Beauty-from-within category success will require a combination of topicals and supplements, say experts

“I think beauty products – the category we’re talking about – should look nice and be appealing to take,” ​said Barry Ritz, PhD, VP of scientific and regulatory affairs at Atrium Innovations. “We may be willing to choke down some foul-tasting supplements because we know it’s good for our heart but I think a beauty-from-within supplement should be a pleasure to consume and be appealing. I’m not sure that as an industry that we’re really good at that. Topicals on the cosmetics side, these companies have really figured that out. I don’t think we think like that on the supplements side.”​

Dr Ritz was joined on the NutraIngredients-USA Anti-Aging Forum​​ by Dr Dawna Venzon, Principal Research Scientist in Nutrition Research and Clinical Investigation at Nutrilite/ Amway, Carl Freund, North American President of Unistraw Corp., and Simon Pitman, Senior Editor of CosmeticsDesign.

“The way they approached it originally is still how I would expect it to succeed in the long term and that is a combination of regimens where you have both topical and the nutritionals,” ​added Freund.” I would think that the two combined have a larger chance to succeed that just the nutritionals on their own, because hopefully you’d get some instant gratification from the topicals – seeing is believing – and then have that amplified over time as the nutritionals take hold.”​

Freund noted that the vast majority of these products seem to end up in the dietary supplement section of a store. “That’s a very large mix of products and it can be very confusing for consumers,”​ he said.

“You don’t get the whole tie-in with skin care that you’d like to see. The consumer is not seeing the overall picture. They’re not seeing supplements alongside high end serums or facial creams. Only a few retailers are doing it that way, and it’s the smaller retailers taking the initiative on this. I think retailers see a huge opportunity but they’re hesitant because it hasn’t come as quickly as they thought it would or as quickly as the industry was telling them it would happen.”​

“I think the only place you see the whole message coming together is in the plastic surgery/ anti-aging centers that are taking it a little bit more from a holistic sense.”​

‘Physical appearance being a reflection of health’​

“A lot of the consumers are topical users and don’t necessarily believe in supplements,” ​said Nutrilite’s Dr Venzon. “And a lot of dietary nutrition users don’t necessarily like putting chemicals on our skin, we need to bring those two groups into this space.”​

Atrium’s Ritz worked on a joint project on this back in 2010 for a beauty-from-within line that was only supplements but was positioned next to the high end cosmetics lines. “We had dietitians endorsing, on-site education, and we got a lot of attention, we had some launches in high end retailers but the concept struggled. And over time the company migrated into topicals. It speaks to one of the challenges, which is that topicals are engrained in the minds of Americans when it comes to beauty. For me, the concept of physical appearance being a reflection of health really resonates, and there’s a strong connection between and nutrition but there’s a bit educational curve we have to go up.” ​

“Unlike many of our supplement products where we’re working towards wellness goals and assuming a lifelong outcome, a beauty protocol should produce tangible results in a reasonable period of time​. That’s one of the great opportunities in this category.”​

CosmeticsDesign’s Pitman said that he is not seeing much buy-in from the big cosmetics players in the beauty-from-within space, particularly after the commercial failure of the Innéov​, a joint venture between L’Oreal and Nestlé.

“I think [Innéov] was the nail in the coffin on their involvement,” ​said Pitman. “I think it was too small scale and it scared all the other cosmetics companies off. I think what it’s created is a space for the supplement manufacturers to really call it their own. They need to look at what’s going in the cosmetics space, make them look more like cosmetics products, and think about how to engage the cosmetics consumer. ​

“I envision that once the market is big enough that the cosmetics players will come back in.”​

The NutraIngredients-USA Anti-Aging forum is available for free on-demand. To view the forum, please click HERE​.​

The event was supported by:

Natreon, Inc​:​ A developer of novel compounds extracted from the traditional botanicals of Ayurvedic medicine. The company has created a broad portfolio of products and technologies with compelling intellectual property, including highly purified shilajit (one of the most important Ayurvedic remedies) - PrimaVie, Phyllanthus emblica​ (the superfruit Indian gooseberry) – Capros, and Withania somnifera​ (Ashwagandha or Indian ginseng) – Sensoril.

Sabinsa​: ​A manufacturer, supplier and marketer of herbal extracts, cosmeceuticals, minerals, dietary supplements and specialty fine chemicals for the nutritional, cosmetic, pharmaceutical and food industries. For the past 25 years, Sabinsa has brought to market more than 100 standardized botanical extracts, several with clinical studies in conjunction with prestigious institutions in support of these products. 

BioCell Technology LLC​: ​The company is in the business of researching, developing, branding, and distributing novel dietary ingredients which are supported by science to improve quality of life. BioCell Technology’s branded ingredients are available under licensing to marketers and manufacturers of finished products. Popular ingredient brands include BioCell Collagen, Estraflex CMO Esterified Fatty Acids, and i-Sabi wasabi japonica.

Soft Gel Technologies, Inc. (SGTI)​:​ A full-service contract manufacturer, specializing in providing marketers with premium quality dietary supplements in a soft gelatin capsule delivery system. SGTI is dedicated to the production and marketing of branded products and turnkey custom formulations exclusively to the nutraceutical industry including Sytrinol softgels, which contain a patented blend of polymethoxylated flavones and tocotrienols.