What are nutricosmetics? How do they work? And how can you use these natural supplements to take your skincare and beauty routine to the next level?
Read on to find out everything you wanted to know about Nutricosmetics!
The Ultimate Guide to Nutricosmetics
It’s time you got familiar with the latest buzz word in the beauty industry - Nutricosmetics (sometimes known as nutraceuticals).
Table of contents
- What are Nutricosmetics?
- How do Nutricosmetics work?
- Types of Nutrients found in Nutricosmetic Supplements
- How to pick good ingestible beauty supplements
- When to expect results from Nutricosmetic supplements?
- Are there any side effects of taking Nutricosmetic supplements?
- Best Nutricosmetics supplements for nails?
- Best Nutricosmetic supplements for hair?
- Best Nutricosmetic supplements for skincare?
What are Nutricosmetics?
Nutricosmetics are nutritional supplements that you can take to aid in overall skin, hair, and nail health and care. They contain a blend of nutritional ingredients that work from within to improve your skin, whether it’s your face, neck , tummy, legs and more!
You take a daily supplement in the form of a pill, shake, or powder and take your normal daily beauty routine to the next level!
How do Nutricosmetics work?
What we ingest (whether it is food or medicine) will have a huge impact on our skin. This impact can be positive (or negative!) depending on what passes our lips. We’ve all heard the saying you are what you eat..
That being said, it’s no secret that it’s incredibly hard to stick to eating a completely balanced, healthy diet 24/7 and achieve all of your nutrition goals.
That’s where nutricosmetics are so useful - allowing you to supplement your diet with the right nutrients, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants in the form of nutricosmetics you can realign your gut-skin axis. The GOOD GUT - GOOD SKIN AXIS is defined by the direct link between skin, and certain necessary nutrients, and your gut’s health.
You should still keep up your normal skincare, hair, and nail routines as nutricosmetics supplement what you are already doing. If you want some more advice on skincare try our skincare questionnaire and get some personalised advice just for you!
Types of Nutrients found in Nutricosmetic Supplements
Now that you know what Nutricosmetics are, let’s delve a little deeper into the different nutrients that you will find in these supplements and what they can do for you.
Lipids - omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids
Lipids such as Omega-3 fatty acids help to treat inflammation and assist with wound healing. They are also great options for improving skin conditions such as photoaging, dermatitis, and melanogenesis (production of melanin and dark skin pigments).
Polysaccharides - Hyaluronic acid
If you struggle with hydration, hyaluronic acid is the nutrient for you! It helps boost skin moisture, improve elasticity and reduce wrinkle depth and skin roughness.
Peptides - Collagen peptides
Collagen has a dual action in your skin. Firstly, it provides the building block components for new collagen and elastin. More exciting, it then upcycles the enzymes that stimulate the synthesis of new collagen and elastin as well as hyaluronic acid. This is great news for skin, hair, and nails which all benefit in strength and elasticity. Collagen can also help joint and muscle health - truly, an all-round hero ingredient in our books!
Minerals
Minerals are inorganic elements that act as catalysts for different chemical reactions within our bodies, and certain minerals are responsible for the natural function and development of aspects of our body’s functions. In fact, there are 13 essential minerals, including renowned minerals such as zinc, iron, sodium and calcium.
Let’s find out more about which minerals are effective in nutricosmetics.
Zinc
Zinc plays vital roles in the body in cell division, the immune system, and in antioxidants. As a supplement Zinc can help to regulate the pro-inflammatory pathway, stopping inflammation in its tracks and helping with cell repair and protection.
Selenium
If damage is a concern for you, then you should look at supplements containing Selenium. Selenium is a natural antioxidant that helps protect the skin against a range of stresses and damage - we are looking at you sun lovers!
Manganese
During the tissue synthesis process, which requires an increased production of collagen, manganese is required for the activation of prolidase, an enzyme that functions to provide the amino acid proline, for collagen formation in human skin cells.
Vitamins
Vitamins are organic elements that are necessary for ensuring the body’s normal functioning, growth and development, split into two types of fat-soluble vitamins and water-soluble vitamins.
We’ll cover the most important vitamins that are often used inside nutricosmetics to assist your bodies’ natural functions and healthy development.
Let’s find out about important vitamins inside nutricosmetics today!
Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic acid)
For breakout prone skin you can look to Vitamin B5 which increases coenzyme A (CoA). Coenzyme A increases the breakdown of excess sebum (sebum=the oil produced by your sebaceous glands) which in turn will reduce the clogging of pores. Less clogging means less breakouts, yay!
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is an important building block to make new collagen. Inadequate levels of vitamin C can impact the quality of new collagen, resulting in a delicate and easily destroyed matrix.
Not good. Why?
Anti-sagging from collagen depends on a healthy, organised collagen matrix.
TIP: Picture a swimming pool net☺. If there are a lot of missing links, it sags.
Plant extracts
Certain elements and compounds that are extracted by plants are incredibly useful to healthy functioning of the body, its development and improvement.
It’s no secret that plants hold their own unique merits and properties that make them useful when incorporated into our regular diet. Why not supplement your diet with some of the nutrients missing from your daily diet, with the right plant extracts to improve your well being.
Let’s find out more about some important plant extracts often included in nutricosmetics.
Curcumin
Curcumin from turmeric is a potent anti-inflamm-aging compound. Anti-inflamm-aging simply means curcumin slows down skin ageing by controlling skin inflammation. If you have sensitive skin this should be your 1st step☺…just sayin’.
DIM + Glutathione
When you eat cruciferous vegetables, your stomach acid breaks down a compound called indole-3-carbinol to produce a new compound called DIM (Di-indolylmethane).
DIM together with its critical cofactor Glutathione (one of the most important molecules in detoxification) form a powerful duo for detoxification on a cellular level.
Improved elimination of toxins and hormones are extremely beneficial for hormone related breakouts and acne.
Pre- and Probiotics
The idea that the gut and skin are connected is not new; traditional forms of medicine that have been around for thousands of years have a long history of a gut-centric approach to healthy skin. Your intestinal microbiome is a complex and dynamic bacterial community that plays an important role in your skin. As mentioned earlier we call this important role the GOOD GUT – GOOD SKIN AXIS.
Probiotics
If your thriving bacterial community goes whack, it’s called dysbiosis – and it is this microbiome dysbiosis that’s linked to inflammatory skin conditions like rosacea, eczema and acne.
The good news is you can nourish your microbiota with living microorganisms called probiotics.
Some of the awesome benefits you can get from probiotics include improvements in hair follicles, better skin elasticity and moisture content, as well as a more resilient skin barrier!
Pre-biotics
Pre-biotics are what you consume to feed your pro-biotic microbes.
Supplementing with pre-biotics can really ramp up the action of probiotics such as skin hydration and barrier functioning!
Other important elements & compounds in nutricosmetics
Although we’ve covered the essential minerals, vitamins, pre- and probiotics that are often used to supplement aspects of one’s diet, there are other beneficial nutrients and antioxidants out there that can also be used to improve your healthy development.
Let’s find out more about these other powerful elements that are useful nutricosmetics!
Choline
Choline is an organic, water-soluble compound. It is neither a vitamin nor a mineral but an essential nutrient. Choline is a key building block for neurotransmitters that keep your gut moving (called acetylcholine).
Astaxanthin
Astaxanthin (pronounced as-ta-ZAN-thin) – is the most powerful antioxidant known to science.
- 500 x stronger than Vitamin E
- 1500 x stronger than curcumin
- 6000 x stronger than Vitamin C
Astaxanthin inhibits the gene expression of pro-inflammatory markers in your sensitive skin.
We have said it before but will say it again. Slow down skin ageing by controlling your skin’s inflammation. Some of the benefits are reduction in the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, age spot size, skin texture and skin moisture content.
Fun fact: Astaxanthin is the compound that gives flamingos their luminous, pink hue!
Fulvic Acid
Shout out! Our Fulvic Acid is carbohydrate-based. CHD-FA™ is a proven anti-inflammatory and antioxidant as well as being a free radical scavenger, which also assists with nutritional uptake. A hero ingredient for sensitive skin.
MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane)
MSM is a cofactor in the formation of healthy collagen. MSM blocks undesirable chemical and physical cross-linking of collagen and preserves pliancy, which is crucial for supporting healthy collagen and resilient skin.
MSM has been shown to significantly increase plasma glutathione levels, an additional benefit in maintaining collagen’s defensive mechanisms against oxidative stress.
Digestive Enzymes
Age, pesticides in food and the wrong diet can all decrease your digestive enzymes. However, supplementing with digestive enzymes can help you achieve digestion perfection and optimal nutrition vacuuming!
To make the most of any ingestible beauty product, you need to first optimise your digestion – this is to make sure your body can actually absorb all the good stuff.
How to pick good ingestible beauty supplements
Now that you know all about Nutricosmetics and how you can benefit from them - let's talk about choosing the right product.
Choose a reputable brand
Shop shelves are packed to the rafters with smoothies, sports drinks, collagen, bone broth shakes…the list goes on and on. Quite confusing really.
Everything has its place but if you are looking to support your skin from the inside, then look for solution products by brands you know and trust. In the case of nutricosmetics, I would definitely go with skincare brands first and foremost. Mostly because they already specialise in skin, so it simply makes more sense.
Check the ingredients
We can’t stress this enough - quality matters!
Read the ingredients and make sure that the product you are choosing is free from artificial ingredients and nasties.
Watch out for cheap fillers which are used to bulk up formulas in order to bring costs down – besides competitive pricing, fillers bring little to the nutritional table.
Bottom line: stick to a brand you know and trust, if you plan to invest in ingestible beauty.
Check the quality
Make sure that the product is tested according to scientific standards to ensure the quality and safety of the product.
When to expect results from Nutricosmetic supplements?
Unlike topical skincare, nutricosmetics isn’t an instant solution. You should start seeing (and sometimes feeling) visible results in 3 weeks but it may take up to two months.
Nutricosmetics are a sustainable long term solution, and should ideally become part of your daily skin and beauty routine along with your other skin, hair, and nail care products.
Are there any side effects of taking Nutricosmetic supplements?
The only potential side effect may be if you are aware that you are allergic to any of the ingredients contained within the products. It’s important to check the comprehensive list of ingredients on the back to be sure!
Best Nutricosmetics supplements for Nails?
If you are struggling with nail strength you should try supplementing with Managense whereas for nail growth issues you can supplement with Zinc, Selenium, VItamin C, and Folic acid.
Zinc benefits for nails
If you’ve ever suffered from brittle nails, improving your consumption of zinc in your diet may be the best way to improve your nail health, and restore their natural healthy structure.
Selenium benefits for nails
Selenium isn’t just good for maintaining skin elasticity, it’s also great for keeping your nails in check by promoting strong nail health and a natural healthy nail colour and structure.
Vitamin C benefits for nails
If you’ve struggled from nails that don’t recover from knocks and chips easily, and take ages to grow back again, Vitamin C may be one of the answers to your issues. Vitamin C promotes the production of collagen, facilitating the faster growth of nails, and just like Zinc and Selenium, it also helps nails maintain a strong structure. The shape of your fingernails can also improve through the consumption of more vitamin C, which is said to also help prevent hangnails.
Folic acid benefits for nails
Folic acid promotes the production of red blood cells, and the creation of new cells, which helps the nails grow efficiently, and maintain their natural colour and shine.
Best Nutricosmetic supplements for hair?
A great choice for improving overall hair condition is to supplement with Zinc, selenium, and manganese. If you are struggling with brittle hair and hair loss, you can try Vitamins B, C, E, and omega-3 fatty acids.
Zinc benefits for hair
Zinc can provide a number of benefits for your hair that keep it healthy.
Zinc helps keep the oil glands around hair follicles functioning properly, and helps prevent hair loss. It’s also said to be good for maintaining a healthy scalp and minimizing dandruff.
Selenium benefits for hair
Selenium kills dandruff-causing fungus which helps you maintain better scalp health, and promotes thyroid hormones. The thyroid is, in part, responsible for regulating hair growth.
Vitamin B for hair
Vitamin B is not just effective to keep the body’s energy levels up, but it’s also crucial for hair growth, and is said to aid in the health of gleaming, voluptuous hair.
Vitamin C for hair
Vitamin C is so important for your hair. It helps promote the protein collagen, which aids in developing stronger, healthier hair. Vitamin C can also assist the body in absorbing iron, which is another essential mineral necessary for hair growth.
Vitamin E for hair
Vitamin E is said to help regulate oil production in the scalp and around the hair follicles, as well as keeping the right PH levels consistent within the scalp. Promoting a healthier scalp in turn allows you to grow strong, healthy hair.
Omega-3 fatty Acids
Omega 3 fatty acids are great for the scalp, reducing inflammation that occurs around hair follicles, which is often associated with hair loss. Omega 3s are also said to help promote the abundant growth of radiant, healthy hair.
Best Nutricosmetic supplements for skincare?
This is the area where we strive as skincare experts! Our reputable and well-loved scientifically formulated natural skincare brand knows what your skin needs. We know exactly how to help you boost and enhance your daily skincare routine with high quality nutricosmetics.
Best Nutricosmetics for skin concerns
We have discussed the key ingredients in a lot of detail above, so here is the quick and easy guide for finding the right nutricosmetic for your skin concern!
Best supplements for improving skin elasticity
Some of the best supplements for improving skin elasticity are collagen, hyaluronic acid, antioxidants, and probiotics. They help to restore flexibility and firmness of the skin while supplementing hydration and protecting against further damage.
Best supplements for skin breakouts
If you are struggling with breakouts, Vitamin B5 will help reduce sebum production. Combine it with collagen to help promote skin repair, and zinc, curcumin, or astaxanthin to reduce inflammation. With a hero combination like this, you can treat your breakouts from within!
Best supplements for sensitive skin
The key to treating sensitive skin is to target inflammation. Focus on antioxidants like Vitamin C, B5, zinc, and add in collagen for overall skin conditioning and glow. Don’t forget digestive enzymes to make sure you can absorb all that goodness!
Wrapping up
Nutricosmetics are a great way to supplement your health and skincare routine and take it to the next level to achieve your hair, nail, and skin goals!
If you are already eating well and using great natural skincare and beauty products, nutricosmetics help you take a holistic 360° skincare approach and treat and address beauty concerns from within.
Take control of your holistic skincare routine today with SKOON’s amazing natural skincare products.