Bath Salts?

I was walking through a mall in Calgary recently when a man touting his companies soap stopped my sister-in-law. Of course, having our attention, and seeing my skin, he had to try to up-sell. The man led me into his shop where he had me rub salt and minerals from the dead sea all over my hands, while he explained to me the origin of the product and quizzed me if I knew what was happening with my skin. Exfoliation. Aha! I knew the word he was after. Of course I do, I spend hours on forced exfoliation. Alas, once I had effectively washed my hands, he had me use some type of lotion, and bragged to my girlfriend how soft my hands were, of course trying to convince me to buy the product. I opted out, saying I'd think about it. Funny how often people try to give me the cure, yet I still have the dry skin. It did make me think though, if sea salts help with exfoliation, maybe I could do a multi-phase bath, wherein I use the salts to help lift the dead skin, exfoliate (there's that word again), and then replace the water and add miracle oil. Perhaps something to try. I read in an ichthyosis forum of a man who was upset at the prices of bath salts (your face is tasty) and observed a 20lb bag of water softening salt at a hardware store, which he researched further and bought. He felt that this was a similar product to what is offered in perhaps smaller crystal form at the cosmetics counter, but at a much lower price. If you have any thoughts to add, comment below!