Nourished review: I tried personalised multivitamins for one month

Like many Brits, one of my goals for the New Year is to start creating healthier habits that I can carry throughout my life. Since the pandemic, interest in vitamins as surged and improving daily nutrition has become a priority. But with so many supplements available, I’ve found it confusing figuring out which ones I need and what they do.

And while most vitamins come in pill form, I’ve often struggled to remember to take each one daily and have gone through weeks of inconsistency.

Enter Nourished, a science-backed brand that’s aim is to help improve our daily nutrition through personalised vitamin gummies. Based in Birmingham and founded by Melissa Snover, Nourished is a world first in creating bespoke vitamins through 3D printing.

Personalised vitamins have shot up in popularity and Google searches for it increased by 60 percent last December. This reflects a desire to find tailor-made supplements that can bolster our health and cater better to our goals. “The vast majority of supplements and vitamins take a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach,” she says to Express.co.uk. “They may not be able to address every element of your lifestyle that you’d like to support – even if you’re taking multiple vitamins and supplements every day.”

The idea for Nourished came from Melissa’s frustration at spilling multiple supplements while she was travelling, and she combined her background in 3D printing to create the company. “3D printing our gummy stacks is the best way for us to create truly custom products,” she says. “By producing our stacks on-demand using 3D printing technology, we also increase their effectiveness and reduce waste by only creating what is needed at the time of order.”

This technology allows Nourished to combines seven vitamins into one gummy, which makes it more convenient than swallowing multiple pills. The result is a seven layer stack, that’s both easy to consume and full of all the essential vitamins you need. Plus, everything is sugar-free, plastic-free and vegan friendly to suit everyone.

In addition to its personalised vitamin service, Nourished also offers Life Stacks, which is its ‘off the shelf’ range of supplements. There are eight to choose from including the Meno-Pause Stack which aims to help balance hormones, and the Inner Beauty stack, which helps improve hair, skin and nail health.

I decided to review the personalised vitamins and ordered my own custom stack.

The first step in creating your own stack is to take a quiz from Nourished to figure out your goals and vitamins. The quiz was very easy to follow and comprised of five sections. It started off with some simple questions that were similar to filling out a NHS questionnaire, then went into detail about your daily life, exercise habits and diets.

While I had a rough idea of some healthy goals I had, the quiz helped me narrow down my needs by giving me a few options to choose from. Ultimately, I picked better focus and memory, and gut health and digestion as my top two priorities.

After that, you could pick what flavour you’d like. I was quite impressed that there were nine flavours to pick from and I chose a sour green apple. Overall, I was very pleasantly impressed by the quiz and found it a seamless experience. Although it is worth bearing in mind that I do not have any pre-existing medical conditions so please make sure to consult with your GP if you do.

I had a few delays with my delivery, but that was due to postal strikes and not the company itself but the vitamins arrived in sleek, letterbox style packaging. I opened the box to find 28 individually wrapped gummies with ‘Personalised for Natalie’ on it and an expiry date. Impressively, the packaging is entirely plastic-free. Each gummy had an expiry date on of October 5, 2023, giving me more than enough time to consume them. Nourished definitely made it easy for me to take my vitamins everywhere as I could pop it into my bag without worrying it getting damaged thanks to the wrapping.

From the quiz, I listed improving my energy and my gut health as my goals. As a result, my personalised combination included vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamin), vitamin C, LactoSpore® Probiotic, Apple Cider Vinegar, Tart Cherry, Beetroot and Maca Powder with a Sour Green Apple coating. Some of the benefits from these ingredients were mitigating digestive distress, improving sports performance with high levels of iron, decreasing blood sugar levels and more.

At the end of the month, I definitely felt that the vitamins helped me focus better on my work in the mornings. While my digestive issues hasn’t completely disappeared, it has reduced a lot and taking Probiotics was definitely beneficial to my health as I felt that my digestion time got shorter.

Another benefit I enjoyed is that the you didn’t need to swallow water to enjoy the vitamins as they were gummies. So you could have them while you were on-the-go or early in the morning. This also makes it a great option for people who don’t enjoy or have trouble swallowing pills.

I chose to take the gummies after breakfast and personally found that it was a great start to my day. The gummies absorbed pretty well and I never that choking feeling that you sometimes get when swallowing pills.

In addition, lots of people feel nauseous swallowing pills on an empty stomach in the morning, so gummies are a great solution to that problem.

I chose my flavour as Sour Green Apple because I personally love sour candy, particularly Haribos, and I was really impressed by the taste. It was the kind of flavour I liked eating everyday, so that’s also worth keeping in mind during the quiz process. The gummies were also a lot chewier than I expected and definitely thicker and firmer than a typical Haribo-like gummy.

The quiz only allows you to pick two goals, and while I think that the goals I picked were my priorities, it can feel limiting if there are other areas you’d want to improve. 

While I got most of my essentials in the Nourished gummies, I still had to take my vitamin D supplements on the side as my personalised stack didn’t include vitamin D.

If you bought a one-time month’s supply of personalised vitamins, it’s £39.99. And if you buy a subscription that delivers your personalised vitamins every four weeks, it’s £35.99 per month. But you can get 50 percent off your first monthly box, BETTER50, which will bring the price down to just £17.99 for your first stack. Life stacks also range from £28 to £37.99, depending whether you choose a one-time purchase or subscription.

The only drawback to Nourished is that it’s more expensive than other multivitamin gummies, which can start from £5 up. However, this is due to the complex construction and 3D printing process. In addition, Nourished contains more vitamins than a regular multivitamin and higher dosages.

If you change your mind, you can easily cancel or amend your subscription anytime up to 24 hours before the next order is despatched. Plus, on every subscription you have, there’s always an option to cancel. Any cancellations after 24 hours will apply to the next order. Do remember that like most services, all subscriptions will auto renew so make sure to contact the team at [email protected].

It can take the body up to three months to absorb nutrients and I only tried the vitamins for one month, which isn’t long enough to make a complete judgement. But from my first impressions and one month trial, I feel like they made a big impact in my daily habits, which ultimately was what I was aiming for.

I felt that my energy was better in the morning and I didn’t rely on numerous cups of coffee to sustain it. I also felt that it helped me a lot with soothing muscle aches and recovering after gym sessions. I do think that you do need to take the vitamins for a few months to see whether they have any real long-term impact, but the best thing they did for me was make me stick to a routine. While it’s pricier than other vitamins and supplements available, it does help with creating healthier habits, which is impactful in the long-run and the price reflects its high-quality craftsmanship.