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Fungal Cream: Treatment for Skin Fungal Infections

Written by healthwords.ai's team of doctors and pharmacists based in UK | Updated: 25 Mar 2025 | 2 min read

Antifungal creams are sometimes called fungal creams, and are used to treat fungal infections. The creams are mainly used for skin and vaginal infections, whereas tablets are usually used for more widespread skin and internal infections. Different antifungal creams are used for different types of skin and vaginal infections, so we’ll explain some of them in detail, and their different uses.

Names of antifungals

Drug names for the different over-the-counter antifungals include: butenafine, clotrimazole, ketoconazole, miconazole, tolnaftate, tioconazole, and terbinafine. Some of these come as a combination cream with hydrocortisone in them because the hydrocortisone can be used to help reduce redness, inflammation and at times itching. These combo products require a prescription.

Clotrimazole

Clotrimazole is indicated for athlete’s foot, ringworm, or sweat rash but you might need the one with hydrocortisone if there is a lot of redness. It’s also available in vaginal formulations as creams and combination packs with vaginal tablets. Clotrimazole cream is safe to use in pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Ketoconazole

Ketoconazole comes as a shampoo which is used for dandruff and also as a wash for pityriasis versicolor. Here at Healthwords we prefer the shampoo over the cream for pityriasis versicolor.

This article has been written by UK-based doctors and pharmacists, so some advice may not apply to US users and some suggested treatments may not be available. For more information, please see our T&Cs.