by Deanna Utroske
Author’s Note: Vitamins are some of the most time-tested skincare actives. But as we entered the 2020s and skincare that is meant to be swallowed—capsules, gummies, powders, and such—became popular, ingredient makers and consumer brands started presenting topical vitamins in fun new ways.
Vitamin-Packed Beauty Brands
The Korea-based brand Bognobagi launched a line of Vita Genic Jelly Masks in early 2020. Each mask is packaged in a flexible pouch featuring the image of a brightly colored liquid-filled capsule, as if to promise the benefits of a vitamin pill in the form of a sheet mask. The product line includes a relaxing vitamin B mask, a lifting vitamin A mask, a hydrating vitamin E mask, and a brightening vitamin C mask—all formulated with Bognobagi’s eleven-vitamin complex; and the packs’ labeling suggests that those vitamins are at a concentration of 50,000 ppm.
The masks continue to do well for the brand. Bagnobagi featured the line while exhibiting at Cosmoprof North America in Las Vegas back in 2023. And the Vita Genic Jelly Masks have been the best-selling sheet mask at Watsons Thailand, a leading beauty retailer in that country, for four years now.
Genovie MD is among a class of skincare brands that have taken topical vitamins beyond topical. This US-based brand sells both “transdermal vitamin patches and skincare products.” The transdermal patches are meant for their health or wellness benefits, such as the B12 Vitamin Patch for “enhancing energy, focus, and metabolism;” or the Fit Patch to “boost metabolism, curb cravings, and energize your workouts.” While the brand’s more conventional serums and creams are meant to be skincare. But brands like this one that are offering both vitamin supplements for inner health and topical products for skin are certainly affecting consumer expectations.
Apricot Beauty, based in Italy, is a more conventional skincare brand that (like Bagnobagi) formulates many of its masks with vitamins. Apricot Beauty sells both disposable and reusable masks and patches.
Reusable silicone masks and patches are gaining popularity with consumers, especially those looking to avoid single-use products and materials. Some of these are meant to be used with any serum; others, like the Reusable Eye Patches with Vitamin C from Apricot Beauty come infused with skincare ingredients and are intended to be used as many as 30 times.
The K-beauty brand Scenearth has a small collection of products formulated with vitamin C derivatives called the Sea’ater™ Vitamin Sea Collection—a fun name, playing on both the popular skincare vitamin and the brand’s tag line: “vegan beauty inspired by the sea.”
Nutritional supplement makers and multinationals are leveraging this topical vitamin opportunity too. Equilibra, a company based in Italy and specialized in nutrition, supplements, and cosmetics launched a skincare product line called Vitaminica in 2023.
It’s worth mentioning that in 2018, Unilever acquired a 75% stake in Equilibra, which means that this relatively new skincare line that’s all about topical vitamins and that is well supported by Equilibra’s expertise and reputation in the nutrition and supplements market, is actually a Unilever brand.
Materials that the brand previously shared with me explain that, “the products of the Vitaminica Line are based on the innovative Multivitamin Complex which contains seven skin-friendly vitamins combined in a unique balance, designed to protect tone and elasticity, give uniformity and luminosity and preserve the skin’s natural water reserve for a complete hydration.”
There are countless creative examples from beauty brands formulating with and foregrounding vitamins. And brands that fit more in the device category are capitalizing on the value and popularity of vitamins for skincare too. Vitarain Korea makes a line of shower filters that can be installed inline and not only neutralize chlorine and remove sediment but also add vitamins to the shower water for skincare, body care, and hair care benefits.
And at Cosmoprof Asia Hong Kong this past November, the Vitamin LED brand was a Cosmoprof Awards finalist in the Home & Professional Devices and Tools category for its Dual Therapy Stand, a tastefully designed floor lamp that easily converts into a professional-grade infrared light therapy device for skin and scalp care.
Consumer demand for vitamin-forward skincare products is growing. Data that Astute Analytica (an India-based market research company) published earlier this year predicts that the US market for vitamin C skincare alone will reach over $2,200 million by 2032, which is a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.53% between now and then.
Vitamin Ingredient Inventions
As time-tested and commonplace as vitamins are in skincare, it seems there is always room for improvement. Which is why specialty chemical companies and other ingredient suppliers often introduce new vitamin ingredients supported by microencapsulation technologies, improved stability, novel delivery mechanisms, and more.
A couple of the more intriguing vitamin ingredients that I’ve been made aware of lately include Nectaria Lithops® from Vytrus Biotech. And if you’re a regular reader of my Global Perspectives column here in EuroCosmetics magazine, you may recall that Nectaria Lithops helps optimize the skin’s own production of vitamin D.
Press materials that Alejandro Guirado, Communication and Marketing Manager at Vytrus, shared with me explain that this ingredient was inspired by Lithops pseudotruncatella (a succulent native to South Western Africa sometimes called ‘living stones’). This plant is “able to maintain levels of water and healthy cells during extreme periods. Its secret weapon is its sugar structuration. Along with a peculiar metabolism, this sugar structuration enables the plant to capture the light necessary for…underground photosynthesis without compromising the water balance of the plant.”
This underground photosynthesis, it turns out, is not unlike the mechanism that human skin uses for vitamin D synthesis. Vytrus’ Nectaria Lithops is made from Lithops stem cells and facilitates the “optimization of the skin microenvironment to stimulate the vitamin D production by the cutaneous cells.”
Even more recently, the team at Actera introduced me to their new third-generation retinoid called
Adapinoid®. Published clinical data on the ingredient show that Adapinoid® has greater skincare benefits and fewer drawbacks than retinol and retinoic acid. (Articles on oleyl adapalenate, the INCI for Adapinoid®, have appeared in the peer-reviewed Skin Health and Disease journal, published by the British Association of Dermatologists, and in the Dermatology Times from UBM Medica Ltd.)
According to materials Actera shared with me, “This novel active is a precursor of adapalene which is proven to increase collagen, reduce photoaging, balance skin tone, soothe inflammation, reduce pores, and clear acne-prone skin. Unlike first generation retinoids…Adapinoid has far fewer toxicity, stability, and skin-irritation concerns. [And it is] clinically tested to be superior to retinol with 2x greater wrinkle reduction, 10x greater redness reduction, and 70x greater TEWL reduction.”
Suffice it to say that ingredient innovators, R&D pros, brand leaders, consumers, and I are all eager to see what lies ahead for vitamin skincare.
Deanna Utroske
As a regular contributor to this publication, Deanna writes the Global Perspectives column, covering cosmetic and personal care product formulation trends, emerging ingredient science, and ingredient marketing trends impacting the future of beauty around the world.
