Do vitamin patches really work? and..?!

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No Name is partially right on a few things, but way off on others. The body is able to absorb certain things through the skin (otherwise no patches would be on the market, but many oil and water soluble nutrients can be absorbed through the skin), but not everything can easily be absorbed through the skin.
With that being said, most of them technically do work as they are vitamins on a patch... but they aren't the most ideal option. Certain vitamins can be absorbed through the skin, but unless you have some major digestive problem, you'd be better off taking a simple multivitamin (capsule, softgel, or powder forms would be absorbed the best) because you'll get a complete variety of all the vitamins as well as the minerals (most of which couldn't absorb through the skin very easily at all) and they would have the optimal absorption for the entire complex (not to mention the price of the patches). Good luck and I hope I helped!

Health/nutrition classes, personal experience, and personal research in my role as a Product Specialist for a vitamin company (and we carry a few patches)

That's a new one for me...never heard of it. My guess is that they probably don't work as the skin does not absorb nutrients, and it's just a new gimmick to part fools and their money.

For the record, there are no health benefits to taking vitamins supplements for the vast majority of people, but even then, why on earth would you take vitamins through the skin, when your body has evolved to obtain vitamins very efficiently from food through the digestive tract? It just makes no sense.
EDIT
Yes, various drugs CAN be formulated to be absorbed through the skin, but it is an expensive way of doing it generally. It doesn't work for all drugs, particularly large molecules, which describes most vitamins. Of course, Vitamin D is made in the skin when it is exposed to UV radiation, and I'm guessing that's where they got the idea for marketing this new delilvery system. However, it is a solution looking for an actual problem to solve.

Just because something can technically be done, doesn't mean it should be, or that it is superior. If you don't have any stomach or digestive troubles, there is no good reason to use a patch. There is no good reason to take vitamin supplements in any case, so if you choose to, go with the cheapest form, which I'll warrant is not a patch.

the vitamin and supplement industry is an enormous boondoggle.