The differential diagnosis of herpes simplex and zoster may require virological confirmation, yet virus typing is not regarded as necessary in routine dermatological assessment. In an attempt to evaluate the clinical benefits of the routine detection of herpes simplex virus (HSV) and varicella zoster virus (VZV), we analysed skin swabs from 110 patients who were diagnosed at the first clinical visit as having herpes simplex (n = 45) or zoster (n = 65). Viruses were typed using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with the general primer pair GPHV-RU. PCR analysis showed that at the initial clinical presentation, herpes simplex in these patients was not mistaken for zoster but that zoster was incorrectly diagnosed as herpes simplex in nine cases. Thus these results suggest that initial zoster often mimics herpes simplex, hence routine PCR diagnosis of HSV and VZV or alternative rapid diagnostic approaches may be beneficial in these cases.