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Dead Sea Salt Woo

bethanythemartian

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My friend and I are starting a business in candles, bath and beauty (et cetera) and we have made each other a firm no-woo promise. There are many woo claims in this field- not including the approximately bajillion and 2 about freaking candles. "Light green candles for money!" (Your money, no doubt.)

Today, I came up on one that sort of blind-sided me. Bath salts. I've seen mineral baths and salts claim to be... oh, to cure psoriasis and arthritis and excema and blahblahblah. Every time I see 'used and tested for thousands of years' it sets off the crapometer. Also, if i see psoriasis, arthritis, and excema all cured by the same thing.

Weird thing is, we are planning on making bath salts, and I hadn't even thought about it. It's cheap, easy, and fast to throw together.

So, after the long story (sorry) here's my question: what do salt/minerals do to the water, and do they make your skin softer? I know minerals can make water 'soft' (or think I know that, I could be wrong) and 'hard', and I'm pretty sure salt has something to do with ionizing water particles, but I don't know how that translates into the skin. I've heard that salty water helps open wounds heal faster, although I don't remember where I heard that. I just don't know much about the science, and would love if someone who knows about what salts and minerals do in water could explain it to me.



And, because I thought it was funny: "We know that a program of 18 Kilos of Dead Sea Salt (quantity needed for 3 baths per week for 6 weeks) at health food stores would break the bank."

Isn't that something like 2 pounds a bath? (I'm not 100% familiar with kilos.) No wonder it breaks the bank.
 
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I couldn't tell you, but I did stick my feet in the dead sea and didn't feel any different.

:)
 
bethanythemartian said:
My friend and I are starting a business in candles, bath and beauty (et cetera) and we have made each other a firm no-woo promise. There are many woo claims in this field- not including the approximately bajillion and 2 about freaking candles. "Light green candles for money!" (Your money, no doubt.)

Today, I came up on one that sort of blind-sided me. Bath salts. I've seen mineral baths and salts claim to be... oh, to cure psoriasis and arthritis and excema and blahblahblah. Every time I see 'used and tested for thousands of years' it sets off the crapometer. Also, if i see psoriasis, arthritis, and excema all cured by the same thing.

Weird thing is, we are planning on making bath salts, and I hadn't even thought about it. It's cheap, easy, and fast to throw together.

So, after the long story (sorry) here's my question: what do salt/minerals do to the water, and do they make your skin softer? I know minerals can make water 'soft' (or think I know that, I could be wrong) and 'hard', and I'm pretty sure salt has something to do with ionizing water particles, but I don't know how that translates into the skin. I've heard that salty water helps open wounds heal faster, although I don't remember where I heard that. I just don't know much about the science, and would love if someone who knows about what salts and minerals do in water could explain it to me.



And, because I thought it was funny: "We know that a program of 18 Kilos of Dead Sea Salt (quantity needed for 3 baths per week for 6 weeks) at health food stores would break the bank."

Isn't that something like 2 pounds a bath? (I'm not 100% familiar with kilos.) No wonder it breaks the bank.
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A quick Google finds Cleopatra's at $4 a kilo ( 2.2 pounds) or less than two bucks a pound. Sounds pretty cheap to me.
It would be even more economical if you used homeopathic doses. You could swipe your armpit with a swab and dip it in a swimming pool and produce gallons and gallons of placebo. .
 
Jeff Corey said:
A quick Google finds Cleopatra's at $4 a kilo ( 2.2 pounds) or less than two bucks a pound. Sounds pretty cheap to me.
It would be even more economical if you used homeopathic doses. You could swipe your armpit with a swab and dip it in a swimming pool and produce gallons and gallons of placebo. .
Click to expand...

Pretty cheap? 4 bucks a bath is cheap? I mean, 4 bucks for a couple of pounds of salt is cheap, but if you're dumping that much salt into your bath three times a week, that's a different story. Man, can you even sit on the bottom of the tub with that much salt in there? Even if you're not floating, I'm not sure that amount of salt will dissolve without a lot of stirring. Ouch.

Alas, if only I had a swimming pool. For it to be really effective, I need a sphere the size of the moon with a grain of salt in it, if I remember my homeopathy right. :p



Robinson: I appreciate the link, although some of the descriptions make my eyes cross and steam pour out of my ears. It appears that there's not quite as much woo involved as I suspected, although I may be misreading. Like I said, some of these are hard for me to sort out yea from nea on. Maybe I'll be able to sort it out with more sleep. Again, thanks.
 
bethanythemartian said:
I've heard that salty water helps open wounds heal faster, although I don't remember where I heard that.
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There is a veterinarian sitting in the room with me who says the research as of a couple years ago showed that putting anything on a wound will delay healing. But it really depends on the age-old question, "faster than what." A wound treated with salt water which as a result doesn't get infected will heal faster than an untreated wound that gets infected. (But she says sugar is better than salt for this, and will also hurt a lot less.) A wound treated with salt water will probably heal faster than one treated with sulfuric acid, I would imagine. But a clean wound that isn't gaping and is left open to air will heal fastest of all.
 
I seem to recall someone learnedly medical telling me that salt water (or was it sea-water?) is an effective antiseptic the first time it is used to wash a gaping wound but not after that - the wound would then be clean so what's the point! He also pointed out that clean water with no salt was just as good, you just didn't "feel it doing you good" (over the screams of your pain, I suppose).

As far as I'm aware, your body does not absorb salts inwards through the skin, it only exudes them, in sweat. Salt/oil bath stuff simply coats your skin in whatever the compounds are - oils, perfumes, salts, assorted seaweed extracts, etc. These may do the outer layer of skin some good/harm, but they will sweat off, rub off, or wash off soon enough - within hours, probably. You might also get contact dermatitis due to allergies.

Medicos, enlighten me!
 
There doesn't seem to be much evidence for the specific benefit of mineral salt baths. There will be a strong placebo effect - who doesn't feel better after a hot bath? And there will be an expectation that adding something to the water will give even more benefit.

The uncontrolled (or non-equivalent control groups) studies (from the pubmed list posted earlier) show just what you'd expect - people feel better if they realize they are getting special treatment. I only found two studies that controlled for those factors (sorta).

http://www.springerlink.com/content/c935q873g1368636/

http://content.karger.com/produktedb/produkte.asp?typ=fulltext&file=10.1159/000086305

Here are two Cochrane reviews on the subject, but they don't really answer the question.

http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab006864.html

http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab000518.html

Linda
 
El Greco said:
Interesting. Doesn't seem to be woo.
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I admit being surprised by that. There is a lot of stuff about the combinations of the salts, the mud, and the UV radiation, if you are actually there. I also didn't know you couldn't use Dead Sea Salt as salt, as in food salt. What an ancient and interesting place, that Dead Sea.
 
bethanythemartian said:
I've heard that salty water helps open wounds heal faster, although I don't remember where I heard that.
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I don't know about the speed of healing, but salt water is a good disinfectant. If a wound is infected, or you suspect it may become infected, soaking it in warm, salty water is an effective way to solve it, and much cheaper than buying disinfectants. However, this works for exactly the same reason salt and sugar make good preservatives - it's all about concentrations. To be effective, the salt water needs to be more concentrated than the solution inside cells, so making sure it's completely saturated is best and warming it allows more salt to dissolve.
 
Cuddles said:
I don't know about the speed of healing, but salt water is a good disinfectant. If a wound is infected, or you suspect it may become infected, soaking it in warm, salty water is an effective way to solve it, and much cheaper than buying disinfectants. However, this works for exactly the same reason salt and sugar make good preservatives - it's all about concentrations. To be effective, the salt water needs to be more concentrated than the solution inside cells, so making sure it's completely saturated is best and warming it allows more salt to dissolve.
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Saline has a weak antiseptic effect if it is hyperosmolar (greater than 0.9 percent) (as you pointed out). The bulk of the benefit of soaking a wound is the removal of dead tissue and the products of infection. Anything that is strong enough to kill bacteria is strong enough to harm healthy tissue which can delay healing. If you are going to use an antiseptic on an open wound it should be weak (the saline solution as described above, diluted peroxide, some iodine preparations), but you run the risk of increasing scar formation and it's not recommended as a routine practice. Cleaning with mild soap and water or regular saline is probably best, but does have the disadvantage of being too simple to be perceived as effective :).

Linda
 
What do you mean by "salt"?
If you mean NaCl brine, saturation is about 311kg/m3 at 1.2sg
But most natural brines are a complex eutectic mix of different halides and carbonates.

Soda ash (washing soda, sodium carbonate) is the commonest water softening agent, unless you want to go for organics or ion exchange. It's dirt cheap in industrial quantities, and you don't need much to treat a bath of even hard water- but it would be strongly alkaline unless you buffered it somehow.

I think bath salts are nasty. There's always some undissolved crystals that jag yer bum.
 
Interesting. Well, looking in the cold, sober light of day. With more sleep behind me, most of the experiments that show positive benefit don't mention the procedure used very well. I suppose we'll review whether or not to sell/produce bath salts.


Soapy Sam said:
I think bath salts are nasty. There's always some undissolved crystals that jag yer bum.
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Agreed, honestly.
 
So mix up your own- table salt is only 17 cents/pound. OOOh better yet, buy one of those 50 pound blocks of animal salt lick. A brown one. It has still got algae in it from the sea-side salt beds. Plus it will have an actual chemical analysis attached. Mill it to powder in an eBay flour mill, sell it as easier dissolving, genuine sea salt.

Oh, don't ignore the Dead Sea mud market either. Potter's clay is real cheap, mudpack is exxxpppeeennsive too. Name it after some local lake ersumpthin. Ah- Metropolitan Water Supply Mud, made from the stuff that falls out of your tap water at the filtration plant! You wouldn't allow it into your body! But Schmear it allover! Silt has made the Gulf of Mexico what it is today, Just think what it will do for your body! Get skin just like The Girl From Ipenema!
 
as for the "effect" on arthritis:

i don't have arthritis but i have had problems with chronic back pain. hot salt baths feel reeeaaaal good.

speculating as to why: hot water feels good on muscles (probably circulation). and BUOYANCY. salty brine increases your buoyancy; i find floating and focusing on relaxing is better than sitting on the bottom of the tub and focusing on relaxing.

this should be similarly soothing for an arthritic person. my grandma has arthritis and she's noticed a knock-on effect in terms of tightening muscles.

while anecdotal, i'm not talking about any effects of hot salty water that aren't widely accepted as far as i know.

that said, any ol' salt will do, i'd imagine, although i haven't made it through all those studies.
 
I am having trouble distinguishing between two alternative readings of the title of the thread (Necker-style)

I can read it as:
"(Dead Sea) salt woo" - meaning salt from the Dead Sea... or...
"dead (Sea Salt) woo" - meaning woo about sea salt that is dead.
 
arthwollipot said:
I am having trouble distinguishing between two alternative readings of the title of the thread (Necker-style)

I can read it as:
"(Dead Sea) salt woo" - meaning salt from the Dead Sea... or...
"dead (Sea Salt) woo" - meaning woo about sea salt that is dead.
Click to expand...

or dead (Sea Salt Woo) :eek:
 
zeusbheld said:
as for the "effect" on arthritis:

i don't have arthritis but i have had problems with chronic back pain. hot salt baths feel reeeaaaal good.

speculating as to why: hot water feels good on muscles (probably circulation). and BUOYANCY. salty brine increases your buoyancy;...
Click to expand...

Uhm, just how much buoyancy can you achieve by adding a half pound of salt to 300 pounds of water?
 
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