How we got stuck on wellness patches

Still resorting to paracetamol and a pint of water to cure your hangover? There’s a patch for that. Stick-on solutions are fuelling the $1.8tn global wellness market: much like those used to quell nicotine cravings or up oestrogen levels, a new crop of wearable patches promises to soothe period pains, boost vitamins, calm anxiety, improve sleep – and bust your hangover.

If you’re someone who covered their school books in stickers or has dabbled in star-shaped pimple patches, you’ll understand the transgressive allure of wellness patches. (Even 17th-century Europeans wore decorative velvet patches to conceal smallpox scars.) Some have aesthetic appeal: Barrière’s vitamin and adaptogen patches comprise delicate designs of butterflies and seashells resembling temporary tattoos. Others are intriguing in their mundanity: Kin...
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