Balsan

Balsan is a cosmetics company that concentrates on one problem: callus, the thick, hard skin that builds up on the feet and hands. According to the company, Thomas Brinke founded BALSAN Cosmetic GmbH in September 1998 [2]. Instead of rasps, files or blades, its method is built around a lotion that softens hard skin so that it can be pushed away.

The business sells foot and hand care products, creams and simple grooming tools, and it names pedicurists, pharmacies and private customers as its clientele. Brinke still signs the company's own introduction as managing director. No parent company is documented.

In Balsan's own telling, Brinke started the company to develop "effect-oriented" cosmetic products. Out of that aim grew the focus that still defines it: foot care products for what the company calls immediate, gentle and safe callus removal [2].

The founding date differs depending on where it is looked up. The company dates its start to September 1998 [2]. The German commercial register, as mirrored by the business-information service North Data, shows the current entry at the Munich local court as registered on 13 October 2001 [5]. The two dates may describe different steps rather than a real disagreement: 2001 is when the present register entry was created, while the company's own account places the start of the business three years earlier. This article follows the company's date of 1998.

Balsan describes itself as a cosmetics firm highly specialised in callus removal. It states that only products of high-quality pharmacy grade may carry the BALSAN name, and says that independent institutes support it with extensive testing [2]. The institutes are not named, and no third-party certifications are documented.

On its website the brand explains its focus through the parts of the body it sees as often neglected. Hands and feet, it argues, are a person's most important "tools", strained by daily work, contact with cleaning products, unsuitable shoes and long hours of standing. The results it lists are everyday complaints: troublesome hard skin, sweating feet and foot odour [1]. Balsan presents its products as a way to deal with these, and says it makes them to pharmacy quality.

The central product is a lotion for removing callus and cuticles, sold as BALSAN Hand- und Fußpflege Lotion (hand and foot care lotion) in a 500 ml bottle. The company features it as a bestseller in its own webshop [1]. A product page at an online pharmacy describes the lotion as a gentler alternative to coarse treatment with rasps or planes [6].

Its use is simple. The lotion is applied to hard skin and left for 10 to 20 minutes, after which the softened skin is removed with a callus pusher. On cuticles it needs only a few minutes before they can be pushed back with a pusher or brush. The skin is then rinsed with clear water and followed by the brand's Creme Balance foot cream.

Around the lotion Balsan has built a small range. Its webshop groups products into hand care, foot care and creams, and offers sets that combine the lotion with tools, such as the Hornhaut-weg-Wunder-Set and a larger Jumbo-Profi-Set, alongside a mint foot spray and foot bath salt. The manufacturer directory Gelbe Liste lists 25 Balsan items, among them foot baths, foot powder, a callus balm, a hand balm, a warming cream, stainless-steel callus and cuticle pushers, cotton pads and a shoe spray [4].

Balsan is active. Its webshop is online, and the hand and foot care lotion was listed by the online pharmacy Shop Apotheke in October 2026 [6]. The most recent annual accounts shown in the company register cover the year ending 31 December 2020 and were published in December 2021 [5]. No recent product launches or press coverage are documented.