Dline

Dline is a Swiss skincare brand made by dline AG in Wädenswil, a small town on the shore of Lake Zurich. According to the company, its creams, lotions and oil baths first went on sale in the German-speaking market in 1997, developed to give ordinary consumers good-quality cosmetic skin care with the best possible skin tolerance at fair prices [6]. The products are still developed, produced and filled in Wädenswil, and the brand sells mainly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with partners in several other European countries.

The brand occupies an unusual corner of the beauty market. Much of its range is aimed at very dry, itchy, irritated or fragile skin, and for more than two decades it has cultivated close ties with specialist wound-care centres. Even so, Dline has deliberately kept its products in the cosmetics category rather than registering them as medical devices. The brand is active, with company certificates and product test reports dated 2026.

Two different dates are attached to the start of Dline. The company's own 20th-anniversary text, published in April 2017, dates the brand to 1997, the year the skin care was first placed on the market [6]. Swiss commercial-register listings, by contrast, show the company dline AG with an entry date of 5 April 1995 [14]. The two figures describe different events, the registration of the company and the launch of the products, and this article follows 1997 as the brand's founding year.

The people who founded the business are not publicly named. The register describes dline AG as a trading and production company for the manufacture, distribution and sale of cosmetic and medical products and apparatus, together with training in those fields by suitably qualified staff [13]. That combination of making products and teaching how to use them still shapes how the brand presents itself, with a training programme and events listed alongside its shop.

According to Dline, the original goal was a simple one: skin care for end consumers that combined quality, good tolerance and a fair price. The company says the range has kept that aim through two decades of changing knowledge about ingredients and formulation.

Dline's history is told less through product launches than through a long series of practice reports and application studies, most of them published by the company itself. Its central reference group, the brand says, has been a network of 12 wound centres and wound competence centres in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, which have used its products since 2000 [7].

An early milestone is a level-three application observation of Dline skin care carried out in Burgenland, in eastern Austria, in 2001. Further reports followed over the years. They include references from a wellness club in Linz covering 2006 and 2007, and a 2009 clinical application observation of the brand's anti-dandruff shampoo and oil bath. There was also a 2012 study report on its PickelEx blemish products.

The year 2013 brought two wound-care documents: a practice report from the WZ wound centres and a multicentre review of the skin-care products applied in wound-treatment facilities across Austria, Switzerland and Germany. A 2015 paper compared a zinc-containing care cream with a polyurethane film for protecting the skin around wounds.

In 2016 one of the brand's products reached an independent medical audience. A report in the Swiss journal Dermatologie + Ästhetische Medizin on a talk at the European Wound Congress in Bremen named ZCR ZincCream as an example of the soft, low-zinc-oxide pastes recommended for caring for the edges of chronic wounds.

In April 2017 the company marked 20 years of Dline skin care. Its most recent publication, a 2026 paper titled "Medizinische Hautpflege – mehr als nur Kosmetik" ("Medical skin care – more than just cosmetics"), returns to the theme that has run through the brand from the start.

Dline is produced by dline AG, a Swiss public limited company based at Holzmoosrütistrasse 48 in Wädenswil, in the canton of Zurich. Business-register information lists the company as active, with a share capital of CHF 100,000 [13]. No parent company is publicly known; dline AG presents itself as both the developer and the producer of the range.

Outside Switzerland, separate dline companies in Germany and Austria act as general importers. Lohmann & Rauscher is named as a distribution partner in Austria and Switzerland, a cooperation rather than an ownership tie [9].

Dline describes skin tolerance as the heart of its work. The company says hypoallergenicity and the best possible ingredients are a primary goal of every product, and it backs this with repeated patch testing, in which products are applied under a plaster to check for allergic reactions. It also says that evidence-based medicine, the practice of grounding care in clinical evidence, is decisive for how the range is developed.

The brand's most distinctive choice is regulatory. In its 2017 anniversary text, the company explains that it positioned the range as cosmetic skin care, as distinct from decorative make-up, and not as a medical device, so that new findings and improvements could be built into development and production quickly [6]. Dline argues that the market often gives the impression that Class 1 medical devices for skin care are tested more thoroughly than cosmetics. In its view, that has not been the case at least since the 2013 revision of the EU cosmetics rules. Since then, it notes, every cosmetic product in Europe must be notified centrally, with its full formula and every raw material.

Dline's German tagline, "Bedarfsgerechte Hautpflege mit Schutzfaktor", appears on its English site as "needs-based skin care with protection factor". The company also offers what it calls a transparency guarantee, a public listing of every product in the cosmetic analysis. Fair pricing has been part of the brand's stated aims since its launch.

The core range is small and built around five care products, each identified by a short letter code. BL BasicLotion is aimed at normal to dry skin, and the company says it eases tightness and itching while supporting the skin's protective barrier. NCR NutrientCream is meant for dry to very dry and flaking skin, and the company says it helps stabilise the skin's fat and moisture levels. CC CoolingCream, also for very dry skin, uses a low dose of menthol, which the brand says relieves itching noticeably and lastingly; Dline suggests it for people with multiple allergies. LL LipoLotion and HL HydroLotion complete the lotion line.

ZCR ZincCream is the product most closely tied to wound care. Dline describes it as a three-phase water-in-oil zinc cream, a classic protective cream for irritated and macerated skin. Macerated skin is skin softened and weakened by long contact with moisture.

Ingredients the brand highlights include zinc, urea, panthenol, bisabolol, ceramides, aloe vera, almond oil and menthol. Dline states that all its creams, lotions and oil baths are made without parabens or chlorhexidine and that all its products are free of lanolin [7]. Its products are not fragrance-free across the board, but the company says any item can be ordered without fragrance, at the same price, for people with particularly sensitive skin.

Alongside the core line, a group of specialty products is sold through the company's online shop to private customers only. These include a baby shampoo, an anti-dandruff shampoo and an oil bath for bath and shower. Smaller items cover particular needs: LPB LipBalsam for dry lips, MammaCare for nipple care and protection, NasanFit nose cream, FTG FreshTonicGel for cooling the legs after sport, a haemorrhoid gel, and the PickelEx solution and gel for blemish-prone skin.

Many of Dline's claims rest on its own application observations and tests rather than on independent trials. The company states that in various clinical and outpatient uses, allergy tests and application observations, its products reached a skin-tolerance rating of up to 97 percent [7]. It also says that a clear clinical improvement is visible in most cases within four to seven days. In addition, the brand describes all its products as pH-neutral, with values below 7.0.

Some claims address specific care settings. Dline cites investigations, including one involving the compression-stocking maker Sigvaris, showing that BL BasicLotion and FTG FreshTonicGel are compatible with stockings made from synthetic and natural rubber. That matters for people who wear compression stockings daily.

The company publishes a compliance section on its website. It lists a TÜV certificate for a quality-management system under EN ISO 9001:2015, current patch-test reports for each product, and compliance declarations from its packaging suppliers [4]. The ISO certificate covers the company's management processes. No cruelty-free, vegan or organic certification is publicly documented.

The brand's clearest independent mention came in 2016. Writing in Dermatologie + Ästhetische Medizin, published by the Swiss medical publisher Rosenfluh, Alfred Lienhard reported on a talk by Robert Müllegger, head of the dermatology outpatient clinic at the Landesklinikum Wiener Neustadt in Austria. Müllegger discussed how to care for the edges and surrounding skin of chronic wounds. Among his examples of soft zinc pastes with a low zinc-oxide content and a creamy consistency, he named ZCR ZincCream [12]. The article names the product rather than the company. No awards are publicly recorded for the brand.

Dline is sold through a mix of public trade and the company's own online shop. Pharmacy central numbers, the codes used to order products through pharmacies, are published for both Germany and Austria [11]. The brand's website, available in German, English and French, describes itself as the international site for Germany, Austria and Switzerland plus the EU.

Beyond its home markets, the company lists suppliers for Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. Its links to wound centres, care settings and pharmacies mean that much of its audience reaches the products through professional care rather than general beauty retail.

Dline is active. Its compliance page carries 2026 certificates and test reports, its news section includes a 2026 publication, and its online shop is operating. The company maintains a Facebook page. Its range remains focused on sensitive, dry and compromised skin, made and filled in Wädenswil.