Older persons have thicker and drier skin on their feet than young people. When using ESD shoes people with a high foot resistance should use a moisturizing lotion on their feet before they wear shoes, which require a specified conductance to ground during a test. Once the skin contact resistance is made uniform by moisture content, the body resistance of the person involved in the tests is less important. In fact the body resistances of most people once the dead layer of skin has been moisturized are very close and fairly low compared to the other resistances involved. Just as the skin of the foot plays a very important part in the testing of shoe resistance with a person involved, the hand is just as important.
Some people have extremely high skin resistance especially on their hands and fingers.
Again, the older the person the more the resistance of the hands. For testing purposes all technicians use moisturizing lotion on their hands prior to performing the tests. ESD 9.1 Shoe test method uses 100 volts as a test voltage. Many shoe testers, which are used in the field, have voltages ranging from 9 volts to 30 volts. This voltage will not be a problem if the above factors are made to conform to the suggestions made here.