Buzzy Beauty Ingredient of the Moment: Magnesium

Welcome to our series “Buzzy Beauty Ingredient of the Moment,” the premise of which is pretty self-explanatory: In each installment, we’ll explore an ingredient that’s currently trending in the industry, springing up in a variety of different products lining the beauty aisle. We’ll consult experts to find out about the science behind it — and why it’s having a major moment right now.

The $6.3 trillion global wellness industry is no stranger to magnesium supplements — think sleep-promising flavored gummies, relaxation-enhancing daily capsules, bone-building powders and bite-size calming snacks. It’s even the central ingredient of TikTok’s beloved “sleepy girl mocktail,” a nighttime blend of tart cherry juice, prebiotic soda and magnesium powder. Now, beauty and wellness brands are taking the essential mineral topical via skin- and body-care products advertising boosted skin barriers, muscle relief and restorative rest.

Perhaps you recognize magnesium from memorizing the periodic table during middle school science class (shout out to “Bill Nye the Science Guy”), but the mineral is more than just the 12th element: Magnesium is a key player in more than 300 enzymatic reactions in the body, making it crucial for supporting strong bones and cellular repair, explains Dr. Hadley King, a New York City-based board-certified dermatologist. It was first recognized back in 1755 by British chemist Joseph Black, and though magnesium is never found on its own in nature, it’s the eighth most abundant element in Earth’s crust, with seawater serving as our main magnesium reservoir. (As Nye says: “Science rules.”)

“It’s essential for overall body health, particularly bone health and muscle strength,” Dr. King tells Fashionista. “For the skin, magnesium plays a part in maintaining the levels of fatty acids on the surface of the skin, which help keep the skin moisturized, and in maintaining collagen levels.”

Magnesium is also involved in a myriad of bodily functions like energy production, protein synthesis, muscle and nerve function, blood glucose control, regulating neurotransmitters and maintaining healthy blood pressure, New York City-based board-certified dermatologist Dr. Pooja Rambhia notes. As the ingredient gradually enters the skin-care space, early clinical trials have shown signs that topical magnesium may enhance the skin barrier, reduce redness and improve wound healing capabilities.

For Neom Wellbeing founder Nicola Elliott, magnesium is a “wonder mineral.” The 20-year-old beauty and wellness brand boasts multiple magnesium-focused products, including its $48 bath milk and $43 body butter. Neom, which Elliott launched after experiencing stress-inducing 60-hour work weeks as a journalist, features magnesium in formulations that are “designed for a de-stressing moment,” and aim to dually provide calming and hydrating properties.

“It’s a great way to incorporate this vital mineral into your all-round daily wellbeing routine and helps strengthen the skin barrier for maintaining optimal looking skin,” Elliott says of magnesium-powered body care. “There is no risk of ‘too much’ magnesium when using Neom products, as the function of the ingredient performs differently to when ingested.”

Epsom salt — a centuries-old ache-fighting fix — utilizes magnesium sulfate to achieve its soothing effects, but “stress-care” brand Flewd approaches the time-honored tradition of bath soaks differently: It uses a naturally-occurring, bioavailable version of the mineral called magnesium chloride. With a smaller magnesium molecule than the one found in Epsom salt, it’s better absorbed by the user’s skin, the brand claims.

“I felt like, after experiencing extreme stress myself, no existing products on the market were actually helping me, even those containing magnesium, because they were built for pampering rather than relief,” Flewd founder Michael Lupo says. “They were often packed with fillers, or poorly absorbed by the body.” Flewd also crafts its bath soaks (aptly labeled Sads Smashing, Ache Erasing, Insomnia Ending, Rage Squashing, Panic Crushing and Anxiety Destroying) with extra vitamins and minerals, such as nootropic lithium (a mood-boosting nutraceutical) and vitamins B3 and B6.

But it’s not just bath soaks and body butters cornering the market on magnesium-rich skin- and body-care offerings: Cocokind’s Electrolyte Water Cream delivers lightweight hydration powered by magnesium, while Nécessaire’s The Body Wash sports a mineral-rich ingredient list. Magnesium-spiked sprays have also emerged as a common delivery system, with HigherDose, Alo and The Nue Co. all launching their own calming spritzes meant to deliver the ingredient transdermally (absorbed through skin).

Though many beauty and wellness brands are cosigning the topical magnesium surge, dermatologists emphasize that research surrounding transdermal magnesium absorption remains in its early stages. “While some preliminary observations suggest [topical magnesium] may offer skin-care benefits through potential anti-inflammatory properties that could help with conditions like eczema and acne by possibly affecting sebum production and inflammation, more research is needed to confirm these effects,” Dr. Rambhia explains.

Dr. King concurs: “Numerous studies demonstrate the effectiveness of oral magnesium supplementation. Transdermal magnesium is more controversial and is not yet scientifically proven. More studies need to be done with larger sample sizes of humans. Magnesium might be able to get into the lymphatic system beneath the dermis and enter the circulatory system, bypassing the regulation through the GI tract and thereby increasing serum magnesium, but this is not yet proven.”

For early adopters seeking to dive into the world of topical magnesium solutions, we’ve rounded up the mineral-rich skin- and body-care products promoting restored skin barriers and soothed muscles below.

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Source: Fashionista.com