If you followed my anxiety posts on Substack, I’ve had all my blood test results back from the endocrinologist and everything is pretty much normal – including testosterone which was a surprise to me. What’s annoying me most about everything that’s been going on anxiety/menopause wise is lack of energy and I think most of us wish we had more. I don’t know if it’s a desire to be as energetic as I was in my twenties or a lack of understanding that energy dissipates as we get older – in that we need more rest, at least – but it’s such a common theme amongst women my age. Even more annoyingly, we all know women of our age who abound with energy, sail single handedly across oceans, run businesses or compete in ultra marathons, so maybe it’s just that we are ordinary and they’re not. Apologetically, we assume it’s us, the tired ones, who are the exception, and I don’t think that we are.
Anyway, slipping back to last week, a PR friend of mine, who seems to have a very good amount of energy without being manically turbo charged, came to see me to introduce me to her new brand, Curated Beauty. She told me all about the skin care and then started to explain the supplements. I stopped her, saying, ‘Sam, I fall for all the supplements and can only be certain about one or two when it comes to making a difference that I am aware of, so I’ll pass on the supplements.’ I like to think I said it more tactfully than that but now I’m typing it out, I think it was exactly that tactless. That said, I was curious about the NMN because I know several people who swear by it for giving them an energy upsurge and more critically, for someone whose every thought is through a ball of cotton wool, mental clarity. Curated Beauty Inner Confidence is a blend of high strength Vit Bs, C and D3 as well as NMN and to explain NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide), it supports NAD (Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide) which is a naturally occurring co-enzyme, responsible for metabolism, energy and cell repair that (of course) decreases with age. PubMed (HERE) says, ‘NMN has been able to suppress age-associated weight gain, enhance energy metabolism and physical activity, improve insulin sensitivity, improve eye function, improve mitochondrial metabolism and prevent age-linked changes in gene expression.’ It feels like the too-good-to-be-true supplement and yet, anecdotally, I hear such good things about it. My friend Gill, who is up to date on everything supplements, when I asked if her thoughts on if I took only one supplement what should it be, said NMN.
I’m very interested in the metabolic health aspect, especially in light of trialling Mounjaro (which I haven’t given up all hope of never taking again) as well as muscle function because I hate being worse at yoga than when I started – I expected to be better. I am trying to be less beguiled by supplements – currently taking Victoria Health Mega Pro Bio and Alflorex – and some very old Imedeen Tan Optimizers that I found at the bottom of a box when I cleared out the beauty room – there are only 15 of them, but as I say, I’m in every time because everything sounds so good. Oh, and I’m testing Curated Beauty Magnesium which hasn’t launched in time for this post but hold on to the link because it will be available on Monday. But, I can’t miss out on Inner Confidence NMN – it’s one tablet a day – I curse the two or three a day tablets – and there are 60 tablets in a bottle for two month’s supply which I feel makes the price of £60 quite reasonable. However, I have a 15% off code for everyone HERE – there’s more off (30%) if you are a premium Substack subscriber HERE so please do check your inbox for the separate code coming your way.
Curated Beauty was founded by my friend Sam Grocutt, a beauty PR wizard who has earned her stripes navigating the notoriously perilous beauty industry, Natalie Ingham, who has worked in beauty retail for many years and is always the first to try something new, and Ros Simmons who knows exactly how to build a beauty brand because she’s done it successfully for other people forever.
They’re all women in their 50’s who have actually got the lived experience of knowing what it’s like to be on the ageing journey and that, to me, is worth its weight in gold. No fancy promises, nothing that assumes you’re anything other than utterly lovely as an older woman and absolutely no beauty nonsense. I’m excited for them because this is exactly how brands geared towards older women should look at the top.