Sea Salt for Seborrheic Dermatitis - Treatment Guide and Research Summary

Im really interested to all the information re: SD. Right now Im suffering itchy scalp and some small rashes in different areas of my body and I am already so depressed about it…
Thanks for the info…

Hi Nenita,

Hope some of the info helps. If you haven’t done so already consider reading through this post.
It’s a quite long, but covers my whole experience with SD. Strange enough my scalp went away as my face got under control.

Hope some of the information on the site helps.
All the best.

I tried the pink himalayan salt baths and afterwards it gave me terrible terrible itching… Dont understand why

Hi Eateban,

It’s really hard to say why this happens.
I’ve had similar experience. Sometimes it would burn, other times it calm it instead.
However, I wasn’t using himalayan salt, just regular sea salt or dead sea salt.

Also I had magnesium salt flakes. These burnt my skin like crazy.
Strange thing is that it (the magnesium flakes) would burn and then actually provide relief. But it didn’t really provide a fix though.

Hope that helps.

Hi Michael,

I have had seborrheic dermatitis on my eyebrows for almost 5 years. it started as a Gunk of dead skin on my eyebrow and grows into a full blown flaking all over my eyebrows.
the problem with SD in eyebrow is that it causes serious hair-falling and get me stressed, sparse eyebrow looks terrible on me, and the worst part is that i am a 17 years old teen boy. my appereance matters so much for me :’( :’(

all these 5 years, i tried to treat my eyebrow with Shampoos like Head nShoulders, Selsun, and Nizoral 2%, LIMITED TO NO SUCESS AT ALL :’ :’

so, my question is, is it safe to apply Sea Salt to my eyebrows??
i am a little bit obsessive and i don’t want my eyebrows to fall, each time it falls my heart mourn out of anxiety and depression,

thanks for reading,
reading your post actually sparks a new hope in me!

i hope someday, we will ALL be freed from SD .

THANKS

recently i moved from indonesia to New zealand, the weather in NZ was so cold and it gets my SD worse,

Hi Nicholas,

Sorry to hear about your story, however you are not alone and quite a large number of people face the same issue you as you (me being one of them). Best thing to do is to try and stay calm, and perhaps start a food journal.
One of the biggest things that had a negative impact on my SD was all the crap information on the internet regarding the topic. So be careful online and always be sceptical when reading.

Sea salt is safe for all skin, however you might have issues if your skin is excessively raw and damaged. In this case the sea salt will cause burning and can irritate the skin further.
A way to overcome this obstacle is by simply diluting with more water, until no irritation occurs. However, then the solution may not be as effective.

If you haven’t yet, consider checking out the “Overview of Seborrheic Dermatitis Face Treatments” post. I’ve covered as much as possible from my experience there. The Cetaphil products mentioned in that post have had fairly good success for a significant amount of people, but some reported irritation. So try to get samples if possible. Additionally, you may want to consider joining the community, as it’s a good chance to communicate with others going down the same road.

I’m currently trying to write a book on the subject. However, it’s quite hard as most of the medical community currently has no clear explanation for why some of us have SD, while others don’t. However, I believe I’ve uncovered a few things that may connect us. Will email you with any updates on this (need to do a bit more testing).

Hope that helps and all the best.

Hey Michael,
I used the salt method last night for my facial SD using the mixture of half a tea spoon to 250ml, I watered my face then poured the salt mixture of my face leaving it for 5 minutes then I washed off, in the morning (now) the redness was reduced but the SD is still there, so I have a few questions, how long should I keep doing this method for e.g 1 every day or twice a week? And will my SD be gone in how much time ? Thank you :slight_smile:

Hi Connor,

If your SD keeps improving, simply keep at it. On average I found that it takes about a week for everything to clear up (if treatment is actually working).
For me though, the sea salt seemed to become less effective over time and then stopped working all together.

A more complete outline of everything I’ve tried is outlined in the “Overview of Seborrheic Dermatitis Face Treatments” post.
The Restoraderm mentioned there has been working for about a year now. However, just in the past month I think I may have found a more specific (food) related issue. However, I still need time to know for sure. If you want a preview of that approach there is a link and password for it in this comment on that overview post.

Let me know if I’ve missed anything or if you want any other questions.
Hope that helps mate and best of luck.

Okay yeah I’ll keep it up for a couple more days and see how it goes! I’ll read the other overview of seboherric dermantits later in the morning. Perhaps a preview would be good thanks :slight_smile: one more question, should i just wash it over my skin or let in soak in and use a cotton bud? Which method is better in your opinion? Thanks heaps Michael

Also when I do apply the salt with water on the face it doesn’t seem to sting? Is that normal

Hi Connor,
For me, I found that the facial soaks were much more effective than just washing with it. After the soak, I would typically rinse with cold water and let air dry.
All the best.

In terms of the stinging, I found a big factor to be the state of the SD. If the skin is damaged you may experience some stinging. If it is just in the general inflamed & dry state, the sea salt shouldn’t cause any stinging. However, I guess the concentration of the sea salt will also play a role.

Yes this actually seems to mirror my own experiments in regards to my thinking in slightly changing my my skins ph using added sodium chloride aka table salt in a 2ltr bottle of water and drank over the course of 2 hours in the gym. I have found that the skin around my nose and sides of face became clearer currently I have stopped this to check what happens and I’m having a flare up going on to use it again and I’ll post back

Sounds good. Thanks for the update!
I’ve sent you a private message as well, with all the current done book chapters (still working on the editing though).
All the best mate.

I am trying a higher salt diet along with Sea salt plus distilled water face soaks at 1/2 tsp per liter h2o.
This new research study lead me to try this.
“Cutaneous Na storage strengthens the antimicrobial barrier function in skin…”
With a conclusion that increasing sodium content in the skin by a high salt diet boosted activation of macrophages and promoted cutaneous antimicrobial defense. Now you have a mechanism of action for the healing of seb derm.

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the article. Good to see some data to explain what I had experienced as well.
The only issue though is it may not be a good approach long-term or individuals who have medical reasons for avoiding too much sodium.

How has this approach been going for you?

This is what I’ve been doing for a bit more than a month now.

All the best.

My problem is seboreich derm in my eyebrows bad to the point of so much inflammation and scale til eyebrow hair is falling out. I’m gonna try this because my sodium is always low and this seems to sound very interesting

Hi Steve,

Let me know how it goes. Would be interesting to hear the experience of someone else.
Mine never fully went away with neither the salt soaks or the sodium increase. However, being less restrictive with sodium may have played a significant role in overall recovery.

This is approach has completely gotten rid of it for the past 5-6 weeks. And here is what had helped tremendously prior to this.

Hope things go back to normal for you. Best of luck.

Currently have facial seborrheic dermatitis… used steroid cream previously but after stopping it, symptoms came back and SD came with a vengeance.

Just bought epsom salt, I read around that it’s similar to dead sea salt… Just wondering, how often do you have to apply, and how do you go about applying it? Like how much water do you mix with the salt, and how do you rinse your face with it, how long etc.

Thank you!

Hi Bjorn,

Hard to say with epsom salts as they are mangesium sulfate as opposed to magnesium chloride and sodium chloride.
When using sea salt or dead sea salt I would typically mix about a tea spoon to a large salad bowl of slightly cold water. Then I would dip my face in the water for as long as I could. After I was done I would simply rinse off and go on my way.

As noted in the article this worked really well at first, but after about a week results disappeared.
Cetaphil Restoraderm products worked really well for quite some time and currently I’ve made my own solution which I’ve been using for the past 2-3 months.

Hope that helps and let me know if you have any other questions.

Best of luck.