7 Best Pain Relief Creams, Pharmacists-Ranked 2025 | U.S. News (2025)

The Best OTC Medicine & Health Products are based on the reviews of nearly 500 independent pharmacists and dermatologists.

U.S. News partnered with The Harris Poll, a global market research and consulting firm with more than 65 years of experience conducting surveys. For the 2025 rankings, The Harris Poll randomly assigned 133 over-the-counter categories of health or personal care products to 357 pharmacists and 134 dermatologists who practice in the U.S. and asked them to rank their top three brands for each category based on what products they would most recommend to consumers.

Independence and transparency

Across the 133 categories that were evaluated, each category included between five and 10 products representing their respective brands that could be ranked. More than 1,100 products were included in the survey. The products included in each category were selected to represent their respective brands based on input by several independent pharmacists and dermatologists on our

. The list of products were finalized by the health editorial team to ensure all products can be purchased without a prescription and are readily available at most pharmacies or pharmacy sections of grocery stores in the U.S.

We independently evaluate the products we recommend. Brands do not pay to be included or ranked in our survey. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. The dermatologists and pharmacists who participated in the survey were paid a small honorarium by The Harris Poll for their time.

OTC category winners

Pharmacists and dermatologists selected their top three brands from representative products in each OTC category assigned to them. At least 112 dermatologists evaluated each skincare-related category and at least 108 pharmacists evaluated each of the other categories. For each evaluation, the top-ranked brand received 5 points, the second-place brand was awarded 3 points and the third-place brand earned 1 point. All unranked brands were given 0 points. Points were averaged for each brand. The results were then rescaled so the winner in each category scored 100 points, and the scores for other brands were expressed as percentages of the top score. Brands were then ranked according to their rescaled scores. Scores were rounded to the nearest whole number.

Category winners and brands that scored within the margin of error of the category winner and achieved a score of 80 or higher were given a Gold Badge in that category. The results: 196 brands received a Gold Badge. In total, 849 products are displayed. Brands that received a score of less than 10 were not included in the final display list. See our full methodology here.