When the plane shook violently mid-transcontinental flight, I grabbed the armrest with one hand and reached for my ear with the other. A few days earlier, an acupuncturist at New York City’s WTHN Clinic had used oversized tweezers to attach tiny crystal constellations to my outer ear. In a quiet, dimly lit room, I felt a soothing sensation as the crystals, the size of large studs, were pressed against my skin. The crystals, called seeds, stimulate the brain and send different signals to the body depending on their position: one near the inner flap to aid digestion, one near the top to relieve stress. When secured in place, they recall both the edges of Maria Tash piercings and the star-shaped stick-on earrings of the ’90s. But pushing the crystals through the air during intense turbulence serves only one purpose: to calm me down over the Rocky Mountains.
I’m a lifelong sticker lover. From decorating gold stars to the satisfaction of scratch-and-sniff. My kids tease me, but Hello Kitty stickers still adorn my laptop and birthday cards. To me, they’re as memorable as a tube of Bonne Belle Lip Smackers. (When I saw Olivia Rodrigo with a sticker on her face on the cover of her debut album, sour, I felt a certain spiritual affinity. But these days, sticker mania has spread far beyond those of us with nostalgia for the ornaments that once covered the insides of our lockers and the bottoms of our skateboards.
Health-oriented stickers now fall into two main categories: those designed to stimulate acupressure points (a handy aid on my transcontinental trip) and those designed for ear seeding (the name for ear seeding comes from Vaccaria Gudrun Snyder, founder of Moon Rabbit Acupuncture in Chicago, says the seed acupuncture used by traditional Chinese medicine practitioners is “like acupuncture on the go.” WTHN acupuncturist Laura Snyper often gives patients a set to take home for longer-lasting results. “It works in the background while you go about your life,” Snyper says.
And then there are transdermal patches, which purportedly deliver nutrients or other nourishment (like aromatherapy) by sticking to the skin. Though previously used to administer medication or kick nicotine addiction, a new generation of patches addresses a range of issues, from stress, pain, and menstrual bloating to dry skin and jet lag. Ideally, a permeable patch’s ingredients “have the ability to pass through the epidermis, be absorbed into the bloodstream, and enter the circulation,” says New York City dermatologist Hadley King, MD. (That’s an appealing prospect, given that oral supplements can sometimes cause gastrointestinal side effects.)
Both varieties are poised for expansion. WTHN recently raised $5 million in funding, and Meghan Markle made headlines last year when she wore NuCalm’s blue, disk-shaped anti-stress wrist patch, which supposedly activates acupressure points on the left wrist to induce relaxation (the company reports a “significant surge in sales” since then). In January, Ross J. Barr, the London acupuncturist who has treated Markle and Prince Harry, launched the first patch packs in the U.S. through Violet Grey (25 for $60). The aromatherapy adhesive (individual patches are designated for “calm” or “sleep”) quickly sold out. When Claridge’s put his patches in minibars, the only thing they sold 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 Urman 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 dangerous deficiencies in iron and B vitamins.**12** Davis-Erman’s body couldn’t absorb vitamin capsules, and her insurance had limited coverage for injections and infusions, so her doctor prescribed patches, which she said soon became too bulky to fit under her clothes and only came in a medical beige color, “which made me look sick.”
Her solution is a series of temporary, tattoo-like stickers that contain particle-sized vitamins and supplements 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, which she places on any area of clean, dry skin. Other stickers focus on skin health with ingredients like biotin and milk thistle, and “Travel Well” seashell sheets contain the herb ashwagandha, which purportedly relieves anxiety and inflammation, and 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 myself feeling uncharacteristically relaxed.
Because patch wellness is an emerging field, there is limited data to back up its claims. “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 is skeptical of the NuCalm disc’s product description, which she says “is expecting too much.” And as King points out, the list of drugs known to be transmitted through the skin is “very limited.” Our skin is a strong barrier, and only very small molecules, such as nicotine, have been proven to be absorbed through the patch.
Barrière points out that herbal supplement recommendations, such as echinacea and ashwagandha, aren’t evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates vitamins and supplements under 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 U.K. facility registered with the U.K. government’s main medical regulatory agency.) And Barrière’s patch website carries a disclaimer that it is “not a substitute for medicines or medical devices.” But he tells skeptics, “Something like aromatherapy has been around for thousands of years. There’s nothing that’s been around that long that doesn’t work.” For Snyder, it doesn’t matter whether it’s an ear injection or a placebo effect that gets you more calm. “It just means it’s doing something for you.”
