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The Truth About Beauty Beverages

Do certain drinks deliver beauty benefits -- or is that wishful thinking? Experts weigh in.

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By Liesa Goins
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

"Beauty beverages" have flooded the market in recent years, promising to transform humble water into a powerful anti-aging, skin perfecting potion.

According to market research firm Mintel, nearly 300 new food and drink products with "functional beauty benefits" launched in 2008, about double the number in 2007. Products like Borba, Glowelle, Crystal Light Skin Essentials, BeautyScoop, and Noah's Naturals Anti-Aging Beauty Elixir all claim to improve appearance and fight the signs of time on your skin.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Drink Holder

"Drinks with beauty benefits usually contain vitamins, amino acids, or botanicals that possess antioxidant activities," says Francesca Fusco, MD, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. "A person should usually get enough of these nutrients through diet, but drinking them is a reasonable way to supplement."

Without any official definition or regulation about the use of the term, the field of beauty drinks is wide open for interpretation, Fusco says. New York nutritionist Keri Glassman, MS, RD, CDN, author of A Nutritious Life and the O2 Diet, agrees. "Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, a beauty drink is in the perspective of the consumer," Glassman tells WebMD. "I think a beauty drink is anything that hydrates you, and thus your skin."

Can Sipping Save Your Skin?

When it comes to beauty drinks' effectiveness, experts say the glass is half empty and half full. The dermatologists and nutritionists WebMD spoke to agree that there are nutrients that can improve skin health, but the jury is out on how effective a beauty beverage can be at shuttling this nutrition straight to your skin.

Feeding your skin from within does have sound scientific reasoning. "The dermis [skin] and subdermal fat make up over 80% of the skin, and that's where the blood flow is," says Los Angeles dermatologist Howard Murad, MD, founder of Murad Skincare and associate clinical professor of dermatology at UCLA. "So skin is more what you eat than what you put on."

But Scott-Vincent Borba, founder and CEO of skin product company Borba, says that "a lack of vitamins and dehydration can cause skin problems." He says that "a drinkable supplement can be an effective way to treat skin because it can contain vitamins that are more bio-available and easier for the body to absorb."

Supplements in a powder or liquid may be absorbed more efficiently than those in food or pills, Fusco tells WebMD. "But a person could probably get the same ingredients at a significantly lower price with an over-the-counter bottle of supplements," Fusco says.

With regard to price, Borba can cost $4 to $6 a day (that's up to $180 a month); a 30-day supply of Glowelle powder is $89; BeautyScoop runs $95 for a 21-day kit, and Crystal Light and Noah's Naturals cost about $1 a day.