Do We Actually Need More Wellness Products?

Perhaps the future of wellness is not about adding more, but choosing more carefully.

By Giovanni Montanaro, Co-Founder of YUKARI Wellness & Skincare

I co-founded a company that sells skincare and wellness products, so questioning whether we actually need more wellness products may seem like an unusual place to begin.

But I think it is an important question.

Over the past decade, wellness has expanded into almost every part of daily life. There are products for sleep, stress, energy, digestion, focus, skin, ageing, recovery and immunity. Skincare routines that once consisted of cleansing and moisturising can now involve multiple serums, acids, essences, masks and devices. Supplements can become equally complicated, with different powders, capsules and compounds added in pursuit of increasingly specific outcomes.

None of this means that these products are inherently unnecessary.

Many are useful. Some are supported by strong evidence. Others may improve comfort, appearance or simply make daily routines more enjoyable.

The problem, I think, begins when more becomes confused with better.

When wellness becomes accumulation

Modern wellness is very good at identifying something that could potentially be improved.

Sleep could be deeper. Skin could be brighter. Energy could be higher. Stress could be lower. Ageing could be slower. Nutrition could be more optimised.

Once a problem has been identified, there is usually a product positioned as the solution.

Social media has accelerated this enormously. We can now discover a new ingredient, supplement or skincare routine in seconds, often presented through dramatic before-and-after photographs, personal testimonials or short videos that leave little room for uncertainty.

But popularity is not the same as evidence.

Research into dermatology content on social media has repeatedly raised concerns about information quality. A 2025 analysis of popular sunscreen content on TikTok, for example, found that misinformation and promotional bias were common among highly engaged videos, and that engagement itself was not a reliable indicator of accuracy or educational quality.

That distinction matters.

An ingredient can trend long before most consumers understand what it does, what concentration might be useful, whether it is appropriate for their skin, or whether they are already using another product that performs essentially the same function.

Eventually, a routine can become a collection.

And a collection is not necessarily a strategy.

Your skin may not need ten steps

This is particularly visible in skincare.

There is something psychologically appealing about a complicated routine. Ten steps can feel more sophisticated than three. Multiple active ingredients can create the impression that we are addressing every possible mechanism at once.

Biology is not always that cooperative.

The American Academy of Dermatology specifically warns that using too many skincare products can irritate the skin, particularly when multiple anti-ageing products are used together. Its dermatologists suggest that, for many people, a simple foundation of cleansing, moisturising and sun protection can form an effective routine.

There are legitimate dermatological reasons to be cautious about constant product layering as well.

Cosmetics and personal-care products can cause both irritant and allergic contact dermatitis. Reviews in the dermatological literature identify fragrances, preservatives and numerous other cosmetic ingredients as potential allergens, while a 2026 review in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology describes allergic contact dermatitis from personal-care products as a significant clinical issue involving both established and emerging allergens.

This does not mean that cosmetic ingredients should be feared.

It means that exposure matters, formulation matters, individual skin matters and complexity has consequences.

A recent medical review examining increasingly elaborate skincare routines made a similar point: extensive routines may contribute to irritant or allergic contact dermatitis, perioral dermatitis and photosensitivity, particularly when active ingredients are accumulated or used incorrectly.

So perhaps the question should not be:

How many good ingredients can I put on my face?

Perhaps it should be:

What does my skin actually need, and what purpose does each product serve?

Those are very different questions.

Supplements deserve the same scrutiny

The same principle extends beyond skincare.

Supplements occupy an interesting position in modern wellness because there are circumstances where supplementation is clearly valuable. Nutritional deficiencies exist. Individual requirements differ. Pregnancy, certain medical conditions, restricted diets and other situations can create specific nutritional needs that should be discussed with appropriately qualified health professionals.

But “a supplement can be useful” is very different from “everyone should take more supplements”.

In 2022, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reviewed evidence concerning vitamin and mineral supplementation for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer in community-dwelling, nonpregnant adults. It concluded that evidence was insufficient to determine the balance of benefits and harms for multivitamins in preventing cardiovascular disease or cancer, recommended against beta-carotene and vitamin E for those purposes, and found little evidence supporting many other forms of routine supplementation for prevention.

A large 2024 cohort study involving 390,124 U.S. adults and up to 27 years of follow-up also found that daily multivitamin use was not associated with a lower risk of death.

That does not prove that multivitamins are useless, nor does it address supplementation for diagnosed deficiencies or specific clinical needs.

It does demonstrate something important about wellness generally:

plausibility is not the same as proven benefit.

In Australia, there is another distinction consumers may not always appreciate. The Therapeutic Goods Administration explains that standard listed medicines carrying an AUST L number are lower-risk products and are not individually assessed by the TGA for efficacy before they enter the market. Sponsors must hold evidence supporting their claims, but this is different from the pre-market assessment applied to assessed listed medicines carrying AUST L(A) or registered medicines carrying AUST R.

That is not an argument against complementary medicine.

It is an argument for understanding what a label actually tells us.

Wellness has developed a consumption problem

There is a broader issue underneath all of this.

Wellness originally promised greater attention to how we live.

Somewhere along the way, parts of the industry began turning that idea into another form of consumption.

Instead of asking whether we sleep enough, we can buy something for sleep.

Instead of examining why we are exhausted, we can buy something for energy.

Instead of giving irritated skin time to recover, we can introduce another active ingredient.

Instead of asking whether our diet is varied and nutritionally adequate, we can add another powder.

Sometimes the product genuinely helps.

But sometimes purchasing something gives us the feeling of taking action without requiring us to address the less exciting foundations underneath it.

And those foundations are remarkably difficult to package.

Consistent sleep is not new.

Regular movement is not new.

Eating reasonably well most of the time is not new.

Sun protection is not new.

Maintaining relationships, resting, spending time outside and managing the conditions that create chronic stress are not new.

There is no weekly product launch attached to most of them.

Perhaps that is precisely why they can become less interesting in an industry built around novelty.

This creates an uncomfortable question for YUKARI

If I believe this, what does it mean for a company like ours?

It means we need to be disciplined.

I do not want YUKARI to become a brand that creates a new product simply because we need something new to market.

I would rather develop fewer products with clearer purposes.

That does not mean minimalism for the sake of appearing minimalist. There may be circumstances where a sophisticated formulation or a more specialised product is justified.

The standard should simply be higher than:

Can we sell this?

We should also be asking:

Why should this exist?

What role does it play?

Does it meaningfully improve the ritual?

Are we duplicating something we already offer?

Can we explain its purpose without exaggerating the science?

And perhaps most importantly: would we still believe in the product if we were not the company selling it?

Those are questions I want us to continue asking as YUKARI develops.

Where our face mask fits

Our Deep Recovery Bio-Cellulose Face Mask is a good example of how I now think about this.

It contains ingredients chosen for legitimate cosmetic functions, including rice ferment filtrate, niacinamide, ectoin, panthenol, squalane, sodium hyaluronate, beta-glucan and Ceramide NP.

But I do not believe that means everyone needs to use a face mask every day.

Nor should a mask replace a sensible daily skincare routine.

The American Academy of Dermatology makes essentially the same distinction: facial masks can complement a routine, but they are not substitutes for regular cleansing, moisturising and sun protection.

That is exactly how I would rather position ours.

It is a recovery ritual, not an attempt to turn skincare into another full-time job.

There are moments when skin feels dry, depleted or uncomfortable; after travel, environmental exposure, a long week, or simply when someone wants to slow down and care for their skin.

A thoughtfully formulated product can have a place in those moments.

But its value does not increase because we pretend it can do everything.

Maybe good wellness should occasionally tell us not to buy something

This may be the most commercially uncomfortable conclusion.

A responsible wellness company should probably be willing, occasionally, to tell someone that they do not need another product.

If your skincare routine is working, you may not need to replace it because an ingredient became popular this week.

If you have a nutritional concern, investigating the reason may be more useful than automatically adding several supplements.

If your skin is persistently inflamed, painful or changing unexpectedly, another cosmetic may not be the appropriate answer at all. Professional medical advice may be more useful.

And if a product does have a place in your life, understanding why you use it is probably more valuable than owning ten alternatives.

I don't think this weakens the case for skincare or wellness products.

I think it makes the case for better ones.

From more to meaningful

When we started YUKARI, our idea of Inside/Out was based on a simple observation: what happens externally cannot always be separated neatly from what happens internally.

I increasingly think there is another dimension to that philosophy.

Wellness should not become an endless project of fixing ourselves.

There will always be another ingredient, another routine, another optimisation strategy and another product promising to move us closer to some ideal version of health.

But health is not a collection.

And neither is skincare.

Products can support us. Good formulations matter. Evidence matters. Rituals can make ordinary behaviours easier and more enjoyable to repeat.

But perhaps the future of wellness should involve becoming more selective rather than simply consuming more.

Fewer products. Clearer purposes. Better evidence. More attention to the life around them.

As someone building a wellness company, that creates a greater responsibility.

But I think it also creates a more interesting one.

We should not ask only how much more we can add to someone's routine.

We should ask whether what we are adding deserves to be there.

Giovanni Montanaro
Co-Founder, YUKARI Wellness & Skincare