Μake us preferred on Google Jean Godfrey-June wanted a good night’s sleep.
A former executive beauty director at Goop, Godfrey-June was in Rome this summer discussing her insomnia with a colleague, Kelly Atterton, when Atterton reached into her purse. “I brought something for you,” she said.
She gave Godfrey-June some individually packaged, postage-stamp-size strips that dissolve on the tongue, not unlike Listerine breath strips or tabs of acid. Apple-red in color, they had active ingredients including melatonin, GABA, 5-HTP and L-theanine, substances that can help with sleep.
Atterton had been taking the strips, from a wellness startup called Sleep or Die, several nights a week. Godfrey-June, who had seen specialists about her insomnia but had not used over-the-counter sleep products, took a strip each night during her time in Rome. They tasted like a “minty, gel-ish Fruit Roll-Up,” she said, adding that she slept well despite the jet lag.
An alternative to gummies
Founded in 2025, Sleep or Die in May received a $1 million investment from True Beauty Ventures, a growth capital firm in New York and Florida that has backed other wellness brands including Moon Juice and Maude .
Sleep or Die’s oral strips are among several new-age versions developed in recent years. They are formulated with a range of dietary supplements—melatonin (for sleep), biotin (for nail and hair growth) and caffeine (for energy) to name just three— which do not need FDA approval to be sold. Many come in Instagram-friendly packaging and are available at trendy shops like the grocer Erewhon and the K-beauty mecca Olive Young.
Elizabeth Renstrom for WSJ
The appeal of strips is convenience: Pills can be hard to swallow, powders can be messy and gummies can be sugary. Strips’ allure also has to do with the way that they are absorbed buccally, in the cheek, and sublingually, under the tongue, as opposed to only in the digestive tract.
Researchers who have studied oral strips have noted that their quick-to-dissolve nature does not mean they are any quicker to act, in part because many are dissolved by saliva and swallowed before they are absorbed in the mouth.
Some brands also promise that strips, compared to pills or other formats, can improve a supplement’s bioavailability, or how much of a substance is effectively used by the body. But the claim is often made without clinical trials, which are not required by the FDA for dietary supplements—an industry that domestically is expected to generate about $79 billion in sales in 2026, up 7% year-over-year, according to the Nutrition Business Journal.
Made for humans and animals
Jenna Movsowitz, who writes about commerce and emerging trends in the newsletter “Express Checkout,” said that gummy supplements arose largely because it was “too inconvenient to do powders or pills.” The strip format, she added, is “so frictionless, you don’t have to try that hard to be a wellness girlie.”
Sleep or Die founder Lauren Sudeyko, 32, started the company after working in marketing and sales. Other brands that have recently introduced strips include Strippies and Daps, which both sell energy-boosting versions. StripIt’s offerings include products with probiotics and fiber, and Biostrips sells strips with Reducose and Chromax, supplements that help to regulate blood sugar.
Strips with pharmaceutical drugs are popping up, too. In March, Vybrique, the first FDA-approved strip for erectile dysfunction, hit the market after a clinical trial.
Wellness for the AI era
Keewana Grant, the vice president of beauty and well-being at the PR firm Purple, was at an Olive Young store in Korea this past May when she stumbled upon Esther Formula’s strips with the antioxidant glutathione, which is said to have benefits that include brightening skin. Grant, 39, had previously had a positive experience with sleep strips, so she decided to give the beauty versions a try.
She bought eight boxes and took a strip a day. She thinks her skin has looked “noticeably brighter” as a result.
The brand NuStrips has been selling supplement strips since 2021. It has products for sleep, energy and beauty that are sold at airports and 7-11s. Despite the growing availability of NuStrips products, the company’s founder, Viraj Mohan, noted that strips have a long way to go to catch up to gummies and pills.
But Mohan, 36, sees their potential. “This is the era of Claude and self-driving cars, and it’s just borderline embarrassing—for me, at least—to be lugging around a multivitamin bottle,” he said. “You need something better than what you had historically.”
