Benefits of Sea Salt for the Skin
Sea salt is growing in popularity - not just on the dining room table but in skin products as well. It can be found in a variety of different forms in bath salts, soaps and exfoliating scrubs.
Sea salt is growing in popularity - not just on the dining room table but in skin products as well. It can be found in a variety of different forms in bath salts, soaps and exfoliating scrubs. Sea salt is made by taking water from the oceans or saline lakes and letting the water evaporate to leave the salts behind, whereas table salt is mined from salt deposits in the earth and heavily processed to produce "clean" salt.
Exfoliator
Sea salt is an excellent exfoliating treatment, and according to CareFair.com, is found as a primary ingredient in many high-end spa treatments. In a June 2010 article in the "San Jose Mercury News," Lisa Price, founder of Carol's Daughter, a natural beauty product retailer, recommends paying attention to the grade of sea salt used to exfoliate. Sea salt used to rub into the skin shouldn't have rough, sharp edges. The texture of the sea salt should be smooth to the touch, as you want it to gently slough off the dead skin cells, not scratch the skin. It can also be used as a rub to exfoliate and soften tough skin.
Stress Reducer
Ancient Greeks and Romans both used warm seawater as a therapy to help them relax. This is now called talassotherapy, a word derived from the old Greek word thalassa, which means sea. According to Health-Benefit-of-Water.com, sea salt bath therapy provides psychological benefits and improves quality of sleep.
Detoxifier
Sea salt is a natural detoxifier, as the salt absorbs the toxins from the skin. Make a paste out of sea salt and water, apply it to your skin and leave it on for one minute before you get into the shower. Massage the salt off gently in the shower as you bathe. This will not only help detoxify your skin, but will help exfoliate dead skin cells as you rinse it off.
Additional Benefits
Increased circulation, antiseptic effects, soft skin without a greasy feel and reduction in fluid retention are just some of the additional benefits of sea salt for the skin. Since sea salt does not go through the same manufacturing processes as table salt, the minerals from the sea remain, giving sea salts different colorings depending on where they are from. Many of these minerals also provide nutrients and benefits to the skin.