This article was originally published in the Beauty Supplements Trend Report. Receive your copy here.
The blurring of beauty with health and wellness is impacting trends and product development across skin care, cosmetics, fragrance and beyond.
And at the heart of this phenomenon are beauty supplements, a $6.43bn category, also described as nutricosmetics, ingestible beauty or 'beauty from within'.
76% of consumers now expect beauty brands to offer dietary supplements that complement their traditional topical product offerings such as skin care, hair care, and body care, according to Neutrogena’s Desiree Dowe, Marketing Director, Future of Skin Health.
“While topical solutions are still the cornerstone of skin health, a growing number of consumers are already incorporating beauty supplements into their routines,” explains Dowe.
The percentage of consumers buying ingestible skin care has risen from 14% in 2017 to 30% in 2022 in the UK and France, a Lycored survey revealed.
Consumers are also taking a much wider view of 'inside-out beauty' and what can impact their skin health.
67% appreciate the link between good skin health and overall wellbeing – an increase of 13% between 2018 and 2021 – and FMCG Gurus states that this research “highlights that consumers are taking a prevention over cure approach to skin care maintenance”.
As a result, ingestible beauty is evolving in new ways, with brands pushing further into health and wellness as they offer benefits beyond the skin.
Here, Cosmetics Business gives a taster of five of the biggest beauty supplements trends that will impact the industry in 2023 and beyond.
Trend 1: Snackable skin care
Beverages with benefits may be booming, but supplement brands are now sinking their teeth into another trend – beauty snacks.
Functional snacks are a growing source of innovation among supplement brands, with formats diversifying to target a range of needs, from hunger-busters like fruit and nut bars to hedonistic treats such as chocolate – all while claiming to benefit the skin or support other beauty, health and wellness needs.
It is a niche that brands and retailers expect to grow further in 2023 as consumers display a growing appetite for tasty and nutritional foods to fuel their schedule-packed lifestyles.
“Our customers are increasingly expecting more from their snacks – being filling while on the go is simply no longer enough,” says Rachel Chatterton, Head of Food and Drink Development at Holland & Barrett.
Trend 2: Brains and beauty
Brain care is a growth category within supplements, but a trend that combines cognitive and beauty benefits is now moving into focus.
Projected to be worth $15.74bn by 2030, according to Grand View Research, brain health supplements are designed to boost focus, banish brain fog and sharpen the memory, and dozens of launches from wellness brands have moved in.
But given the beauty industry's growing research into psychodermatology and the brain-skin axis as a way to treat skin conditions, linking brain care with beauty would seem an obvious next move.
This trend reveals how experts believe that beauty supplements imbued with cognitive-enhancing nootropics is an opportunity on the brink of opening up.
Trend 3: Sun support
With summers getting hotter and consumers growing increasingly worried about sun-damaged skin, supplements that support the skin during UV exposure – boosting the protection from topical sunscreen – may have a bright future.
And with consumers becoming more receptive to adding supplements to their routine as they increasingly tap into the health and wellness space, sun support pills are a growing area of innovation, prompting recent launches from beauty brands such as Dr. Sturm, The Nue Co and Zitsticka.
Amid rising consumer demand for such products, there are opportunities for brands to innovate further, and support with education to reach more customers.
Trend 4: Hyper-personalisation
Much like the beauty category itself, supplements can be a baffling space for consumers to navigate, and across both industries it's a problem that brands have been attempting to solve through personalisation.
And as companies use more scientific approaches with the aim of determining an even more accurate and individually-tailored result, a new era of hyper-personalisation is taking off.
Just as 'biomarker beauty' is emerging as a wider trend for brands to 'prescribe' the optimum personalised skin care regime, it is also gaining momentum in supplements, with brands using blood testing to provide evidence-based recommendations. It's a red-hot sector, but not without challenges.
Trend 5: Sea moss
One of the more wacky wellness trends to have gone viral over the past year, sea moss has become a supplement saviour among TikTokers.
Videos typically open with fans spooning sea moss gel into their mouths straight from the jar, before touting the benefits they’ve seen: typically, that it clears skin and improves digestion but also sometimes reporting a reduction in brain fog and an increase in libido.
But there is also a murker side to this 'superfood' ingredient. Sea moss is unregulated, and lacking in scientific evidence to support any claims regarding skin improvements or other benefits.
Nevertheless, with #seamoss totting up over 560 million views on TikTok and retailers reporting a sharp rise in sales, do these issues present a barrier to purchase?
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