The Dead Sea
I just got back from an amazing trip to Israel! While I am jet lagged to the point of feeling narcoleptic, I had to tell you about my experience at the Dead Sea. My partner and I joined my parents for a one night stay at a hotel, and we spent most of our time floating in the mineral-rich water. It is nothing like swimming in a regular ocean. First of all, it is bathwater temperature and feels incredibly oily. Second, the salt content of the water is so high that I floated like a styrofoam cup. It feels kind of goofy and incredibly relaxing at the same time.
It is recommended to take a break after floating for 15 minutes (which is not hard to remember; let’s just say that several body parts start stinging noticeably). After a quick rinse and sea mud application (thus the photo; that’s me on the right!), the mud dries and draws out impurities in the skin. It get so tight, it feels really nice to wash it off in the water and float again. Just one day of “salting” myself left my skin feeling amazing! Not only was it smooth and moisturized, but the flakiness on my knees and elbows disappeared. It’s no wonder that people from all over the world visit the Dead Sea to correct many skin ailments (seborrhea, psoriasis, dandruff).
The experience reminded me of a job that I worked on not long ago. I had been hired to do makeup for a major motion picture’s press junket. The actor I groomed is a well-known movie star, and when I showed up to do his makeup I was shocked to see the state of his skin. He had gotten sunburned while golfing a few days earlier, and his whole face was peeling. I was annoyed that he neglected his skin the week before such an important appearance (sunblock people!). My regular exfoliant was not working on him, so I politely excused myself and ran over to the studio caterer to grab a packet of sea salt. After mixing some salt with a dollop of rich moisturizer, I applied it to his face and tissued it off. Bingo! The dissolved salt immediately sloughed off the remains of his dead skin, and the cream helped replenish the moisture he had lost.
So just in case you can’t make it to the Dead Sea anytime soon, you can still reap the benefits by using the same technique I described above. Make sure that you dissolve the salt really well with plenty of moisturizer before applying, and use almost no pressure (otherwise it could scratch and irritate your skin).