When we think about salt, we tend to only think about its use in food. However, salt [Sodium Chloride] is also used for health, wellness, and beauty recipes and remedies.

Salt comes in various colors and textures, from larger crystals to delicate flakes. There are many variations of salt, depending on where it originates and the harvesting methods. These slight differences make some more suitable than others for various applications.

The History of Salt as a Health and Beauty Remedy.

For thousands of years, the story of salt has woven itself throughout human history. In medical texts from Ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece to China, the Arab world, and throughout Europe, Salt has been used medicinally and topically in various ways.

Human societies have been integral for millennia, whether salt was added to compresses, inhaled as a vapor, bathed in, or added to healing recipes and drinks.

You can use salt for gargling sore throats, bathe in it to relieve muscle aches and tension, and for numerous cosmetic and body care formulas.

It also features an ingredient in countless DIY Beauty recipes, as it is antiseptic, anti-fungal, anti-microbial, and anti-bacterial. Salt helps stimulate blood circulation, has anti-aging properties, and is exfoliating.

What Salt Can You Use in DIY Beauty Recipes?

The best salt is in its natural state, which hasn’t been chemically refined and processed. Most common table salt is stripped of its mineral content, so it isn’t the most beneficial beauty ingredient. Table salt is often bleached or has iodine added and anti-caking agents.

There are, however, a variety of gourmet salts that have their mineral and nutrient content intact, which will work very well for various beauty and wellness needs. They are delicious too!

Read on to learn about;

• Pink Himalayan Salt
• Celtic French grey/Sel Gris
• Fleur de Sel
• Hawaiian Red Sea Salt
• Hawaiian Black Lava Sea Salt.
• Kala Namak/Black Salt

1. Pink Himalayan Rock Salt Wellness Benefits.

Pink Himalayan salt comes from the Punjab region of Pakistan, where it is hand-harvested in its pure natural form. It gets its beautiful pink color from the iron oxide present in it.

The vast salt mines were once an ancient ocean that evaporated over time, leaving behind a mineral-rich salt deposit buried for millions of years, preserving its potency and purity.

While pink Himalayan salt has many fans for its clean, crisp taste, it contains 84 naturally occurring trace minerals; they include magnesium, phosphorous, iron, iodine, calcium, selenium, and zinc. Therefore its health benefits go way beyond taste.

This salt detoxifies, relaxes muscles, cleanses, and exfoliates. It is an excellent salt for foot baths or bathing after sports or tension. Salt can also help clear up skin conditions.

Pink Himalayan salt is in 360 Ayurvedic remedies for various health and wellness issues.

2. High Moisture Benefits of Sel Gris/Celtic French Grey Sea Salt.

Sel Gris, otherwise known as Celtic Salt or French Grey Salt, was at the heart of the salt trade in Europe for centuries. It is a coarser-grained, pale grey sea salt harvested off France’s coastal waters.

Sel Gris is called Celtic Grey because of the Celtic harvesting technique employed where wooden implements rake the salt at the bottom of clay-lined salt pans.

This ensures the preservation of the living enzymes present in the salt. The Clay is also responsible for the stunning pale grey color.

Sel Gris contains more moisture at around 13% than ordinary table salt, about 0.5%. It is denser by volume than regular table salt and makes it ideal as a delicious finishing salt.

Sel Gris doesn’t draw out moisture from food like Kosher salt, but this makes it ideal to buy for DIY beauty recipes as it will not be as drying to the skin and hair as other salts can be.

3. Fleur de Sel, a Luxury Gourmet Sea Salt.

Fleur de Sel derives from its delicate flower-like structure, meaning Flower of the salt. It is also known as the ‘Caviar of sea Salts,’ one of the market’s highest quality, most prized, and most expensive salts.

Fleur de Sel is hand-harvested using the traditional method used for centuries by skimming the pure, fragile salt that forms on the top of the water in the same salt pans that produce Sel Gris.

Sel Gris is harvested from the bed of the salt pan and Fleur de sel from the top of the water. It is also often referred to as the cream of salt, as it is skimmed in the way that cream is skimmed off the top of milk.

Fleur de sel is highly sought after as a gourmet finishing salt. Fleur de Sel salt production is labor-intensive, hand-harvested only in the right dry and sunny conditions when the wind is low, making it very expensive. It also has a high moisture content, around 13%.

Fleur de Sel has been harvested for thousands of years and has a tradition as an ingredient used medically as a purgative or salve.

The high moisture content makes Fleur de Sel suitable for luxury natural beauty recipes.

4. Hawaiian Alaea Red Sea Salt Infused With Red Clay.

Hawaiian Red Sea Salt is a mixture of mineral-rich unrefined sea salt from the Pacific Ocean mixed with a volcanic clay called Alaea.

This Clay is mined from between layers of lava rock and gives this Hawaiian sea salt its stunning deep red color. Alaea contains over 80 minerals and is rich in iron oxide.

Authentic Hawaiian Alaea Red Sea Salt is used in native, traditional cuisine and blesses homes, temples, tools, and boats.

While this is a specialty salt for cooking, the Clay and the sea salt’s mineral-rich content makes this a unique nutrient-rich salt to use in natural beauty recipes that call for salt, infusing them with its beautiful color and beneficial Clay.

Topical Beauty Benefits Of Clay.

• Absorbs oil
• Removes impurities
• Cleanses
• Brightens
• Refines
• Exfoliates

Read this post on Clay’s fantastic natural beauty benefits for the skin and hair.

5. Hawaiian Black Lava Sea Salt Infused With Activated Charcoal.

Hawaiian Black Lava Sea salt is harvested from the Pacific Ocean, utilizing the same mineral-rich sea salt as Hawaiian Alaea Red Salt.

It comes from the sea around Molokai, one of the least developed Hawaiian islands, so the sea is among the cleanest and least exposed to commercial contamination.

Infused with activated charcoal, Hawaiian Black Salt evaporates to leave the salt’s mineral benefits, electrolytes, and large crystal structure intact.

This creates a salt much higher in beneficial nutrients than regular table salt, which is about 95% sodium chloride, compared to 84% sodium chloride for this unique black sea salt.

While this salt makes a fantastic gourmet finishing salt, its mineral benefits and charcoal content will significantly enhance any DIY natural beauty recipe that uses salt.

Benefits Of Activated Charcoal For Beauty Treatments;

• Balancing Oily Skin
• Detoxifying Skin
• Acne Treatments
• Whitens Teeth
• Tightens and Cleanses Pores

6. Black Salt – Kala Namak.

Kala Namak, referred to as Himalayan Black Salt, is unrefined salt-containing various sulfur compounds and a staple part of South Indian cuisine.

Known for its sulfurous, pungent smell, similar to boiled eggs, it also gains traction as a specialty salt in vegan cooking to add an egg-like flavor to things like tofu scramble or potato salads.

Numerous Ayurvedic treatments and remedies make use of Kala Namak, and it has been used historically for its purported health and medical benefits, specifically as a digestive aid.

This salt is a common ingredient in making various toothpaste; add it to your DIY toothpaste recipes!

The Beauty Benefits Of Sulfur.

Sulfur is essential in building healthy bones, teeth, connective tissue, skin, nails, and hair. It is also said to aid with acne, eczema, and psoriasis. Used topically, it encourages cell turnover and renewal for anti-aging skin benefits.

It has anti-inflammatory and antiseptic benefits. When taken in capsule form or as an ingredient in hair or skin treatments, Sulfer can effectively improve the look and feel of the hair and skin.

Conclusion.

There is so much more to salt than the heavily processed, bleached product millions of people use daily.

All salt originates from the sea, but the mineral makeup, extraction methods, climate, and other elements, make up subtle differences that have an exciting and wide variety of uses for health, beauty, and wellness.

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