UK Supplement Trends — October 2026: the lipstick month

Part of The Formulation Index, Supplement Factory’s monthly read on what UK brands are actually briefing us to make. Written by Lee Smith, Group CEO.

October 2026 was not a quiet month. In its first week President Trump said he no longer wanted a deal with Iran, amid reports that Washington was preparing what one outlet called “massive bombing”. By the end of it, more ships had come under attack in the Strait of Hormuz in October than at any other point in the war. In the middle of the month Russia went after Ukraine’s power grid again, and a single day of strikes left more than a million people without electricity. The President also found time to rewrite the list of Canadian goods subject to American tariffs. And at home, on 28 October, John Healey stood up to deliver his first Budget as Chancellor.

And in the middle of all that, Britain’s supplement brands asked us for beauty.

October 2026 at a glance: beauty up, gut health down

We raised 663 formulation quotes for 201 companies in October, against a three-month average of 684. Beauty was in 32.1% of them (213 quotes from 70 companies), 4.7 points above its own three-month average of 27.4% and comfortably the biggest category in the Index. Collagen rose to 18.4%, 2.1 points above its average. The beauty actives came along for the ride: Biotin reached 29.3% of quotes, 3.5 points above its average, Vitamin B3 27.5% (up 4.0) and Selenium 23.1% (up 3.7).

The lipstick effect

Economists have a name for this, or at least a nickname. The lipstick effect is the observation that when times are tight and the news is grim, people put off the big purchases and keep buying small, affordable things that make them feel better. Leonard Lauder of Estée Lauder usually gets the credit for spotting it. I cannot prove from our data that October’s beauty briefs were a lipstick effect, and I am not going to pretend to. But a month of tanker attacks, blackouts and Budget speculation is exactly the kind of month in which a hair, skin and nails formula starts to look like a very sensible business plan.

It was not, you will notice, a month for immunity. Even as the nights drew in, the Immunity category was in just 1.2% of quotes. People are wonderfully hard to predict.

The biggest mover: gut health

The largest move in the Index went the other way. Gut health fell to 11.5% of quotes, 8.9 points below its three-month average of 20.4%. Nootropics fell to the same 11.5% (6.7 points below average), Protein to 11.0% (down 6.3) and Sports recovery to 3.2% (down 5.0). Among the ingredients, Rhodiola dropped to 6.6% of quotes, 6.2 points below its average, and Pea Protein, which had climbed for three months in a row, fell back to 5.9%.

The everyday base wobbled too. Vitamin C took the top spot at 51.6% of quotes (342 quotes), 2.1 points above its average, but Zinc (49.8%), Magnesium (49.6%) and Vitamin B6 (46.5%) all slipped below half of quotes, sitting 4.0, 4.6 and 4.2 points under their three-month averages.

Formats: the capsule fights back

For four months I have been quietly drafting the capsule’s obituary, so it is only fair to report that it sat up in the coffin and asked for a cup of tea. Capsules took 21.1% of October’s quotes (140 quotes from 47 companies), 1.8 points above their three-month average and their first rise after four straight months of decline. In the last week of the month they were in 25.0% of quotes. Powder, meanwhile, ended its four-month run: it fell to 47.2% (313 quotes), 7.7 points below its average of 54.9%. Stick packs held steady at 22.5%. Two small formats are worth watching: powder pouches took 2.9% of quotes and sachets 2.4%, both from almost nothing. Liquids took 2.0%.

Late October: somebody is planning January

The most interesting thing in October happened in its last seven days. Across that week Beetroot appeared in 20.6% of quotes, against a 90-day share of 10.8%. L-Tyrosine was in 19.9% (90-day share 10.2%), and Beta-Alanine and L-Citrulline were in 10.3% each, against 2.2% and 4.3%. The Pre-workout category went from a 90-day share of 2.2% to 10.3% of the week’s quotes. Caffeine, Green Tea Extract and L-Theanine all rose with them. Over the month as a whole, Beetroot reached 14.8% of quotes, 4.9 points above its three-month average of 9.9%.

If you have ever wondered why the gyms are full in January, the answer is resolutions. If you have ever wondered why the pre-workout tubs are already on the shelves when you get there, I think the answer is late October. Beetroot, citrulline, beta-alanine, caffeine and tyrosine are the classic pre-workout cast list, and a brand briefing one in the last week of October is giving itself about nine weeks before New Year, which tells you how keen they are. That is my reading, not the data’s.

Elsewhere, L-Glycine has risen for three months in a row, to 16.7% of quotes. Maca has fallen for four months and Lion’s Mane for three.

The Budget, and the people starting brands

New brands accounted for 86.7% of October’s quotes, against a three-month average of 82.9%. So for our corner of the economy, one of the most useful lines in the Chancellor’s speech was a small one. He tripled the trading allowance, the amount you can earn from a new venture tax-free, from £1,000 to £3,000, and announced a Young Entrepreneurs Allowance to cover a year of living costs for young founders. He also extended the VAT cut on household electricity to July. None of that builds a supplement brand on its own, but anyone who has started a business from a spare bedroom will tell you that the first £3,000 is the hardest money you will ever make.

What it means for brands

Three things. First, beauty from within is not a summer fling. At 32.1% of quotes it is the single biggest thing brands are asking us for. Second, do not write off the capsule: after four months of decline it is back above its average, and it was in a quarter of quotes in the final week. Third, if you want a January product on the shelf, some of the brands you will be competing with appear to have briefed theirs already.

The numbers: October 2026

Behind the numbers: the Hive, and how it is going

Every figure in this report comes out of the Hive, the platform we built to run Supplement Factory and to give our customers a proper window into their own projects. People ask me what it actually is, usually with the polite expression of someone being shown another person’s holiday photographs, so here is the short tour.

When a brand works with us, each product gets its own project in the Hive. The quote is signed online. The formulation and the samples are followed stage by stage, so nobody has to send an email asking where things have got to. The approved Product Standard, which is the formulation, the label content and the specification in one agreed record, lives there too, and after release the certificates of analysis and release documents are filed to the brand’s own Vault. Reorders happen from the same account.

It also does the dull, vital work of catching expensive mistakes before anyone has paid for a print run. The Hive mirrors the published registers a brand needs to check, including the GB and EU claim registers, GB novel food status and US and Australian lists, and its PRAS+ alerts tell members when a source it monitors changes. It shows the register and the rules rather than giving regulatory advice, and that distinction is deliberate.

And how is it going? Today the Hive holds 690 formulation projects for 388 brands. It holds a library of 1,407 ingredients and 1,989 product standards, it has produced 378 finished formulation packs, and 217 projects have had their samples sent out with a tracking number recorded against them. On 12 November we switched on Pay in 3 for business orders from £2,500 net, subject to a credit check. Not bad for something that began with one simple idea: that a brand’s paperwork belongs in the brand’s own hands, not scattered across emails and PDFs.

See what the Hive does · Hive membership levels · Start a project

Until next month,
Lee

Lee Smith, Group CEO, Supplement Factory

Sources for the news in this edition

• CNBC: Trump says he doesn’t want Iran deal (8 October 2026)
• CNBC: Tankers defy sharp escalation of Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz (30 October 2026)
• Al Jazeera: Russian attacks in Ukraine cut power to 1 million (17 October 2026)
• The White House: Canadian products subject to tariffs (October 2026)
• The Budget speech, 28 October 2026

The Formulation Index is built from Supplement Factory’s own formulation quotes, actives only, each counted once per quote. October figures are the pinned edition figures of 1 November 2026. Explore the live Index → · September 2026 · August 2026