Beauty-from-within’s trending ingredients and innovative applications

10 Jun 2020 --- Growing consumer awareness on the ingestible beauty trend has led the nutrition industry to pay more attention to this budding segment. Beauty is not skin deep, but rather requires a holistic approach in combination with a healthy diet. NutritionInsight speaks to industry players active in the “beauty-from-within” space, who spotlight rising ingredients, such as resveratrol, carotenoids and collagen, as well as trending applications, such as powder mixes and liquid pouches.

Ingestible beauty is having a moment and several major players have realized the trend’s potential. This follows Innova Market Insights crowning “Eat Pretty” as one of its top ten trends of 2020. Moreover, according to a 2019 Innova Consumer Survey, one in three Chinese consumers increasingly opt for food and beverages that support physical appearance. 

There is a growing interest in natural ingredients across the board, says Isabel Gómez, Global Marketing Manager, Nutraceutical Ingredients at Lubrizol Life Science. “With the current COVID-19 anxiety and the detrimental impact of stress and a lack of sleep on overall skin appearance, natural ingredients are rising in popularity. I would be sure to feature immune-support or stress-relief ingredients in beauty supplements especially since these also have beneficial effects on skin and hair health and appearance,” she highlights.

 Florencia Moreno, Market Analyst at Rousselot Health & Nutrition, says collagen peptides are the optimal option for skin health.“Also including clinically proven botanical ingredients using best practices from Ayurvedic and Chinese medicines make for a good option. One example is curcumin, which is a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory ingredient with proven benefits to protect skin aging from within. However, it has poor bioavailability, which needs to be increased through microencapsulation technology,” Gómez stresses.

Beyond staples like collagen, other natural ingredients are increasingly spotlighted for their skin health boosting benefits. According to Lycored, carotenoids hold potential for “skin health from the inside out.” Lycored says it has spent over 20 years researching the benefits of carotenoids and developing patented technologies. 

“Lycomato, our standardized tomato extract, is our flagship beauty nutrition technology. Meanwhile, Lycoderm is a highly clinically studied composition derived from tomato and rosemary that provides benefits for skin health, appearance and protection against environmental stressors,” says Laurentia Guesman, Product Manager, Carotenoid Formulations at Lycored.

Last fall, the company also launched Lumenato, an extract derived from its golden tomato, which contains high levels of the colorless carotenoids, phytoene and phytofluene. “These carotenoids are rare in our foods, so it is important to integrate them into a regimen through supplementation,” she adds.

David Tetzlaf, Director of Marketing at Evolva, supports that resveratrol is the perfect ingredient for beauty-from-within products due to the added value of many other reported health benefits in more than 200 clinical studies. A clinical study administering only 8 mg of resveratrol in a blended product observed a significant decrease in oxidative stress and an increase in plasmatic antioxidant capacity. The same study also reported an improvement in skin hydration, elasticity and the appearance of skin roughness and depth of wrinkles, in addition to a significant decrease in intensity for age spots. 

David Tetzlaf, Director of Marketing at Evolva, supports that resveratrol is the perfect ingredient for beauty-from-within products due to the added value of its reported health benefits.For Florencia Moreno, Market Analyst at Rousselot Health & Nutrition, collagen peptides are the optimal option for skin health. “Driven by the connected world, this functional ingredient has been gaining popularity over the past years and is strongly moving into the mainstream. On top of this, and particularly talking about Peptan collagen peptides, they hold great sustainability, are a clean label bioactive ingredient and are backed by science – all highly sought attributes in beauty products,” Moreno says.

“Other spotlight ingredients that we have identified in the beauty space include botanicals such as green tea and horsetail or antioxidants such as astaxanthin and resveratrol. We are even finding such fast growing ingredients in collagen formulation,” she adds.

Innovative applications meet consumer demands
The most popular delivery formats are those that provide consumers with a unique experience and stand-out online among the sea of “me-too products,” says Evolva’s Tetzlaf. “For example, beauty-from-within formulations with Veri-te resveratrol come in almost any format with several stand-outs such as oral beauty film strips from Reserol in Sweden, capsules from Gemil Pharma in Hungary that help achieve beauty-while-you-sleep, and liquid pouches for consumers on-the-go throughout Asia,” he underscores.

“Another exciting format we are seeing is ready-mix powders that mix easily in water. An example on the market is Vanity-Dream, from 4+ Nutrition, in Italy,” he notes.

The next part of NutritionInsight’s coverage of beauty-from-within will delve into upcoming trends and target demographics.Lubrizol’s Gomez says that although the most common formats continue to be the traditional ones such as capsules and tablets, interest in innovation and new on-the-go formats is steadily increasing. From chewable tablets, gummies and orosoluble powders to drinkable botanical beauty supplements, convenient delivery formats are growing as a result of the demand of consumers of greater simplicity.

Rousselot’s Moreno explains that traditionally the beauty-from-within formats have focused on liquid tonics, capsules, tablets and powders. However, beauty is becoming more of a lifestyle trend rather than an isolated supplement positioning. 

“We are also finding a lot of innovation in the beauty-oriented functional foods and beverages nowadays from ready-to-drink beverages (RTD) to bars, chocolates and even popcorn. These innovations are often found when Peptan collagen peptides are used, as they hold great application versatility. Overall, it is truly an exciting time for portfolio diversification in the beauty segment,” Moreno notes.

Despite these promising strides in beauty-from-within innovation, capsule, tablet and soft gel formats have long been, and still are, the main delivery systems in the supplement space, affirms Guesman of Lycored. “However, beauty-from-within products offer consumers a certain luxury and allow for innovative delivery systems in the category. RTD beverages, powder mixes and concentrated tonics or elixirs are some of the interesting delivery system formats in the beauty-from-within space,” she concludes. 

Stay tuned for the next part of NutritionInsight’s coverage of beauty-from-within, which will delve into upcoming trends and target demographics.

By Kristiana Lalou