Are you always on the lookout for ways to improve your skin, strengthen hair and nails? Do you want to look younger, clear up your complexion and start to build your glow from the inside out? ‘Nutricosmetic’ is the latest buzzword in beauty. What are nutricosmetics? And how can you use them to improve the appearance of your skin, hair and nails?

Simply put, nutricosmetics are vitamins, minerals and specialist ingredients that are consumed - usually in supplement form - and which have a direct bearing on physical appearance.

Beauty is the new focal point of wellness. People are waking up to the fact that what you put inside your body can, and will, have a direct impact on what you look like on the outside, and supplementing with nutricosmetics is the next logical step for anybody looking to reach their beauty potential and feel their absolute best.

So what are some of the best nutricosmetics to be taking and where can you find them?

Collagen is an absolute powerhouse and may just be the best known nutricosmetic out there. It’s a family of proteins that play a fundamental role in beauty and in overall wellbeing.

Collagen is self-renewing in the body and its primary function is to keep tissues elastic, supple and springy. This explains why collagen supplementation can improve the appearance of your skin: who doesn’t want plump, youthful, resilient skin? Studies have shown that increasing your collagen intake can also result in more hydrated skin and a reduction in the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

Your hair requires the essential amino acids present in collagen to grow luscious and strong, and your nails, too, require collagen to keep them from becoming brittle.

Additional benefits of collagen supplementation include improved digestive health, supplety of joints and improved musculoskeletal health.

Collagen supplements work to encourage your body’s natural manufacture of protein, speeding up the process and making it more efficient. Supplements usually come in powder form, and are generally derived from either bovine or marine sources. Collagen can be found in creams and serums, but the best way to reap the benefits of collagen on your skin, hair and nails is to take it in supplement form.

You might already be using hyaluronic acid on your skin, but did you know that you can take it in supplement form too? Supplementing with hyaluronic acid has been shown to be significantly more effective for increasing hydration levels in the skin than external application alone. Furthermore, perceptible improvements in appearance are reported much more quickly when ingesting than when applying directly to the skin.

As with collagen, hyaluronic acid is made naturally by the body. But, also as with collagen, its production slows with age. It’s important to supplement with both collagen and hyaluronic acid as you get older if you want to maintain, or boost your levels back up to, a normal level.

If you want to keep your skin looking plump and well-hydrated - who doesn’t? - then you’ll need to introduce regular supplementation into your routine.

Hyaluronic acid has also been shown to be effective in relieving joint pain in pain suffering from osteoarthritis.

Keratin has powerful anti-ageing properties: supplementation with Cynatine® HNS has been clinically proven to reverse the effects of inflammation, stress and immune response on your appearance as you age by delivering keratin peptides directly to the cells in your skin, hair and nails that need it most. Clinical studies have shown that a daily dose of 500mg/day as formulated in LYMA can visibly and significantly improve the appearance of hair, skin and nails in just 90 days.

Keratin comes in a few different forms, but CYNATINE® HNS is the most efficient, and most bioavailable, active keratin on the market. CYNATINE® HNS is the world’s first solubilised keratin, meaning that it is much more easily absorbed by the body; you will see results much faster with CYNATINE® HNS than you would if you were to supplement with a standard keratin supplement from your local health store.

Beauty aficionados have long revered lycopene for its anti-ageing benefits, but there is so much more to be gained from it; both when it comes to appearance, and also to overall health and wellbeing.

Lycopene is not only anti-ageing, blemish-fighting and potent at protecting skin from the damaging effects of the sun, it also contains significant anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties which can help to prevent all manner of illness and disease.

Supplementing with lycopene has been shown to reduce blood pressure, diminish bad cholesterol levels in the blood (while encouraging the presence of good cholesterol), decrease the chance of suffering from heart disease, premature death and stroke, and - as if that weren’t enough - has been shown to reduce the likelihood of developing certain types of cancer such as breast and prostate cancers.

Unlike collagen and hyaluronic acid, the body is unable to manufacture lycopene itself so supplementing is recommended. Lycored Lycopene™ as formulated at 30mg in LYMA is a powerful, technology-enhanced natural carotenoid, and is the most potent strain of lycopene out there.

Biotin is just one of several B vitamins that plays an important role in keeping your body working like a well-oiled machine and, like other B vitamins, biotin is fundamental to maintaining a healthy metabolism and energy conversion (basically, the breaking down of nutrients, and the delivery of those nutrients to the cells that require them to function), and keeps you looking great, too.

Biotin, or vitamin B7, is fundamental for healthy hair growth. Low levels of biotin can cause your hair to fall out, whilst supplementing with this nutricosmetic will leave your locks feeling long and luscious. Biotin also supports skin health by encouraging the synthesis of fat in the skin cells; fat is required by the skin cells in order to protect against UV damage and the damaging effects of pollution. Furthermore, studies have shown that vitamin B7 deficiency is associated with brittle nails.

Biotin can be obtained by supplementing or by increasing your intake of certain foods such as eggs, avocado, salmon, cheese, nutritional yeast and spirulina.

Nutricosmetics are an interplay between beauty and nutrition and many of them have benefits beyond just what they can do for your skin, hair and nails; they tend to have full-body benefits too. If you’re interested in the concept of 360° wellness, and in improving your overall health, as well as your appearance, then you should be increasing your nutricosmetic intake.

Some forms of nutricosmetic will be more effective than others, and LYMA is the supplement you can trust to deliver you the right balance of patented ingredients at levels proven to offer you maximum benefit. Cynatine® HNS is the only keratin on the market with clinically proven beauty benefits, and Lycored Lycopene™ is the most stable antioxidant money can buy. In addition to these two potent nutricosmetics, LYMA contains 9 other intelligently formulated ingredients that can help to support your health and wellbeing from the inside out. By taking LYMA you can look forward to experiencing confidence in the way you look and, more importantly in the way you feel, each and every day.