Why You’ll Want to Grab Dead Sea Salts for Your Next Bath
April is National Stress Awareness Month — April 5th actually marks National Self-Care Day (with International Self-Care Day following in July). Given how incredibly tense and restless the last few years have been, at Repêchage we’re in constant pursuit of ways to relieve stress, melt away negative and oppressive energy, and improve our overall health and happiness. And we like to start with our skin!
One of our favorite ways to treat and indulge our skin is taking a bath. Soaking for 10, 15, even 20 minutes in the tub seems impossible (who has that time, right?), when a shower could be turned out in record time, but it’s really an incredible way to reset our systems and welcome wellness into our worlds. And we prefer ours with a dose of therapeutic and deeply restorative bath salts, and we’ll caveat that with an even more specific qualifier — because not all bath salts were created equal — Dead Sea bath salts are the ones we’re grabbing.
You can find “soaking salts” for the bath pretty much anywhere (and we’ll compare differences later on), but if you’re after a true spa and self-care-concerned time in the tub — with the maximum amount of post-bath benefits — then you will have to do it with dead sea salts, because they do it all.
Here’s Why:
- Legacy: The Dead Sea was legitimately one of the ancient world’s first premier health resorts, fostering a centuries-old practice of locals and tourists bathing in its saline and mineral-rich waters for natural healing. So, it makes sense that dead sea salts would be the most effective health elixir to use in our modern world now.
- Documented success for skin: A number of studies have supported the tremendous effects of a magnesium-rich dead sea salt solution in improving skin barrier health and function, enhancing hydration and moisture retention, and reducing the appearance of redness and irritation on the skin.
- A fountain of youth: Taking the above into consideration, with enhanced hydration, an improved barrier, dead sea salts are a wellspring of anti-aging benefits. Using them as part of your daily or weekly routine can not only help you look more youthful and hydrated, it can also help curb the appearance of cellulite… Win, win, win!!
- Maximum potency: The amount of minerals found in Dead Sea water is incomparably higher than the rest of the world. Nearly a dozen of the naturally-present minerals in the Dead Sea aren’t available anywhere else. In addition, the waters of the Dead Sea are unique compared to other seas and lakes because it contains a high concentration of salts at 27% compared to 3% in ordinary sea waters. Ordinary sea water contains mostly sodium chloride (regular table salt), whereas the Dead Sea contains a richer mixture of naturally occurring nutrients, including magnesium, potassium, calcium chlorides and bromides.
Of course, given their golden attributes, dead sea salts can be pricey, but it’s well worth the expense when you get a glimpse of the payoff. In case you need a cheat sheet for comparison purposes, take a look at the below!
Epsom Salts Vs Pink Himalayan Salts Vs Dead Sea Salts
All of the salts have a capacity to hydrate, nourish, and exfoliate the skin — leading to a more radiant and glowing effect — but we’ll always go the dead sea route when given the choice, because its lengthy set of skin and total body-wellness perks is easily the most impressive.
Epsom Salts: Aren’t even true salts (lacking sodium chloride), but, rather, minerals crystallized in water containing a blend of magnesium, sulfur, and oxygen. Their point of origin is the town of Epsom in Surrey, London where they were first discovered, but today many of the epsom salts are manufactured not harvested.
Pink Himalayan Salts: These pink-hued salts are of the rock variety and extracted from the Khewra Salt Mine, one of the oldest and largest salt mines in the world, located near the Himalayan mountain range in Pakistan. They’re more commonly used in cooking and to purify pollutants in the air. However, they have considerably less salt content (sodium chloride) than regular salt and also the naturally occurring minerals are found in small quantities providing very little health benefits.
Dead Sea Salts: These salts are harvested directly from the Dead Sea in Israel, the lowest land-based elevation in the world (1412 feet below sea level, to be exact). And unlike the sea water anywhere else on the globe, Dead Sea Salt has a unique mineral composition including magnesium, calcium, sulfur, bromide, iodine, sodium, zinc, and potassium as well as some rare minerals. Dead sea salts are not for consumption but rather are proven to help in a variety of skin conditions and concerns providing extensive beautifying, cleansing, and detoxifying superpowers.
Our brand-new Vita Cura® CelluSea Renewal™ Dead Sea Bath Salts is just the thing to turn your bath into a total VIP spa event — one that leaves you feeling renewed, refreshed, and relaxed with smooth skin all over. A natural aroma of Orange, Grapefruit, Lavender, Cucumber, and Mint add to an aromatherapeutic ambiance to the entire experience. Just opening the bottle will transport you to a place of TLC. No joke!
How to Make a Bath Chandler Bing Would Be Jealous Of (you remember that iconic ‘it’s the bath salts’ scene - we promise, this will be better than that):
To use, add a half to a full cup of salts into a bathtub of water at 95˚ F or 35˚ C. Relax in the tub for 10 – 15 minutes and finish off with a cool rinse. For full benefits, the product is safe to use in the bath daily, but we suggest preparing your own Dead Sea Salt soak three times a week, at a minimum.