We hear that all the time. Dead Sea salts, unique minerals, rare chemical compounds and so on. Do we really need them? How do we know it's not just another fad, a popular marketing trick? Speaking Sea language, in this article we are going to dive a little deeper and see what the Dead Sea minerals are and what benefits they could bring to your skin.
How concentrated solutions work
When salts dissolve in water, they break into parts called ions. Every salt ion is capable of holding water molecules. For example, a single chloride ion can hold 8 molecules of water around itself firmly. When the salt ions get into the skin cells, they hold more water inside. More water means more elastic and smooth skin and fewer wrinkles. But besides their combined superpower, all the ions from the Dead Sea salts play their own additional role in the life of every skin cell.
Magnesium
Think of every cell of your body as of a small house. There are repair jobs to be done all the time, some decoration here and there, getting new furniture… Some of the tools used inside the cell are enzymes — they are huge molecules that do a certain kind of job. To work properly, they need something called "co-enzyme" — a molecular equivalent of the handle for the hammer. Some of the co-enzymes are organic (like vitamins), others can be mineral — like magnesium. The Dead Sea Salts contain a much higher concentration of these ions, than even ordinary seawater — 20-30 times more. A skin cell can get magnesium from a cosmetic product with Dead Sea minerals to function properly.
Calcium
Just as for every small house, you need to bring something inside (like groceries) and let something out (like trash). Calcium is the element that regulates how many molecules can pass through the cell membrane. More Calcium — better transport.
Potassium
When a cell lives it consumes the "food" — mostly glucose. It's oxidated to get energy, and after that, the carbon dioxide (that's right, the one we breathe out) is formed. It should leave the cell to be taken away to the lungs. Turns out that the cell requires Potassium to get rid of the nasty carbon dioxide.
But as long as Potassium is necessary for your heart and your brain, most of what you get with food goes to these organs and the skin only gets what's left. When you use cosmetic products enriched with Dead Sea salts, you nourish your skin with necessary amounts of Potassium to let it breathe out easily.
Zinc
To stay young and vibrant, your skin needs to regenerate quickly. This means that new cells have to appear all the time. Zinc participates in the process of cell proliferation — when one cell turns into two new cells.
Fancy minerals require fancy formulations
To be able to get all the perks of the Dead Sea minerals you need to have a certain concentration of salts in the cosmetic product. The main problem is that they alter the body of the product significantly, making the smell, viscosity and the consistency unbearable. So these cosmetic products require completely different ingredients to keep the formulation both effective and convenient. Here at Dead Sea Shop we only work with the manufacturers who have mastered the art of making the care products with high salts concentration and whose cosmetics brings actual benefits to the skin.
