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From Hailey Bieber’s viral Strawberry Glaze Skin Smoothie at LA-based grocery store Erewhon to vitamin gummies and mineral supplements that target a multitude of health and wellness concerns, consumer interest in beauty from within has reached an all-time high. Should skincare brands get in on the game?
Ten years ago, supplements were only available from stores like CVS or the UK’s Holland and Barrett, and information demystifying the benefits of each ingredient was limited. Today, the market looks very different. New ingestible beauty brands are popping up thick and fast, from Kourtney Kardashian’s Lemme to the likes of Wild Nutrition, Herbar, Zaag and more. LA-based beauty and supplement brand Agent Nateur says its supplement sales are projected to more than triple from around $7 million in 2023 to over $24 million this year.
Established beauty brands are also expanding their offering beyond skincare to vitamin gummies; antioxidants, liquids, pills and bioactive powders that target skin, hair and nail health; capsules that combat women’s health issues; or formulas for enhancing sleep and cognitive function.
Stella McCartney announced on Tuesday that it is launching a “nutricosmetic” supplement to complement its skincare products, priced at £60. “I’ve always been interested in the relationship between good nutrition and skin health,” says founder McCartney. “It starts from within... with how you care for yourself, nourish yourself and the nutrients you feed your body.”
The global market for beauty supplements grew by 9.4 per cent to $2.68 billion in 2023, according to a report published in November by research firm Future Market Insights. It is expected to swell by a compound annual growth rate of 13.6 per cent over the next 10 years, to reach $4.46 billion by 2033. “It has now become a trend to offer supplements alongside skincare to treat skin from the inside out,” says Dr Barbara Sturm, founder of the eponymous skincare brand, which entered the supplements game in 2017.
So what’s powering this lucrative sub-section of the wellness market? Gen Z is increasingly worried about looking old, buying into anti-ageing products, treatments and treatments. The pandemic has also been a driving force as the focus on well-being accelerated. A third (34 per cent) of US adults have increased their intake of vitamins since the start of the pandemic, per Mintel research carried out in 2023.
This has been further propelled by research surrounding the relationship between the gut and mental health and recommendations from wellness platforms and influencers like Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, Kourtney Kardashian’s Poosh and Jennifer Lopez’s JLo beauty line on social media (TikTok even has a wellness shop).
For beauty brands considering the ingestible space, several considerations need to be made. Currently, the Federal Regulation of Dietary Supplements does not require supplements sold in the US to have a seal of approval before going to market, so long as the brand can prove their product is “safe” and that the label is not “misleading”. In the UK, however, food supplements are required to be regulated as foods and are subject to the provisions of general food law.
Meanwhile, studies on supplement bioavailability (how it is absorbed) and efficacy are often conflicting. For brands, this means additional laboratory tests and formula innovation are required, which can come at a high cost — as do some of the ingredients. And with more options on the market, customers will scrutinise whether or not they’re seeing any benefit from a supplement or if it’s more like snake oil.
Beauty from within
The idea that wellness is best targeted from the inside is the foundation for the majority of the brands dominating this category.
Adam Thompson launched supplement brand Zaag in 2020 after experiencing symptoms of severe burnout. “Historically, people have viewed supplements as sickness prevention, an insurance policy of sorts, and they were manufactured in line with that,” says Thompson. “But as our lifestyles have modernised and intensified, there are more demands on our bodies than ever before, meaning that supplementation needs to level up.” Zaag’s customers include elite athletes and CEOs who are seeking to improve their sports performance, recovery and sleep.
Similarly tackling day-to-day stressors — from anxiety and poor sleep to hormonal and digestive imbalances — is Kourtney Kardashian Barker and business partner Simon Huck’s gummy brand Lemme. Born from five years of social listening and consumer research via Kardashian Barker’s editorial wellness platform Poosh, Lemme’s launch in September 2022 was strategically timed to capitalise on the shift towards ingestible beauty. The brand is now stocked at Target, Ulta Beauty and Amazon.
“People aren’t gatekeeping supplements anymore,” says Huck. “For so long, people weren’t talking about them socially. Now they want to talk about their gut microbiome. These conversations were not happening 10 to 15 years ago.”
For many brands, the pandemic had a noticeable impact. Agent Nateur first launched a collagen powder in 2018, but, as founder Jena Covello explains, back then, the only conclusive research around collagen confirmed that it helped with a leaky gut. “There weren’t so many trials done on whether it was efficacious for the hair and the skin.”
Covello re-launched the product as Holi (mane) — an ingestible formula combining marine collagen and pearl powder (an anti-inflammatory, detoxifying agent traditionally used in Chinese medicine) — in December 2020, and it flew off the shelves, boosted by Covid-19 side effects. “We had no idea that peoples’ hair was going to fall out due to Covid,” explains Covello. “By April 2021, we were getting thousands of messages from people saying it had stopped their hair from shedding.” The success of Holi (mane) saw the brand’s DTC sales pivot from 35 per cent pre-Covid to 60 per cent in 2023.
Do they work?
Product efficacy and quality remain of paramount importance in the edible beauty space, most brand founders agree.
Beauty supplements commonly contain collagen, antioxidants, vitamins and other bioactive substances that facilitate healthy cell growth; cognitive and digestion formulas favour ingredients like pre and probiotics and ancient medicinal herbs like ashwagandha and lion’s mane. These buzzy ingredients are redundant if the clinically recommended dosage is incorrect.
“In Lemme Chill, we use the clinically studied ingredient ashwagandha,” explains Huck. “You have to make sure you’re using the dosage level that matches with the benefits that you’re marketing.”
McCartney wanted to work only with vegan ingredients, which took longer to formulate. “There aren’t that many brands, at least none that I’m aware of, that have created skin supplements using only vegan, 100 per cent natural origin ingredients and which are supported with strong clinical results.” The formulation process took two-and-a-half years.
Covello says high-performing ingredients are of higher priority than profit margins. “Since Covid, the cost of our collagen has nearly quadrupled, and I could go with a much cheaper supplier — I wish that I could — but I know it won’t give the same results,” she explains. “I want people to love the formulas and to stick by them.”
For many of these brands, a combination of innovative formulas, social listening, informative brand collateral, high-quality ingredients, the ease of ingesting one multi-ingredient formula and luxurious packaging that won’t look out of place on the bathroom shelf are what’s keeping customers hungry for more.
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