Sea moss trend: The latest 'miracle' for beauty influencers

Herbal teas, massages, oils, treatments, and tablets— pursuing long hair, healthy skin, and strong nails have led many people to explore unique avenues. New ingredients or supplements regularly emerge, promising to rectify all past mistakes. Currently, the craze revolves around forest moss, an algae praised by influencers.

Social media and popular culture have been projecting an image for years depicting women with perfect, long, lush hair that seemingly cascades effortlessly into Hollywood waves, glowing with natural radiance, and sporting nails so robust they could be used as lock picks. This image is further reinforced by artificial filters that create idealised images of women to which many aspire. In pursuit of this, those fixated on the ideal journey towards an unattainable image involving cosmetics, supplements, cosmetic treatments, or plastic surgeries. The goal is singular - to resemble the idol on the screen.

People are willing to go to great lengths on the path to the ideal. New methods regularly surface online, promising to transform one’s appearance in just a few moments. A society eager for the ideal consumes these methods like famished young pelicans and tests them, hoping to see the promises fulfilled. Consequently, we have already consumed yeast, nettle, horsetail teas, collagen, and chia seeds. We've massaged rosemary water, horse ointment, and mustard oil into our scalps. We've applied everything from Vaseline to snail slime to our faces.

The current ingredient, purported to solve all beauty-related concerns, is sea moss. In the UK, the populariser of this substance is a TikToker living in the Bahamas, Julia Mellor-Tychoniewicz. She asserts that consuming a gel made from ground sea moss improves the appearance of skin, hair, and nails. This is attributed to the minerals, vitamins, and nutrients found in the algae. The downside? Not everyone enjoys the jelly that resembles thick gelatin.

Inspired by Julia Mellor-Tychoniewicz's materials, online creators experimented with sea moss. This supplement is not yet widespread in the UK, so acquiring ready-made gel can be expensive. However, dried algae can be purchased from eBay or Amazon. The preparation process is quite simple—soak the algae in water, wait until they swell, rinse, place in a blender, add water, and blend. The resulting jelly can be enhanced by adding mango purée, for instance, or left in its natural form.