As a lesson for marketers, the popularity of pink salt has been due to various dynamics in food, media, and health.

Pink salt might be pretty, but it wouldn’t have reached its current popularity without a significant boost from trendy notions of wellness. Some point out the pink color, which makes it attractive to consumers.

Because pink salt is marketed as healthy and Eastern, it joins condiments like turmeric and matcha as ingredients that have long become fetishized—and som...