The possibility to obtain a skin anaesthesia using only an ointment may be very usefull for outpatient surgery. Recently available in France, the lidocaine-prilocaine cream give an interesting local anaesthesia. We have used this new presentation as skin preparation before otoplasty for 10 patients. As the local anaesthesia injections are then performed without pain, the comfort of the patient is greatly improved. Furthermore, it is easy to sue and without side-effect. The main disadvantage consists in the action delay of one hour, with the necessity to ask the patient to come earlier.