The salt and ice challenge is a social media dare in which a person pours table salt on their skin, presses an ice cube against it, and tries to endure the pain as long as possible. What many participants don’t realize is that the salt-and-ice combination can drop skin temperature to roughly −21 °C (about −6 °F), causing burns comparable to touching a hot stove. The challenge gained widespread attention online in the early 2010s and primarily affects children and young teenagers.
Why Salt and Ice Burn Skin
Salt lowers the melting point of ice, a basic physics principle called freezing point depression. Normally, ice sitting on your skin hovers around 0 °C (32 °F), which is cold but tolerable for short periods. Adding salt forces the ice to melt at a much lower temperature, and the melting process pulls heat away from your skin rapidly. The more salt in the mixture, the colder it gets. At common household concentrations, the temperature can plunge to −18 °C. At the maximum salt saturation (around 23% salt by weight), the mixture bottoms out near −21 °C.
That temperature range is cold enough to freeze skin tissue in seconds. The injury is functionally identical to frostbite, but it happens far faster because the salt-ice slurry is in direct, sustained contact with bare skin. Participants press it down deliberately, and the competitive nature of the challenge encourages them to hold it there longer than they otherwise would.
What Happens to the Skin
The damage starts within seconds and escalates the longer the ice stays in place. At first, the area stings and turns red. Within a minute or two, the extreme cold begins destroying skin cells. Mild cases produce blistering similar to a second-degree burn. In more severe cases, the full thickness of the skin is destroyed, leaving it white, leathery, and hard. Burns that deep may require surgery and skin grafting to heal.
One of the most dangerous aspects of the challenge is that the cold itself numbs the area. All forms of intense cold reduce nerve signaling enough to create a pain-dulling effect. Participants often interpret the fading pain as a sign they’re “toughing it out,” when in reality the nerve endings in the skin are being damaged or destroyed. As burn specialist Dr. Marc Jeschke of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre has explained, overcoming the initial pain doesn’t mean you’re stronger. It means the nerves have stopped working.
Who Gets Hurt
A clinical review of salt and ice challenge injuries seen in emergency departments between 2012 and 2014 found that the typical patient was a 12-year-old girl. The five cases in that study ranged in age from 10 to 13. All were treated for freezing burns, and complications included lasting pain and burn scar discoloration, a condition called dyschromia where the damaged skin heals a noticeably different color than the surrounding area.
Those cases represent only the injuries serious enough to reach an emergency room. Many more children likely sustain milder burns, treat them at home, and never see a doctor, which means the true scope of the problem is larger than clinical data suggests. The challenge has resurfaced in waves on various social media platforms since it first went viral, meaning new groups of kids encounter it as trends cycle.
Long-Term Consequences
Superficial burns from brief exposure typically heal within a couple of weeks, sometimes leaving behind lighter or darker patches of skin. Deeper burns carry more serious consequences. Permanent scarring is common when the full thickness of skin is destroyed, and nerve damage in the affected area can also be permanent. Some people lose normal sensation in the burned spot entirely, meaning they can no longer feel light touch or temperature changes there.
For children especially, scarring on visible areas like the hands and forearms (the most common sites for the challenge) can be a lasting source of self-consciousness. The injuries are entirely preventable, which makes them particularly frustrating for burn specialists who treat them.
What to Do if It Happens
If someone has already performed the challenge and the skin is red, blistered, or discolored, the priority is gentle rewarming. Remove the salt and ice immediately. Rinse the area with lukewarm (not hot) water. Do not use iced water on the injury, as extreme cold can worsen the damage by constricting blood vessels and pushing the burn deeper into the tissue.
Once the area is clean, wash it gently with soap and water or a mild antibacterial wash. Cover the burn loosely with a clean bandage to protect it. If the skin is white, hard, or numb, or if blisters are large and spreading, that signals a deeper burn that needs professional medical attention. Smaller, superficial burns can usually be managed at home with basic wound care, but any burn that hasn’t started improving within a few days warrants a visit to a doctor.