Back in the day, the only way to coax me into taking vitamins was if they came in fruit-flavored dinosaur form. As the years passed, I eventually learned to swallow my pills, but it was always difficult, so I never stayed consistent with taking them. More recently, I hopped on the IV drip bandwagon to bypass that struggle altogether and get my vitamins directly into my bloodstream. I also wanted to see if I’d feel the effects faster (I did). However, as you’d expect, maintaining this practice wasn’t exactly realistic for my budget. Plus my fear of needles made the whole process pretty miserable. So when I discovered that I could skip the IV and the pills—and wear my vitamins instead—I was intrigued.
Over the last few years, a new wave of vitamin patch brands have come to market, which use the same transdermal technology as wearable birth control and nicotine patches to release nutrients through your skin directly into your bloodstream; allowing for more consistent delivery compared to oral supplements. “To enhance efficacy, patches are often placed in strategic areas where venous areas are condensed, such as the inner wrist, so they can be absorbed faster,” says Marisol Saavedra, MD, an aesthetics doctor in London and co-founder of IV therapy company Tonic.
