Epsom Salt Makes Your Bath Better, but Doesn’t Do Anything for Your Muscles
If your muscles ache, you will feel great immersed in a warm Epsom salts bath. This is almost entirely due to taking the time to give yourself a beautiful bath and pay attention to your body, which has just done this hard work for you. Is it all about pain relief? I’m sorry but there is no.
Think about it – do you really expect epsom salt to migrate through your skin and into your muscles? What exactly will they do when they get there? Our skin works to keep substances out, so you don’t constantly poison yourself with everything you touch.
An article published in the journal Pain Science explains this theory in great detail, including what the epsom salts are supposed to do, whether they penetrate the skin, what is wrong with popular treatment explanations, and more. Bottom line: Epsom salts can give water a silky feel that you might love on your skin, but that’s about it.
And that’s okay, because they are great for creating a little bubble of affordable luxury for yourself. Epsom salt is also a convenient way to transfer sweet-smelling essential oils into the bath, and is usually much cheaper than fancy bath bombs. (The essential oil is meant to smell good, not to do any herbal magic, of course.) So sit back and enjoy the bath salts, now that you know a little more about what they are actually for. …
Does Epsom Salt Work? | The Science of Pain