How Biohacking Became the New Anti-Ageing

Luxury facialist Pietro Simone is responsible for the skincare routines of A-list clients like Gwyneth Paltrow, Emma Roberts and Neil Patrick Harris. But his own beauty routine goes far beyond serums and peels. Simone gets injections of “six or seven different peptides” at various intervals throughout the week, as well as ozone and oxygen therapy blood cleanses.

“My skin looks incredible and my body feels great, no matter what crazy amount of stress I’m under,” he told The Business of Beauty. His love for biohacking has made its way into his eponymous skincare line: his $1,500 Regenesis Exo-Serum contains “precious plant exosome extracts” and peptides such as its Vegan Biomimetic Human Elastin Polypeptide, while he currently has a client wait list for a $4,800 serum developed with human mesenchymal stem cells.

Simone isn’t the only beauty professional to take inspiration from the world of biohacking, a once-niche subculture now driving many of the biggest mainstream wellness trends. Skincare labels ranging from startups to beauty giants are dropping buzzy terms like NAD+ and exosomes into their product names while sponsoring the podcasts popularising them, as the term “anti-ageing” is superseded by “longevity.”

But biohacking’s sphere of influence is polarising, garnering criticism from doctors for making unproven, even dangerous health claims. Biohacking influencers like Bryan Johnson or Bulletproof 360 founder Dave Asprey and their over-the-top wellness routines have made their way into mainstream cultural zeitgeist, garnering equal parts curiosity and skepticism. While some brands haven’t shied away from controversial figures, others are taking a more cautious approach to terminology and claims — and who they work with to promote them.

Beauty’s biohacking links can be traced back at least a half decade, according to Carolina Reis Oliveira, the co-founder and chief executive of San Francisco-based longevity skincare startup OneSkin. The brand was launched in 2020 to cater directly to the biohacking and longevity world after Oliveira and co-founder Alessandra Zonari Scheel noticed an absence of beauty companies in the space.

“In the beginning, people didn’t care about skin. They thought that, ‘This is kind of superficial,’” said Oliveira. But their bet on biohackers has paid off. After a $20 million Series A investment and 60 percent sales growth in 2025, the brand projects to reach nine figures in sales within “probably the next year or so,” she said.

Hacking a Niche Market

A major shift brought on by recent wellness trends is the move from “anti-ageing” to “longevity,” with similar goals — namely, a youthful appearance — but different technology.

Perhaps the earliest brand to mark the shift was OneSkin, which calls its products “topical longevity supplements.” This model has been emulated in varying degrees across skincare: New launches from Estée Lauder, Lancôme and Tatcha all use “longevity” in their marketing. OneSkin was also early to using peptides with longevity claims, years before Rhode’s hit Peptide Lip Treatment kicked off peptide-mania in beauty.

To publicise claims that its patented peptide can reduce skin’s “biological age,” OneSkin embraced the longevity and biohacking podcast circuit, and its tens of millions of listeners, appearing on shows like Asprey’s The Human Upgrade. Harvard genetics professor and longevity researcher David Sinclair’s positive review of OneSkin led to a significant sales boost.

By advertising on these programmes, beauty brands are motivating biohackers to address outer appearance in addition to inner health. Laser device label Lyma has been featured on Asprey’s podcast as a sponsor and in an interview with its founder Lucy Goff, while L’Oréal Group-backed longevity brand Timeline has sponsored both The Human Upgrade and Mark Hyman’s The Dr. Hyman Show. Biohackers are also increasingly taking a direct stake in skincare – OneSkin’s investors include Peter Diamandis and Kevin Rose, while Bryan Johnson sells skincare products through his longevity brand Blueprint. Equinox, whose skincare offerings comprise 15 percent of its spa business, is seeing beauty demand grow thanks to the addition of services like its “Longevity Facial,” said its spa director Ashley Hudson.

Many mainstream trends have percolated in elite wellness routines for years. “I had my very first NAD+ injection, an IV drip, back in 2016 in London,” said Simone, referring to the popular coenzyme nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. Cultural moments have helped bring fads into the spotlight, such as The Kardashians episodes featuring Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner receiving NAD+ infusions, or figures like Johnson and Andrew Huberman doling out health advice to Kim Kardashian.

Not all ingredients are directly compatible with topical skincare. Goop’s new Youth-Boost NAD+ Peptide Rich Cream that launched in February, for example, does not actually contain NAD+, explained Thira Burns, Goop’s vice president of product development.

“NAD+ is a super fickle, unstable molecule,” said Burns. The product has a “precursor” to NAD+ called nicotinamide mononucleotide, or NMN, which is said to “promote skin longevity” and “cellular metabolism.”

Some brands are still pitching retailers on NAD+ itself, said Dermstore’s vice president of buying Chelsea Strauser. “Our medical advisor was like, ‘It’s not proven that this can kind of affect the cells topically,’” she said.

The Biohacking Backlash

Biohacking is part of a polarising conversation that thrives on a symbiotic relationship between controversy and attention. Some brands avoid the term, opting instead for “longevity,” which is seen as more science-backed and less experimental.

“The biohackers are the ones that are more aggressive on self-experimentation. The longevity experts wait a little bit more to see the evidence,” said Oliveira.

During Lyma founder Goff’s February 2026 appearance on Asprey’s show, she specified that the brand’s laser device is FDA-cleared for skin. But they did not hesitate to discuss multiple other claims of experimental uses like knee surgery recovery, or, as Goff stated, “there’s a ton of evidence for this technology for autism, for Alzheimer’s, for dementia.”

Goff told BoF that in addition to biohackers, the brand works with plastic surgeons such as celebrity-frequented Dr. Jason Diamond, who has his own luxury skincare line, Dr. Diamond’s Metacine. “Doctors and surgeons are trained in pharma, and you’ve got to really demonstrate that your products work as effectively and as safely as a pharmaceutical product,” she said.

Many of the most influential figures in biohacking do not come from medical backgrounds, but have amassed large audiences, and their adherents have climbed to the highest US public health offices. Asprey has faced past FTC and FDA warnings for his claims, and sparked backlash by calling Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS appointment the “dawning of a new age of biohacking.”

Critics of the biohacking sphere have become louder in recent months in light of the discovery of longevity gurus like Peter Attia in the Epstein files. Scientists have taken the moment to question the entire premise of their claims.

“True longevity advice works precisely because it’s boring, repeatable, and grounded in a lot of evidence,” said Jessica Knurick, a dietician and influencer critical of MAHA, in a February video posted in response to the scandal. “It just doesn’t lend itself to viral clips, new biohacking supplements or multi-million-dollar wellness empires.” Within the longevity world itself, commentators have worried about an “integrity crisis” for the industry from the emails released, which included other longevity figures like Diamandis, who responded with a public statement in February that he “did not do any background research” on Epstein before corresponding about business interests.

Longevity and Legitimacy

Rather than podcasters, some larger beauty brands are opting to focus on doctors and practicing scientists that have brought longevity studies to centres at the world’s top universities. Estée Lauder, for example, partnered with Stanford University’s Center for Longevity starting in 2023.

But even elite university researchers aren’t immune from criticism — David Sinclair, who has collaborated with skincare brands, resigned as president of a longevity research nonprofit in 2024 after fellow researchers accused him of exaggerating his findings, which he publicly disputed.

The true test for any rising skincare trend is that of efficacy, vetted through clinical trials, retailers and consumers’ own experiences. Clinical studies are popping up on a growing number of brands’ sites, with OneSkin linking to papers such as a brand-funded study on peptide treatment in Nature.

Newer ingredients are also competing with tried-and-true formulas. On Dermstore, searches for trendy ingredients are on the rise, but the top keywords remain more traditional for now, said Strauser: vitamin C, SPF and retinol.

“There’s so much noise, and people trying to be the first to hit a buzzword on their packaging,” said Strauser. “We don’t want to just stand for something because people are searching for it.”

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