The Insta-savvy SugarBear Hair now boasts a whopping 559,000 followers and their effective social media marketing campaigns are grabbing the attention of girls as young as 12.
Their eye-catching feed is an amusing amalgamation of glowing reviews and tween anguish (mostly about failure to persuade a parent to part with almost $40 for a month's supply).
Heavily marketed as a hair supplement for longer, stronger and shinier locks, the chewable, vegetarian SugarBear Hair gummies claim to feature 15 natural vitamins and minerals including zinc, Biotin and B-group vitamins, as well as coconut oil, additives and sugar.
Sydney-based nutritionist, Lyndi Cohen, doesn't think so. "I think we're quite obsessed with getting healthy and the idea that you could thicken your locks and get really perfect, shiny hair just by adding in a multivitamin is too good to be true", she told news.com.au.
To start with, Cohen believes the product is missing some vital ingredients. "Protein is actually the building block of hair, amino acids [what protein gets broken down into] are what your hair is made up of. This isn't going to be a source of protein in any respect, in fact the main ingredient is glucose.
You're going to get a far better result by eating lean meats, seeds, nuts, eggs, tofu and healthy omega 3s like oily fish. The other thing is that it's missing iron, which is another key vitamin for hair growth," Cohen told news.com.au.
Could these gummies give you the flowing locks you've always wanted? Photo / SugarBear Hair / Facebook
While the trend in recent years has been to quit sugar altogether, the sweet, berrylike taste of this particular product seems to be driving sales. "This is sugar that you don't need to add into your diet," said Cohen. "It's kind of bizarre that it's being suggested as a health food when mainly what it is glucose syrup and a whole lot of other additives."
So why are we so quick to get hooked on what might just be another cleverly-marketed gimmick?
"If you look at recent statistics, vitamin and mineral sales have gone through the roof since 2012. I can't give you the exact percentage, but it's closing in on at least one third, which is quite incredible. This is reflected in our recent obsession with becoming healthy which is being supported by social media," said Cohen.
"I find it quite ironic that sales of vitamins and minerals have gone up while we're actively trying to eat a healthy diet, because if you're eating a healthy diet, then ultimately you don't need to be taking a vitamin," Cohen said. "Unless you're going to be eating these blue gummy bears every single day for the rest of your life, then there's no point in you doing it for a month or even a year."
Despite this, both women and men are going gaga for Sugarbear Hair, which ships its gummies worldwide.
Alisha Hawthorne, a 27-year-old online boutique owner, is now onto her third bottle. "I began using the gummy because I cut my hair very short and after a few weeks I didn't like it as much as I anticipated, she told news.com.au.
"I started taking a popular vitamin which had excellent reviews, but the pills were extremely hard to swallow and the smell was unbearable. All this made it very easy to forget to take them. These are a better tasting alternative and I have seen quite a difference in my hair growth and strength."
But at the end of the day, no vitamin is going to change your DNA.
"We're naturally predetermined to have a certain amount of thickness to our hair, Cohen told news.com.au. It's about accepting what you've been given and not expecting that if you just eat healthier that you're going to end up with a Victoria's Secret kind of mane, it just doesn't work that way."
