You may have noticed a theme over the past few weeks. I’ve done a post on the benefits of magnesium, and also on the food sources of magnesium. There’s a reason, and it’s simply this. I was trying Ancient Minerals magnesium, and I never try health products these days without doing a considerable amount of research.

So what is Ancient Minerals magnesium? It’s a very high quality magnesium chloride that’s available in several forms. The magnesium that Ancient Minerals uses comes from the Zechstein seabed in Europe. The major selling point to this magnesium is its purity, and the particular benefit of the forms it’s available in, is that your body is better able to absorb the magnesium through your skin than it is through supplement form. And in many cases, getting your daily amount of magnesium through food sources just isn’t enough.

The timing of my receiving the Ancient Minerals magnesium to review was wonderful. Since one of the best (in my opinion) selling points of these products is that they soothe sore muscles and joints, being able to take them on vacation with me was awesome!

My husband and I go to Walt Disney World almost every year, and if you’ve ever visited the Disney parks (particularly when the parks stay open late) you’ll understand how much walking you do every day. And we stay 7-8 days rather than the requisite 4.

Aside from dreading 16 hours in the car each way and lugging 2 weeks worth of luggage to and from our room, I know from past experience that by the end of the second day it’s difficult for me to even walk. While I’ve been able to handle the walking much better since wearing Crocs, it’s still quite painful.

So, armed with this knowledge and a supply of Ancient Minerals magnesium, I packed a bottle of magnesium oil and a jug of magnesium bath salts.

The Ancient Minerals magnesium oil in a spray bottle is heaven. A life saver. Awesome. I’m not sure which word/phrase is better here, but I suppose it depends on the situation. It’s not really oil, though it feels oily on your skin until it dries. The magnesium oil is actually just magnesium mixed with water (or “aqua” as it says on the label).

While we were at Walt Disney World, I indeed had the usual trouble with my feet. They swelled horribly and the pain was excruciating.  However, magnesium oil is supposed to be applied to clean skin- skin oils, lotions, and pretty much anything else on the skin can prevent the magnesium from absorbing into and through your skin. And so every night when we got back from the parks, I’d take my shower, and do whatever had to be done before bedtime. I’d then sit down on the bed, spray my feet and  massage the Ancient Minerals magnesium oil well into my feet… And within 2 minutes I was able to walk easily with barely any soreness in my feet at all (except for blisters, or what have you). My feet were still fine in the morning, and didn’t get sore until much later in the day than usual. And this was my 6th trip to Walt Disney World, so there is indeed a “usual”.

I also gave a bottle to my mother to try, since I wanted more opinions than just my own. She tried applying it to my father’s legs, but apparently his skin is pretty dry and sensitive since he said it burned, and he didn’t want to try it any more. And it WILL burn if you have particularly sensitive skin, broken skin, etc.

My mother, however, tried it on her feet (her feet are always sore as well), and when I asked her what she thought of it, she said “It’s woooooonderful” in the exact same tone that she says “wonderful” about Belgian chocolates.

The other thing that I tried Ancient Minerals magnesium oil for is another foot pain that I have. The top of my right foot is excruciating- and I don’t know why. It actually feels as though it’s horribly bruised, yet doesn’t show any discoloring. I’ve started spraying my foot well before bed, and while the pain doesn’t totally go away (which given my past experience tells me that it’s not totally muscle or joint), by the time I wake up the next day, the pain is lessened by about half. Think of the difference between a migraine and a bad headache.

The only thing that I didn’t like about the magnesium oil, is that for some reason the pump shocked my finger every time I used it for the first week. I still don’t know why, and it hasn’t done it since. The entire thing is plastic, so it must have just been incredibly dry and static-y in my house.

I did not bring Ancient Minerals magnesium gel with me on vacation. The reason is that the magnesium oil can be sprayed and therefore covers more space at once, where as the gel has to be manually rubbed where ever you want it to go- plus I figured the flip top lid would be more likely to leak in my luggage than the twist shut spray bottle would.

I do like the magnesium gel, but not as much as the magnesium oil. Not that there’s anything wrong with the magnesium gel, in fact, if you want to apply it to a small part of your body, it’s the better choice. For example, sometimes I have knee pain- I’d rather just rub a little gel onto my knee than spray half my leg.  In fact, you may decide that the gel is better for you than the oil is, as the oil is only magnesium chloride and water, where as the gel is magnesium chloride, water, starch, xanthan gum, and aloe. And aloe is so good for your skin and for healing skin abrasions.

The thing about the magnesium gel is, is that it’s goopy. While the oil feels like it’s absorbed into your skin and dries so that your skin feels soft to the touch, the gel is so thick that it’s hard to massage it in to your skin totally. It tends to still feel goopy for a few minutes, and itches as it dries. Then once it dries, you can still feel it on the skin. It also tends to rub off onto clothing or bedding if you don’t wash it off before dressing/sleeping.

On the other hand, if you’re giving massages, the fact that it stays goopy is a positive thing. With the Ancient Minerals magnesium oil, you have to keep spraying to keep the skin moist as you massage. With the gel, a few good dollops will last you for maybe 5 minutes or so.

Ancient Minerals also has magnesium bath salts. This is a little pricier than, say, Epsom salts, but the appeal of the Ancient Minerals bath salts is the purity of the magnesium chloride. And that’s all that these bath salts are- pure magnesium chloride from the Zechstein Seabed.

I brought a jug of the magnesium salts with me to Walt Disney World, and I used it 4 times. This is going to sound silly, but my favorite part of using the bath salts was that they turned the water blue in small amounts, and green in larger amounts. Yes, I’m practically a child.

I hate to admit this, but I don’t know how much the bath salts did for me. I didn’t have time to take plain baths on the nights that I didn’t take a magnesium bath, and so I can’t tell you if it was merely soaking in hot water that helped soothe my muscles and nerves, or if the magnesium really did play a role in it.

My husband has tried the bath salts twice, but the only comment he had was that it tasted awful when it got into his mouth. However, my contact at Ancient Minerals told me that when he suffered from food poisoning, he used an entire tub (6.5 lbs) of magnesium salts in a bath, and that it was the only thing that could soothe his aching muscles. Since my experience with the magnesium oil, I believe him.

The Ancient Minerals magnesium products are meant to be used as a health supplement. I didn’t have the time to try them out as a health supplement before writing the review, but I honestly feel that the immediate benefits of the products are more worthwhile to me than the long term benefits are anyway.

I do plan to try them as a supplement. In fact, I started two days ago, and I’m keeping a journal so that I can give as accurate a review as possible at the end of the trial.

The magnesium oil was hands down my favorite of Ancient Minerals magnesium products, and I don’t expect that I’ll take another trip to Walt Disney World without bringing a bottle of it with me. The jury’s still out on the bath salts, since I’d like to compare them directly to Epsom salts before giving a final verdict on them, and the gel is just as useful as the magnesium oil, but I don’t like the texture as much. That’s my personal feelings on the matter; take it as you feel necessary.

There are a lot more benefits to magnesium, and the website lists many more testimonials than what I can offer here, but if you have questions, feel free to ask me about it and I’ll do my best to answer you.