When Claridge’s put his patches in their minibars, the only thing that outsold them was bottled water, Barr says. Though temporary in nature, stick-on treatments could change the world of beauty and wellness in more permanent ways. Cleo Davis-Erman founded Barrière, a company that makes stylish medical face masks, in 2020, but has also branched out into vitamins (the company’s motto is “Put on a vitamin, feel good”). In 2022, she was diagnosed with dangerously low iron and vitamin B12. Davis-Erman’s body couldn’t absorb capsule vitamins, and her insurance limited coverage for injections and infusions, so her doctor prescribed vitamin patches, but she quickly realized they were too big to fit under clothes and only came in an unattractive medical beige color. “It looked like something you associate with illness,” she says.
Her solution, she says, is a series of temporary, tattoo-like stickers that contain vitamins and supplements in particle-sized particles designed to pass through skin and tissue and enter the bloodstream. Davis-Erman currently gets her daily dose of iron and vitamin B12 with bird and moon stickers that she applies to clean, dry skin. Other stickers focus on skin health with ingredients like biotin and milk thistle, while a sheet of “Travel Well” seashells claims to ease anxiety and inflammation with the herb ashwagandha, which Davis-Erman calls “nature’s Xanax.” Before a turbulent flight, I stick one of the Travel Well patches on my wrist and, despite the traffic jams, work tension, and fatigue, I find I feel uncharacteristically relaxed.
Patch wellness is an emerging frontier, and as such, the data supporting its claims is limited. “Patch wellness is trendy, but we need more research before we can assume it works,” says Jennifer Wider, MD. (She points to a small 2019 study of patients who had bariatric surgery that found that those who wore a multivitamin patch were more likely to have vitamin deficiencies than those who took oral vitamins.) Wider says she’s skeptical that the NuCalm Disc’s product description is “promising too much.” And as King points out, the list of drugs known to be transmitted through the skin is “very limited.”
Our skin acts as a strong barrier, and only very small molecules, like nicotine, have been proven to be absorbed through the patch. Barrière points out that his recommendations of herbal supplements, such as echinacea and ashwagandha, haven’t been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA regulates vitamins and supplements with different rules than those that apply to food, and often only evaluates products that are already on the market. (Barrière’s patches are manufactured in a UK facility registered with the UK government’s main medical regulatory agency.) And Barrière’s patch website carries a disclaimer that the patch “is not a replacement for medicines or medical devices.” But he tells skeptics, “Something like aromatherapy has been around for thousands of years. If it didn’t work, nothing would last that long.”
For Snyder, it doesn’t matter if ear seeding brings about a greater state of calm. “It’s that it’s doing something for you.” There’s a secondary effect of putting our treatments on the skin: calling it self-care as self-expression and providing an opportunity to talk about anxiety, pain, and hormonal concerns. “It’s a big cultural shift to not stigmatize the fact that we’re all struggling in some way,” says WTHN’s Snyder. Over dinner in LA, I showed off my ear seeding to two friends, and the conversation moved to stress and therapy and the various challenges we’re all experiencing. Though we hadn’t seen each other in years, the emotional distance between us was immediately reduced, and my open admission fostered a refreshing candor that I hope will continue.
Read also:
12 beauty and health lessons to adopt in 2024
Quadrobics is a new fitness trend that improves overall strength and agility
As part of her health-first approach, Araya F. turns to ice baths, the benefits of which include:
