Dermally-deposited contaminants may bind to and react with keratin proteins in the stratum corneum. We have developed and evaluated a non-invasive tape-stripping method for the removal of keratin proteins from the stratum corneum for normalization of extract concentrations from 20 human volunteers before and after exposure to 25 µl of jet fuel (JP-8). Due to the potential for variable amounts of squame tissue recovered in each tape-stripped sample, we investigated the need to normalize recovered or extracted chemical to the amount of tissue stripped. Keratin proteins were extracted in a buffer and quantified using a modified Bradford Method (AmrescoTM). Confirmation of the extraction of keratin proteins was verified by western blotting using a monoclonal mouse anti-human cytokeratin antibody (DakoTM Corporation). This tape-stripping method removed a constant amount of keratin proteins, which decreased with sequential tape strippings. The mean mass of keratin proteins for sequential tape strips varied from 154 ± 75.3 µg for the first tape strip to 52.8 ± 17.3 µg for the fifth tape strip for the unexposed sites and from 128 ± 63.8 µg for the first tape strip to 58.4 ± 21.6 µg for the fifth tape strip for the exposed sites. Thus, duration of jet fuel exposure did not affect the amount of keratin protein recovered from the tape strips. There was no difference in the removal of keratin proteins per tape strip from unexposed and exposed sites between sex, age, ethnicity, or skin pigmentation at the significance level of 0.05. Normalization against the amount of keratin in each tape-strip sample did not improve quantification of dermal exposure to naphthalene. Thus, we concluded that normalization of the tape-strip samples for keratin content is not required when determining dermal exposure to jet fuel. The technique developed may have a wide range of applications from determining the actual amount of compound absorbed by the skin, assessing exposure in field studies, development of better models for the prediction of exposure, and determining risk.