It is of interest to develop a synthetic skin that can be used for research and assessment of tribological properties of hair and skin care products. In this paper, a systematic study is carried out of the surface, nanomechanical and nanotribological properties of two synthetic skins with and without skin cream treatment using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), a nanoindenter and an atomic force microscope (AFM). The hardness, elastic modulus, surface roughness, contact angle, coefficient of friction, adhesive force, and film thickness of the two synthetic skins are compared with that of virgin and damaged rat and pig skin. The data of the two synthetic skins are comparable to the rat and pig skin, which shows that the two synthetic skins are good simulations of animal skins for tribological study. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.