Are Skin Supplements Worth the Splurge?

The moment you go online on Instagram or check your YouTube feed, there are at least a dozen video recommendations of healthy morning skincare routines. Almost all of these show the influencers starting their day with a scoop of collagen powder. Even otherwise, social media is full of videos of people swearing with skincare gummies and pills for their picture-perfect skin. As much as you strive to adopt a holistic approach towards life to look and feel better, you sometimes cannot help but wonder whether the secret lies in these supplement bottles.

If this scenario is familiar to you, this article is for you.

According to expert dermatologists, supplements are not just basic vitamins. They are a combination of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, herbs or botanicals, which have not yet been approved by the FDA. This means that there is no regulation on the formula and no solid evidence that they will give the promised results on the average healthy person with a balanced diet.

Are supplements really necessary?               

As supplement manufacturers and social media would like you to believe, supplements would give your body an extra dose of all of the important, "beautifying" vitamins necessary for the skin of your dreams. The fact is that is not the whole truth. Unless you have a proven vitamin deficiency, these supplements are not doing any real work. As such, even if you do not end up with side effects, you will still be wasting your hard-earned money. An extra word of caution from doctors: if you are considering replacing a normal balanced diet with vitamin supplements, they will not work the same way.

Are supplements then totally useless?

However, all is not bleak on the supplements front. Some potent antioxidants like polypodium leucotomos (derived from a fern plant) are proven to improve pigmentation from melasma as well as decrease the effects of UVA, UVB, infrared, and visible light on the skin. These are even recommended by doctors.

As far as the Insta-worthy collagen supplement is concerned, the jury is still out on its efficiency. There is no solid proof of ingested collagen surviving the digestion and metabolism process and actually travelling through the bloodstream to the skin. So, if you have a protein-rich diet, save yourself the bucks and skip this one.

If you are still planning to give oral vitamins a go, I recommend avoiding fat-soluble vitamins, like A, D, E, and K because the excess from these vitamins will actually accumulate in your body and cause issues, unlike other vitamins whose excess gets thrown out with urine.

For results worth flaunting, you have to be patient for at least 3 months. And remember, there is no substitute for a healthy lifestyle.