Like Care Bears and stabilisers, you might think your childhood days of eczema are well behind you but the infuriatingly itchy skin condition is having an unwelcome comeback among adults – especially women.

Worse, even if you were lucky enough to escape eczema as a child, you could still find yourself developing the telltale sore, scaly patches as a result of stress or contact with the endless environmental irritants around us. In the Stylist office alone, five women have developed the condition as adults and experienced the incessant itching, medical appointments and social anxiety caused by the condition.

An estimated 15 million people in the UK are now affected by eczema, or atopic dermatitis as it’s also known. This is more than double the amount of sufferers identified a decade ago and is commonly blamed on increased pollution and use of water and harsh detergents which can exacerbate the condition. Eczema is still primarily associated with children but one in 12 sufferers are adults and, according to a study by Mintel, it affects more women than men. The reasons for this are complex but it is believed that this disparity may be partly due to changing hormone levels in women during pregnancy and at different stages of their menstrual cycle.

Eczema: why is affects more women and how to treat it