Hidden Beauty Benefits of Salt

Despite what you may have heard about sodium and your health, natural sources of salt hold vital nutrients that are important in maintaining optimal wellness. Our bodies contain the same concentration of minerals and nutrients as sea water, so it’s no wonder that sea salt is a natural ally to balance, protect, and restore the body and skin.

One of the major differences between sea salt and ordinary salt is the mineral content: Sea salt is laden with minerals, including magnesium, calcium, sodium, and potassium, all of which play a key role in our skin’s health, function, and cellular communication. When your skin’s mineral balance is off-kilter, symptoms such as dryness, dullness, irritation, and blotchiness ensue, especially as the colder, dryer weather sets in. Bringing sea salt from the kitchen into your beauty routine can help balance and improve hydration, strengthen the protective barrier of our skin, and kick-start the cell-to-cell communication signals that slow down with age.

Helps Acne

Salt water opens pores, which helps remove toxins from your skin. If you have acne, salt water removes the excess oil from your skin.

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Improves healing of skin

There are many therapeutic effects from bathing in the mineral-rich salt water, because it contains magnesium, potassium, and sulfur. Thousands of people travel each year to bathe in the Dead Sea for its healing properties.

Salt water is also thought to be beneficial for skin that suffers from eczema or psoriasis.

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Fights Infection

Salt water can help fight skin infections because of its antibacterial properties. Due to its antibacterial properties salt has long been used as a preservative. Salt kills some types of bacteria, effectively by sucking water out of them. In a process known as osmosis, water passes out of a bacterium so as to balance salt concentrations on each side of its cell membrane.

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Hydrates skin

Research shows that bathing in magnesium-rich salt water improves skin barrier function, enhances skin hydration and reduces inflammation of the skin. According to Dr Low Chai Ling, whether or not a salt is drying comes down to its composition: “Ordinary salt is largely sodium chloride, which can be dehydrating,” she says, “but mineral salt, such as Dead Sea salt, is rich in magnesium and calcium, which improve hydration by strengthening the barrier function of the skin.”

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Disclaimer

Table salt is highly processed and bleached. It’s not this type of salt that is good for your skin or your health. Look for natural sea salt products to use in your summer skin care routine. Although salt water does have many benefits, you need to be careful about overdoing it. Swimming in the ocean can be healing, but it can also make dry skin worse. A saltwater swimming pool can have added chlorine. Rinse well after swimming and follow with a hyaluronic acid serum and a good moisturizer.

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Incorporate Salt into your beauty regime

Salt water can be part of your beauty skin care routine.In fact, many beauty recipes and therapies have abandoned hard water and replaced them with softer salt water or saline. Treatments such as Aqua.dermabrasion uses three jets of saline with different vitamins and mild fruit acids to effect a host of different skin benefits from exfoliation to skin toning. Hydrafacial is another therapy that harnesses the power of saline water to clean skin.