Look Good From The Inside Out

New tech and advanced ingredients in beauty supplements mean it might be time to consider adding one to your daily routine to help your skin, hair and nails.

- Vanessa Chia

Beauty supplements those you consume for your skin, hair or nails – are more than just health supplements. Dr SK Tan, founder of IDS Clinic, an aesthetics clinic, says it may be better to call them skin supplements, as they “usually contain antioxidants or vitamins shown to benefit skin”. These include photoprotection, skin barrier repair and, sometimes, skin brightening.

Co-founder of supplement brand Miriqa, Winthrop Wong, who is also a pharmacist and director of Wellchem Pharmaceuticals, says supplements can benefit your beauty routine. “The health of our skin and hair is a reflection of our diet, and inadequate intake of certain nutrients may affect our hair and skin.”

Sounds good – but isn’t your daily serum or moisturiser enough? Wong says this “dual approach” gives your skin “optimal benefits”: Apply skincare on the surface and, from the inside, supplement skin with what your body lacks from your diet.

And while some ingredients do get destroyed in the stomach before they reach the intestines where they can be absorbed, here’s where R&D comes in. “Dosage of the ingredients matters,” says Wong. Two brands might use the same ingredients, but the concentration might be far more optimal in one than the other. So check the ingredients list – the one with the higher concentration will be listed higher up.