antimicrobials out there in the world that can set the stage later on for potential emergence of resistant microorganisms, which we don't want. Just stick to plain petroleum jelly for cuts and scrapes."

"Neosporin is not doing the general public any favors at all. All it's doing is increasing the risk, the rates of contact dermatitis to those antibiotics and it's putting selective pressures for the emergence of antimicrobial resistance. When compared to Vaseline there's no difference in wound healing, wound infections, but there is a higher rate of contact dermatitis when using an antibiotic ointment unnecessarily. Neosporin is just not a great one."

"Neosporin is not going anywhere these are so bad. The problem is the antimicrobials are not very good. Your cuts and scrapes will heal just as well, if not better, just washing them out with a little dilute soapy water and putting plain petroleum jelly, because all this is is petroleum jelly plus these crummy antibiotics. There's a higher risk of contact dermatitis using these and they also contribute to the emergence of resistant microorganisms, which is not good."

"Don't waste your time with Neosporin because all you're going to do with Neosporin is the way it works to heal your cuts is because of the petroleum jelly, and everything else in there is a hazard. The antibiotics in Neosporin, Bacitracin, neomycin, they're not very good. They don't improve healing above and beyond what plain petroleum jelly can do. They don't reduce the risk of infection of the cut above and beyond what plain petroleum jelly can do. Instead, what they do is they are very sensitizing, contact dermatitis to those ingredients is very common, and they increase the risk of emergence of antimicrobial resistant bugs. Don't waste your time with the antibiotic ointments. It's a problematic product all around."

"Neosporin in theory could be great for the skin because it's a petroleum jelly ointment, but what else does Neosporin have in it? Antimicrobials. Antimicrobials for which, honestly, they're not the best antimicrobials, and in the absence of an active skin infection, breed the possibility of emergence of antibiotic resistance, antimicrobial resistant microorganisms, superbugs, which we don't want. Also, allergy and irritation to those antimicrobials is really common. If you just stuck to petroleum jelly, which I believe is responsible for a lot of the benefits that people are observing when they use Neosporin liberally, you would have been better off."