Beauty Boosters to Benefit the Whole Body

Skincare routines are essential for our face and neck, but by also focusing on wellness, including gut health, our whole body will benefit.

The “beauty from the inside out” industry is booming. More Kiwi women than ever are complementing and enhancing their topical skincare regimes with ingestible supplements – designed to strengthen skin, hair and nails, as well as boost gut health, which is believed to be intrinsically connected to skin. While edible beauty has been a prominent sector overseas for a much longer time, this country’s industry continues to gain momentum and is filled with game-changing innovators.

Over the past decade, a major focus on wellness has put the spotlight on inner health and nourishing our bodies in a more holistic way – which has led to an intersection of the health and beauty categories. While our skincare routines generally just focus on the face and neck, taking a supplement means our entire body benefits. Even better, most taste great and they’re super easy to incorporate into daily life. While some doctors remain dubious about the efficacy of these magic pills and powders, legions of devotees will attest to the obvious changes and benefits they’ve experienced from regular use.

All hail collagen

Collagen is the undeniable shining star of the ingestible beauty sphere. For those who need a quick and basic refresher, collagen is the main structural protein that forms the connective tissue throughout our body. Think of it as being like the glue that holds everything together and keeps skin plump, soft and supple, and makes joints, bones and muscles strong. As we age, we begin to lose collagen and this, combined with environmental aggressors such as sun and pollution, which accelerate the process, means skin loses its strength and starts to dehydrate, sag and wrinkle over time.

While eating a great diet that’s high in antioxidants, religiously wearing sunblock and avoiding smoking, taking a collagen supplement is a great way to boost your body’s stores. Taken regularly, it can improve skin elasticity, renewal and regeneration, significantly strengthen nails and encourage healthy hair growth. Products usually contain marine (from fish skin, scales or bones) or bovine (from cows) collagen, and when it comes to choosing a formulation, New Zealand-owned Dose & Co, Jeuneora, Two Islands and Adashiko are a great start.

Beauty begins in the belly

Studies have shown that glowing, radiant and healthy skin may be down to great gut health. Carla Oates, founder of acclaimed, award- winning Australian brand The Beauty Chef, offers the following analogy: “If you think about a garden, our gut is like the soil. The soil needs the right nutrient levels and bacterial balance to support the plants and for them to be strong, their leaves robust and their flowers to blossom. For our skin to be strong, lustrous and radiant, we also need the right bacterial and nutrient balance in our gut.”

In an attempt to get on top of her and her young daughters’ skin problems, Oates put her family on a gut-healing protocol in the late 2000s. This included a diet of probiotic-rich, lacto-fermented wholefoods, which helped get rid of the problems for good.

These results compelled her to create GLOW, $75, a daily beauty powder for radiant skin and gut health. It contains a lot of organic wholefoods, antioxidants and vitamins as well as a natural broad-spectrum probiotic, prebiotics and postbiotics to feed the gut’s beneficial bacteria.

A hairy subject

Hormonal changes during menopause, such as decreasing estrogen levels, are a direct cause of hair loss and thinning. This is because estrogen helps hair grow faster and stay on the head longer, leading to healthier, thicker locks, so when the level decreases, so does hair retention. In response to this often-distressing symptom, Kiwi menopause-support trailblazers MenoMe created LotsaLocks. This daily supplement is powered by keraGEN- IV, a natural keratin sourced ethically from the wool of South Island sheep. Keratin is one of nature’s most important building blocks at a cellular level and is fundamental in the development of healthy tissues, including skin, hair and nails.

MenoMe managing director Leigh Kite says, “Going through menopause can be a harrowing time, with 34 psychological and physical symptoms that women will experience at varying degrees. A lot of those signs women deal with privately or even hide from the people around them, but hair loss or thinning is something that is visually evident in our appearance, and the perceived loss of self that comes with it can take a toll on our confidence and mental health, too.”

Here are a selection of beauty boosters to benefit the whole body.

This new berry- flavoured variant of the Dr Lewinn’s inner beauty powder range is dairy, gluten and 99 percent sugar-free. Plus, it comes in 30 handy pre- measured sachets.

A delicious dose of collagen that can be added to your daily coffee or smoothie.

These beauty-boosting capsules support hydration and lock in moisture for radiant skin, with results expected in six weeks.

A skin-supporting drink containing bio- fermented coconut water, grapeseed and pomegranate, which work synergistically to promote gut health, digestion and skin hydration.

Four active ingredients have been added to boost the power of the marine collagen in this formula, which is specifically designed to support strong hair and nail growth.

As well as skin appearance, this supplement is designed to support healthy brain function, mental focus, immune health and gut health. It will help you feel more alert for up to five hours thanks to EnXtraTM, and the calming effects of BluenesseTM will leave you feeling calm and zen.