Edible Beauty: pills, tonics, teas, skin care, and cosmetics

Savvy brands are catering to the edible-beauty consumer; and founders like Chelsea Cannon of Forever Wild Organics and Meg Meranus of Lilu Lipcare ascribe to this succinct ingredient philosophy: “Make it clean, green with a focus on ingredients you can eat, because your skin ‘eats’ whatever you put on it,”​ says Meranus when asked what advice she’d give to aspiring beauty entrepreneurs. And Cannon asks rhetorically (when discussing her ingredient and formulation choices), “If you wouldn't eat something, why would you put it on your skin or in your hair?”​

Food-grade skin care​

Countless natural and organic cosmetics and personal care brands formulate with food-grade ingredients (which can be wild harvested, cultivated, or upcycled from food processing byproducts. Of course Lilu Lipcare and Forever Wild Organics formulate with food-grade ingredients, and so do brands like LOLI Beauty​, Bite Beauty, RMS Beauty​, 100% Pure, Smoothie Beauty, etc.

The concept of edible beauty ingredients has become so popular that early this year the ethically focused research and consulting company Ecovia hosted a full-day event about formulating with food-grade ingredients.​ According to Ecovia, “food ingredients are making their way into cosmetics and personal care applications, with a growing number of formulators looking to the kitchen table for inspiration.”​

Multifunctional wellness​

Forever Wild Organics is a particularly interesting brand in the edible beauty space. Forever Wild makes three varieties of Hair Growth Tea & Rinse – a product that consumers can drink like a tea or/and apply to their hair as a topical treatment.

“Edible, drinkable or simply put ‘multi-use’ products using food grade ingredients [are] the next step in detoxing our bodies and removing unnecessary toxins from our lives,” ​Cannon tells Cosmetics Design.

“My philosophy is that true beauty begins from within the body first and radiates outward... Clear skin and healthy hair starts from having a balance between your mental self-care, a nutrition focused diet and a close spiritual connection to yourself,” ​explains Cannon. These, she says, are “the most important factors in beauty / wellness.” ​Learn more about Forever Wild Organics here. ​

Supplements with beauty benefits​

Truly edible beauty products are nutricosmetics, wellness supplements meant to promote healthy hair, skin, and nails or to prevent extraneous signs of aging.

In recent years, beauty-from-within products have become quite popular. “From the rapid growth and consumer demand for natural, organic and clean beauty products, a more educated consumer and the early adoption of beauty wellness products from the millennials; nutricosmetics have spring boarded to mainstream in the US,” ​Paula Simpson, founder of Nutribloom Consulting, tells Cosmetics Design.

“Collagen based brands targeting claims for firm skin, strong, healthy hair and nails first attracted the attention of the US consumer because of the quick and visual results revealed in hair and nails,” ​says Simpson. And now, “clinical research around urban pollution and its negative impact on skin health are driving antioxidant ingredients / formulations while evidence on the gut-skin-brain microbiome has stimulated a market of ingestible products to support stress response and balance gut/skin health.” ​

“As the category becomes well established, transparent and lifestyle focused brands seem to be attracting today’s conscious consumer (who wants to know that an ingredient has been well studied, where it comes from and if it’s worth their hard-earned money),”​ Simpson tells Cosmetics Design.

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Deanna Utroske, CosmeticsDesign.com Editor, covers beauty business news in the Americas region and publishes the weekly Indie Beauty Profile column, showcasing the inspiring work of entrepreneurs and innovative brands.