Feeding the skin: A new trend in food and cosmetics convergence

Background: The convergence of food and cosmetics in the beauty industry is a major trend in the recent years, gaining an enormous importance on consumer habits including the diet, the nutritional supplement intake and food-based cosmetics. Scope and approach: An overview about the concept of nutricosmetics is here presented, and how food and skin convergence trends the cosmetic industry. Examples of recently developed products are given. Key findings: Food ingredients are being included in cosmetics and other personal care products with the aim of bringing into cosmetic products certain benefits of food ingredients. Moreover, due to the recommendation of the circular economy implementation, an approach to economic growth that is in line with sustainable environmental and economic development, a large number of food industry wastes are being recovered as added-value products by more sustainable and innovative extraction processes to be incorporated into cosmetic products amongst others. Although the potential of bioactive compounds extracted from food is already known, the specific biological activity is now being studied and reported. Conclusions: Natural active food-derived ingredients are marketed as having several benefits on the skin. Their incorporation in food supplements and cosmetics is a reality already marketed. The truth about the benefits of food ingredients in cosmetics is not always properly discussed. The trend of “beauty from within” by oral supplementation is now accompanying the other trend that is “from the kitchen table to the skin”, that refers to the possibility to create cosmetics with the ordinary ingredients one have in the kitchen.