On Dr. Teal’s Body Wash with Pure Epsom Salt (Vanilla Comfort), magnesium sulfate — the “Epsom Salt” in the brand name — is the 9th ingredient of 23. It sits after three surfactants, table salt, fragrance and two botanical extracts. In this kind of rinse-off formula, cosmetic ingredient databases list magnesium sulfate’s job as viscosity control, not a skin-benefit active.
The bottle leads with two words: Pure Epsom Salt. It’s the name of the product. So the reasonable assumption is that Epsom salt — magnesium sulfate — is the thing doing the work. The label tells a quieter story, and it’s worth reading before you decide what this body wash is to you.
INCI read from the Ulta.com product listing (SKU 2654160) on 2026-08-31. Dr. Teal’s reformulates scents from time to time, so an older bottle in your cabinet may differ from this list.
Where does magnesium sulfate actually sit on the label?
Here is the full ingredient list, quoted verbatim from the retailer page:
Water (Aqua, Eau), Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Chloride, Fragrance (Parfum), Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Zingiber Officinale (Ginger) Root Extract, Elettaria Cardamomum Seed Extract, Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salt), Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice (Decolorized), Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Peg-4 Rapeseedamide, Glycerin, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Sodium Peg-7 Olive Oil Carboxylate, Tetrasodium Edta, Polyquaternium-7, Citric Acid, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Sodium Hydroxide, Peg/Ppg-18/18 Dimethicone.
Magnesium sulfate is ninth on that list, of twenty-three lines in total. Under the standard INCI convention, ingredients are listed in descending order of concentration down to the 1% mark, after which they may appear in any order. A useful rule of thumb: in a rinse-off product, fragrance usually runs somewhere between 0.01% and 1%. Fragrance is fifth here. Everything below it — including the magnesium sulfate at position nine — is very likely present at or below one percent. We can’t state the exact figure without a certificate of analysis, and we won’t pretend to; position is all the label lets us read.
What is magnesium sulfate doing in a body wash?
This is the part that surprises people. In a surfactant system like a body wash, magnesium sulfate isn’t classified as a skin-benefit active at all. Independent ingredient databases describe its cosmetic function as bulking and viscosity control — it helps set the texture of the wash, the same practical job that Sodium Chloride (table salt, fourth on this list) is doing.
- COSMILE Europe (EU cosmetic ingredient database)
- Lists magnesium sulfate’s functions as bulking and viscosity controlling only — not as an active. This is the EU regulatory reference source.
- The Skin Formulary
- Classifies it as a viscosity controller / emulsion stabiliser.
- Incidecoder (this product line)
- Tags magnesium sulfate as viscosity controlling on Dr. Teal’s own body wash.
None of that means the ingredient is bad, or that the product is bad. It means the mineral on the front of the bottle is, on the evidence of the label, most plausibly there in a texture-and-formula role rather than as the star of the show.
Does topical magnesium even get into the skin?
Set the body wash aside and ask the bigger question, because it’s the one shoppers are really chasing: can magnesium applied to skin actually be absorbed? The honest answer is that the evidence is mixed and mostly built on small studies.
- A 2017 systematic review in Nutrients concluded that transdermal magnesium is not well supported by the science: magnesium ions are water-loving and don’t readily cross the skin’s oily outer layer, and hair follicles (a possible shortcut) cover only about 0.1–1% of the skin’s surface.
- A newer 2026 ex vivo study found minimal magnesium permeation across intact skin, rising only when the skin barrier had been deliberately disrupted — the authors note that delivery from simple water-based solutions is unlikely under normal conditions.
- For balance, it’s not all one way: a 2016 human-skin study did find some magnesium passing through, facilitated by hair follicles, in a time- and concentration-dependent way. The effect appears real; the open question is at what scale it matters.
A rinse-off body wash is the hardest case for that already-thin evidence, for a pair of practical reasons: skin contact is brief, and then you rinse it down the drain. We couldn’t find a single study looking specifically at magnesium delivered from a rinse-off wash. That’s not a knock on the product — it’s just the reality of what’s been tested.
So is the body wash worth buying?
If you want a pleasant, fragranced body wash, this is one — the surfactants at the top of the list are what clean, and the vanilla scent is what most reviews are actually responding to. Just buy it for what it is. If your reason for reaching for it is the magnesium on the front, the label suggests that reason is doing more work in the marketing than in the bottle.
If it’s genuinely topical magnesium you’re after, a leave-on format keeps the ingredient on your skin instead of rinsing it away, which is the more sensible way to give the (still-modest) evidence a chance to apply. Evil Goods — the team behind this site — wrote up the safety question on our own blog if you want to read where the science lands before spending anything.
Frequently asked questions
- Is there really any Epsom salt in Dr. Teal’s body wash?
- Yes — magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt) is genuinely on the ingredient list. It appears ninth of 23, after the fragrance line, which on standard INCI reading suggests it’s present at roughly one percent or less.
- Why is magnesium sulfate so far down the list?
- In a body wash it functions mainly as a bulking / viscosity-control ingredient rather than an active, so it’s used at the small level that job requires. Table salt, a few lines above it, is doing a similar texture job.
- Does the magnesium in a body wash absorb into my skin?
- The evidence for topical magnesium absorption is limited and mostly from small studies, and it’s weakest for a rinse-off product with brief skin contact. No study has tested magnesium delivery from a body wash specifically.
- Is a leave-on magnesium product better for this?
- For keeping the ingredient in contact with skin, yes — a balm or lotion stays on rather than being rinsed off. Whether that translates to a meaningful effect is still an open scientific question.
- Where did you read this ingredient list?
- From the Ulta.com listing for SKU 2654160 on 2026-08-31. We always date our reads because formulas change.
