As more spa-goers desire an experience that helps to enhance their overall wellbeing, many spas are updating their menu of services to include health and wellness offerings in the form of nutrition consultations, fitness classes, and oral-based beauty-enhancing supplements known as nutricosmetics. Combining the health benefits of nutraceuticals with the cosmetic benefits of cosmeceuticals, nutricosmetics treat the skin, hair, and body from the cellular level. “Nutritionally deficient or imbalanced diets that don’t support inner health and lifestyle needs will eventually reflect in our outer aesthetic,” says Paula Simpson, founder of Nutribloom Consulting and a holistic health and beauty practitioner. “Nutricosmetics offer a targeted and more concentrated blend of ingredients with a focus on supporting the health and balance of our skin, fortifying our hair and nails, or providing whole-body skin-firming support.”
Nutricosmetics work from the inside to promote beauty from within with the help of ingredients, such as collagen, vitamins, peptides, minerals, and more. “It is common knowledge that science has shown us that certain vitamins and nutrients are needed for us to have healthy skin, hair, and nails,” says Cathy O’Brien, CEO of Naturopathica. “We get these from specific foods that are rich in certain vitamins or nutrients, and from supplements that can provide needed or lacking required daily doses. One can ingest these needed vitamins and nutrients in many forms and flavors these days. What nutricosmetics means is taking the idea of ingestibles for achieving external beauty and making them part of a holistic wellness approach.”
Nutricosmetics, which are available in a variety of forms, including liquids, capsules, and powders, are not intended to replace proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. They are designed to complement topical skincare treatments, help protect skin from environmental stressors, and support healthy skin, hair, and nails. “Different forms of nutricosmetics are chosen based on the amount and physical properties of ingredients to be added at doses that provide benefits,” says Jennifer Martin-Biggers, Ph.D., vice president of scientific affairs and education at Hum Nutrition. “Some ingredients are oil-based and are best used in soft gels. Powders can provide higher doses of ingredients that don't fit in smaller capsules or pills.” According to Martin-Biggers, there is no benefit to taking one form of supplement over another. Spa-goers should look for ingredients that will provide benefits they are looking for first. If they are available in various forms, they should choose a supplement type that works best for their lifestyle so they remember to take it consistently, as it can take several weeks to see initial results.
Spas and Nutricosmetics
Cathy O’Brien, CEO of Naturopathica, explains how nutricosmetics can benefit spas and why offering nutricosmetics to clients is a perfect fit. “Spas are a healing space where customers come for more than a treatment. They come to relax in the sauna or steam room. They reflect in the quiet of a meditation room. They look forward to the feelings of the robe and slippers, and the blankets they can wrap up in before or after a treatment. This space and moment with a person is an opportunity to share beverages, foods, tinctures, or other types of ingestible formats with them to bolster their internal wellness experience at a spa, and also to improve their overall spa experience. The concept, with a given name, makes the ingestible piece a conscious choice—much like what facial or massage treatment a person chooses. The idea and practices of nutricosmetics has been happening forever and is now a more realized and embraced aspect of the overall wellness practice. This term itself is new, and is simply expressing the practice of ‘inside out’ wellness—being aware of and using certain vitamins and nutrients to achieve certain skincare and wellness goals.”