Despite nutraceutical and cosmeceutical product launches dating back to the 80s, nutricosmetics—ingestible beauty products—are only recently experiencing the beauty limelight. Grail Research published its research report—"New & Unique Innovation in the Beauty Market”—in March 2010, outlining consumer confusion and skepticism surrounding the $1.5 billion nutricosmetics market. Consumers are still confused on the definition of a nutraceutical and its efficacy.
Kate James, research client service manager at Grail, said nutricosmetics are popular in the prestige sector due to consumers’ willingness to pay more for nutraceutical products, in this sector; but she’s unsure this will overflow into the mass market. Grail projected the nutricosmetics industry to experience an 11.2-percent increase, to $2.5 billion, by 2012.