For three weeks, I wore stickers on my skin supposed to address all sorts of conditions. Are they a panacea, problem or performance?
T
his morning, I woke up feeling a little groggy. My go-to remedy is usually a coffee and cold-water face plunge, followed by a compulsive phone scroll. But today called for something more, so I unpeeled a small, yellow “energy” patch the size of a walnut, popped it on to my upper arm and hoped for the best.
The patch (£12 for 30) contains – so the packaging says – vitamins B5, B3 and a “microdose” of caffeine. It is made by Kind Patches, which is one brand in an increasingly crowded market of wellness stickers that claim to treat everything from lack of sleep to period pains to pimples. They are coin-sized, and often come in TikTok-friendly shades of sunflower yellow and peachy orange: you may have seen a teenager sporting a star-shaped one on their face to treat spots, or influencers patting blue magnesium ones on their wrists before bed.
These patches are designed to deliver various substances into the bloodstream through the skin – to ward off some of the most common symptoms of everyday life. Feeling tired? Patches. Feeling stressed? Patches. Feeling anxious? Patches. From libido boosters to immunity enhancers, there’s a patch for every condition if you look hard enough. The wearable patch market – which also includes disease monitoring and drug delivery – was estimated at $9.95bn in 2024 (approx £7.45bn) and is predicted to grow significantly in the next five years, according to the Financial Times. Forget eating your feelings; pop a sticker on them instead.
