Home Remedies for Acne Series – Sea Salt Acne Treatment

Last time MyShimmer cov­ered whether Yaz birth control actually helps reduce acne,  but Yaz is still a rad­i­cal choice for many as it is, after all, a prescip­tion drug that is orig­i­nally intended for some­thing else. So this time we are going to talk about a home rem­edy for acne that is cheap and com­pletely DIY — sea salt.

Sea salt is less expen­sive,  easy to find , and a truly nat­ural and chem­i­cal free acne treat­ment. If you have tried ben­zoyl per­ox­ide and have aller­gic reac­tions to the chem­i­cals, this might be the right solu­tion for you.

Putting salt on my wounds… why?

Sea salt has very high con­tent of mag­ne­sium, iodine, zinc, and cal­cium, mak­ing it ideal for anti-inflammation pur­poses. Have you ever gone swim­ming in the ocean with a wound on your skin and expe­ri­enced a painful burn­ing sen­sa­tion? Sea salt actu­ally speeds up the wound heal­ing process by burn­ing the tis­sues, forc­ing the body to heal faster. While float­ing in the sea in order to heal your wounds isn’t exactly the smartest thing to do because of all the bac­te­ria in the water, using puri­fied sea salt is a cheap, fast, per­haps slightly painful yet def­i­nitely effec­tive way of cleans­ing and dis­in­fect­ing small wounds.

How do I use sea salt to treat acne?

Facial exfo­li­a­tion
Sea salt is ideal for exfo­li­a­tion because the grains help slough off dead skin from the sur­face of your face while pro­mot­ing health nat­ural excre­tion of facial oil. Many exfo­li­a­tion creams on the mar­ket are packed with chem­i­cals that rub off dead skin but leave your skin flaky and exces­sive dry.

what you need: coarse sea salt, water
1. Put 3 table­spoons of coarse sea salt in a mix­ing bowl, then add dou­ble the amount of water. Adding water adds mois­ture into the sea salt and makes it eas­ier to be rubbed into your skin.
2. Moist your face with splashes of water. Gently rub the grains on your face — pay extra atten­tion to dry spots to fas­ten the emerg­ing of new skin. Don’t be too rough though, coarse sea salts could actu­ally scratch your face if you apply too much force.
3. Left the salt on your face for 3–5 min­utes after your entire face has been exfo­li­ated.
4. Rinse with warm water, and gen­tly pad dry your skin. Remember to apply toner or mois­tur­izer to keep your skin soft and hydrated.

Sea salt face wash
Breakout before a big date! It is cer­tainly tempt­ing to apply an inch of acne cream on your spots and pray that it would dry the acne up faster — well it usu­ally works, but it would also dry up your skin and leave it flaky and itchy after­ward. Sea salt has the same func­tion of treat­ing acne break­out by killing off bac­te­ria and fas­ten­ing the heal­ing process, but it doesn’t irri­tate your skin the way acne cream often does.

What you need: sea salt, water, mild facial cleanser

1. Warm up a cup of water with microwave, add 1–2 tea­spoon of sea salt and stir until it com­pletely dis­solves.
2. Wash your face thor­oughly with a mild facial cleanser.
3. Soak a face towel in the salt water solu­tion and lay the towel across the acne you want to treat for 5–7 min­utes. There’s no need to apply pres­sure.
4. Wash your face with warm water and apply toner and mois­tur­izer to keep skin hydrated.
5. Repeat twice a day until acne clears up.

A few things to keep in mind…

• Purchase sea salt and avoid using reg­u­lar table salt. Table salt is often treated with chem­i­cals and might irri­tate your skin.
• Remember to apply toner or mois­tur­izer after each sea salt treat­ment to keep skin hydrated. Dry skin could lead to an exces­sive secre­tion of oil on the sur­face of your skin, which might end up mak­ing your acne worse.
• Excessive use of sea salt on your skin could lead to flak­i­ness and irri­ta­tion. Avoid cuts and wounds.
• Consult your der­ma­tol­o­gist if you have any aller­gic reactions.
• If you have del­i­cate skin, you may want to try this at only the infected area, and mas­sage gen­tly to pre­vent over-exfoliating the skin.