TL;DR
- UK women spend £1.5bn more than men on out-of-pocket health every year
- The wellness industry is largely built on aspiration and not evidence
- A small handful of ingredients and habits genuinely work – the rest is often clever branding
- Treat your wellness spending the same way you treat your budget: know your numbers, spend intentionally
Dr Frankie Jackson-Spence (@drfrankiejs), a doctor working in cancer research, recently shared things she doesn’t spend her money on. Supplements. Juice cleanses. Expensive skincare with no evidence behind it. Sunbeds.
It’s the kind of list that makes you pause – because most of us have bought into at least one of these.
According to a 2024 Deloitte report, UK women spend 1.5 times more than men on out-of-pocket health every year – that’s an extra £1.5bn annually across dentistry, physio, mental health support, and wellness products. The UK wellness market itself hit £170 billion in 2022, ranking fifth in the world.
So who’s actually benefiting?
The wellness industry is extraordinary at selling women the idea that their bodies are a problem to be solved. Toxins to be flushed, skin to be fixed, energy to be boosted. The packaging is beautiful. The before-and-afters are compelling. The influencer looks incredible.
But the science can often be very thin.
Mathematician and scientist Hannah Fry has talked about how she approaches skincare: do it using science, or don’t bother. On the Table Manners podcast she broke down the ingredients she actually uses – retinol, vitamin C, hyaluronic acid – all with genuine peer-reviewed evidence behind them.
Here’s the interesting bit though: her routine isn’t cheap. She uses a SkinCeuticals vitamin C serum (around £160) and rates LED light therapy as “absolutely legit” – for her, the evidence pointed there. But the same logic – follow the evidence, not the branding – might lead you to a £12 retinol from the chemist that works just as well as a version ten times the price.
Evidence-led spending doesn’t always mean cheap – it means intentional. Sometimes it lands on luxury but often it doesn’t. The difference is you’re choosing based on what works, not what the packaging promises.
(SPF daily, by the way, is one of the most robustly evidenced things you can do for your skin’s long-term health – and a decent one costs very little.)
The supplement spiral
This is where wellness spending hits hardest for most people.
If you have a genuine deficiency – vitamin D in winter, iron during pregnancy, B12 if you’re plant-based – supplements are evidence-based and absolutely worth taking. But your body can’t absorb what it doesn’t need (which could well be most of the health food shop supplement aisle), so it quite literally flushes straight out.
A broadly balanced diet covers most of what your body needs. The rest of the supplement world is built on marketing, not medicine. That packaging promising to transform your energy, gut health, or glow? The money goes into the branding, not into any meaningful biological effect.
The detox delusion
Your liver and kidneys detox your body every day for free – no juice required.
We’re not here to shame anyone who’s done a cleanse – the industry is genuinely very good at what it does. But a £70 juice subscription flushing out “toxins” is only certain to do one thing: flush out your bank account.
What does this actually mean for your money?
Think of your wellness spending the way you’d think about any other line in your budget.
Start by knowing your numbers. What are you actually spending on supplements, skincare, and wellness products every month? Add it up. A lot of people are genuinely surprised.
Then ask one question about each product: what’s the evidence? Not the influencer. Not the packaging. Not the general vibes. The actual evidence. Sometimes that leads you to a luxury product, sometimes it leads you to the exact same ingredient for a third of the price.
Some things will absolutely make the cut – and they should. SPF every single day, for instance, is the most evidence-backed thing you can do for your skin’s long-term health. Worth every penny. Sleep. Movement. Eating enough. These aren’t glamorous wellness purchases, but the return on them is enormous – and most of them are free.
Your wellness budget is part of your money picture
Here’s the thing we want you to take away from this. Every pound spent on a supplement that does nothing is a pound that could have gone into your emergency fund, your holiday sinking fund, or your investing pot.
Spending intentionally doesn’t mean spending as little as possible. It means spending on the things that genuinely do something – for your health and for your future.
Know your numbers. Spend on evidence, not aspiration. And keep the money you’re not wasting working harder for you instead.
This content is for general information only and does not constitute medical or financial advice. If you need advice tailored to your personal circumstances, please speak to an authorised professional.