Magnesium cream, oil, or tablets?

• Tablets and capsules — for raising magnesium levels throughout the body. Best evidence, slowest to feel, and the one that can upset a stomach.
• Oil or spray — the most concentrated magnesium on the skin. Fast, and the most likely to sting on freshly shaved or sensitive skin.
• Cream — the gentlest and the most comfortable to use every night. Slower and less concentrated by design, and it moisturises while it works.

If your goal is to correct a genuine magnesium shortfall, oral magnesium is the honest answer and no topical product is a substitute for it. It is well studied, it reliably raises blood levels, and it works body-wide rather than on one patch of skin.

The trade-offs are real, though. Absorption varies a great deal between forms, some forms are notoriously hard on the digestive system, and it is a daily habit that takes weeks to show. It also does nothing for the specific shoulder that is tight tonight.

Magnesium oil is not an oil at all — it is a saturated solution of magnesium chloride in water, which feels slick on the skin. It carries more magnesium per application than a cream, with nothing slowing it down.

That is the appeal and the problem. A concentrated magnesium salt on bare skin commonly stings or itches, and it is worst on recently shaved legs, broken skin and anyone who runs sensitive. It also dries down tacky, which is a poor fit for something you want to put on before getting into bed.

A cream carries the same magnesium chloride, in less concentrated form, in a base of oils and butters. Those slow everything down — which the other two formats would call a disadvantage, and which is precisely the point.

The base is what makes it gentle enough for nightly use, what leaves skin soft rather than sticky, and what turns it into something you look forward to instead of something you remember to do. A product used every night at moderate strength beats a stronger one used twice and abandoned in a drawer.

It is also the format that suits a massage, and the massage is doing more of the work than most marketing admits. See our honest answer on whether magnesium cream works for more on that.

• Suspect you are low in magnesium generally, or want a systemic effect: oral, and speak to a pharmacist about which form.
• Want the strongest topical hit on one area and do not mind the sting: oil or spray.
• Want something for tired muscles at the end of the day that is pleasant enough to use nightly and kind to skin: cream.

These are cosmetics and supplements, not medicines. None of them is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease. For external use only where topical.