Magnesium Everywhere

I was pretty impressed, you could probably tell, with Epsom salt. I just had to try the other, probably less popular forms of the mineral magnesium found at retail. I had supplements already, also. Nothing wrong with that, except that magnesium is as common as dirt, or at least seawater. I tend not to keep up with supplements, just use them to figure out what I should be eating more of.

Magnesium chloride is a... saltier (?) salt than magnesium sulfate. You can use it the same way, or concentrated as magnesium "oil." The latter does feel greasy, but only because it's drying the top layer of your skin to a crisp. My litmus test with Erasmic indicates that the skin effect could be similar, in more appropriate concentrations, but since it stings like a sonofabitch, and is extremely, gag-inducing bitter in the mouth (where it should probably never go), I'm sticking with Epsom salt. Though my beard's cuticle structure WAS pretty much destroyed by magnesium oil, making the cutting effortless, it weakened the skin much like alum and Epsom salt. And it thinned my lather, even as a residue. At best, it will make a convenient spritz additive to my basin water, hopefully to lend a touch of the seawater effect as a dilute presoak. I had some stiff, achy calves after touring Washington, D.C., and it had no effect as a substitute massage oil. In short: choose Epsom salt.

Milk of Magnesia is used in beauty circles as a makeup primer. It's supposedly very high in pH, but of course is perfectly safe to ingest by mouth, and it's one of the substances I use in place of (glycerin) toothpaste. As preshave, it did not have any hair weakening effect, and treated the skin much like baking soda solution. Winner: baking soda.

Speaking of soda, nobody told me that the laxative magnesium citrate, sold in little screw-top glass bottles as saline laxative, was plesantly carbonated. I had a shot after my gut was already cleared by fasting, to avoid any mishaps, and now it is my chosen supplement (in smaller quantity than indicated on the label). As a preshave splash, it lacked any discernible effect. On the fifth day of my fast, however, I was so energized that I felt like dancing for exercise. Still got the seventh-grade moves!