Water & Salt Ag

Water & Salt Ag is a Swiss company based in Baar, in the canton of Zug, that develops and trades natural cosmetics alongside health and medical products. It was founded in 2002 [2]. Its consumer lines are built around two raw materials: magnesium chloride drawn from the ancient Zechstein Sea deposit, and crystal salt mined in Pakistan's Salt Range. In beauty, it is best known for the Zechstein Magnesium range of skin-applied oils, gel and bath flakes, and for the bath stories bath salts sold under the name of physician and author Dr. Barbara Hendel.

The company works on two tracks. It sells its own brands, and it also supplies drugstore and retail chains with products sold under those chains' own private labels [1]. Dr. Barbara Hendel, a physician and the author of the bestselling book "Wasser & Salz", sits at the centre of how the brand presents itself. The company remains active.

The corporate website gives the founding year as 2002 and the location as Baar, Switzerland. It does not name the founders. The company's consumer shop tells a more personal origin story: according to its About page, Water & Salt "grew out of a personal story and many years of medical experience", and it places Dr. med. Barbara Hendel at the heart of the brand [9]. The page does not describe her as the founder. The shop's legal notice names her as the authorised board representative and as chair of the supervisory board [11].

Hendel's own path is told in some detail on the brand's site. She is described as a physician, author and, in the company's words, a pioneer of holistic preventive medicine. According to the brand, her interest began with her own health: she had allergies and atopic eczema, and conventional treatment eased her symptoms without resolving them. That experience led her to look into gut health, lifestyle and minerals, and later to study medicine herself.

The company says that Hendel went on to found and run a day clinic for almost ten years, treating patients who had not found lasting help in mainstream medicine. Out of that work, the About page explains, came the conviction that carefully developed products could support people in daily life. The consumer shop presents her as the developer of its products.

Few dated milestones appear in the company's own account. The founding in Baar in 2002 is the fixed point.

The other landmark the brand returns to is Hendel's book "Wasser & Salz" ("Water & Salt"). The company describes it as a bestseller that has sold more than one million copies and been translated into several languages [9]. No publication year is given. The About page credits the book with bringing topics such as unrefined salt and mineral intake to a wide audience. The same page acknowledges that the book drew criticism from parts of conventional medicine and from industry, and says Hendel kept to her approach regardless.

Hendel has also written further titles that the brand promotes alongside its products. Among them are "Das Magnesium Buch", described as a magnesium guide, a book on joint pain, and a book on cooking with crystal salt. A magnesium oil book is offered as a free gift with larger shop orders.

Water & Salt Ag is a Swiss stock company (Aktiengesellschaft) registered under number CHE-109.850.809, according to its shop's legal notice [11]. Its registered address is Grabenstrasse 25 in Baar [3]. No parent company, outside investor or acquisition history is documented. The company operates a corporate website and a separate consumer online shop, and it names a third site, zechstein-magnesium.com, as an online sales channel for its magnesium range.

The corporate site describes Water & Salt Ag as a "specialist in high-quality natural cosmetics and health products", and uses the headline "Your one-stop center of excellence" (in German, "Kompetenz aus einer Hand"). It lists three values under the heading "The DNA of Water & Salt AG": quality, reliability and reliable delivery. Its business, the company says, covers the full chain from development to finished product, handled with specialised partner companies.

The consumer brand speaks in a more personal register. Water & Salt says it stands for prevention, education and products that accompany people in everyday life. Its stated vision is to help people grow old in good health, keep their quality of life and prevent chronic complaints. The About page sets this against what it calls inferior mass-market products. It also says the company deliberately avoids making healing claims, in line with regulatory rules.

A recurring idea is simplicity of ingredients. According to the company, its products rely on a small number of carefully chosen raw materials with a clear origin and transparent processing, rather than complex blends of active ingredients. It argues that good products do not need complicated formulas, and that the quality of the raw material and responsible sourcing matter most.

### Zechstein Magnesium

The Zechstein Magnesium range is the focus of the consumer shop. Its central product is Zechstein Magnesium Oil, which the company describes as a saturated solution of magnesium chloride and water. It is applied to the skin rather than swallowed. The company explains that it is called an "oil" only because of its oily feel; it contains no oil in the usual sense. The shop presents skin application as an alternative to magnesium capsules, and lists muscle relaxation, stress relief, recovery after sport, massage and skin care among its uses.

The range includes:

- Zechstein Magnesium Oil classic, which the company calls a pure natural product without additives. - Zechstein Magnesium Oil sensitive, developed for sensitive skin. - Zechstein Magnesium Gel, which according to the brand has a revised formula that massages in easily, is not sticky and contains no preservatives. - Zechstein Magnesium Flakes, a bath additive made of pure magnesium chloride hexahydrate, sold in two pack sizes.

The magnesium, the company says, comes from the Zechstein Sea, a natural deposit formed around 250 million years ago that it regards as one of the purest sources of magnesium chloride in the world [10]. It states that the deposit lies deep underground, protected from environmental influences, and that extraction involves no elaborate industrial processing. The shop also describes its magnesium products as "scientifically developed and clinically tested", though no specific study is named.

### bath stories

The bath stories line, sold as "bath stories BY DR. BARBARA HENDEL", is a range of bath salts based on Himalayan crystal salt. The company calls them vegan bath salts combining well-being and sustainability, with fragrance compositions and extracts, and says almond oil in the formula moisturises and cares for the skin [4]. Variants include soul of passion, spirit of spa, touch of soul, wave of energy and secrets of moon. According to the brand, the salts contain no preservatives as defined by cosmetics regulations, and their skin tolerance has been dermatologically confirmed.

### Crystal salt

The salt used across the range comes, according to the company, from the Salt Range in Pakistan, about 200 kilometres west of the Himalayas, which is why it is sold as "Himalayan salt". The brand says it is mined by traditional methods, sorted by hand, washed and dried in the sun, and needs no refining. It adds that the salt is free of additives, not iodised and contains no anti-caking agents. Besides its role in the bath salts, the salt is sold for cooking as fine pink crystal salt, salt granules for a grinder and pink salt blossoms.

### Wider portfolio

Beyond cosmetics, the company sells gourmet salts, the PRObiom probiotic line, and two hyaluronic acid nasal sprays, vitamagic and Water&Salt Hyaluron Nasal Spray, which are classed as Class IIa medical devices. It also publishes health guides on selected topics in several languages.

### Quality and manufacturing

Water & Salt Ag says it holds IFS Broker certification at higher level, a quality standard for trading companies, and works only with certified partner firms [1]. According to the company, all production takes place in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. No third-party ethics or cruelty-free certifications are documented.

Packaging is the area where the company makes its strongest environmental claims. It describes itself as a pioneer in sustainable packaging and links this to new EU packaging rules taking effect in stages from 2026, which it says will ban small plastic sachets altogether. For bath stories, the company says it has replaced plastic sachets with paper from sustainably managed forests, making the packaging recyclable [4]. Its crystal salt is packed, according to the brand, in tree-free paper made from sugarcane fibre, a by-product of sugar production, printed with inks free of microplastics [7].

The company says its products are sold in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and other EU countries through pharmacies, health-food shops, drugstores and drugstore chains, as well as through naturopaths and physiotherapists [6]. They are also sold online through the brand's own shops. Its private-label work for retail chains means that some of its output reaches shelves under other names. The corporate website is published in German, English, French and Italian.

Water & Salt Ag is active. Its consumer shop published blog posts almost daily in early October 2026, most recently a guide to adding magnesium to a morning routine on 9 October 2026 [12]. The shop's legal notice is dated the same day, and both company websites carry a 2026 copyright line. No Wikipedia article or coverage in major beauty media has been found, so its reach beyond its pharmacy, health-food and drugstore channels cannot be independently confirmed.