You will probably have seen them on your social media feed: smoothies swirled with bright colours that are as Instagrammable as they are expensive.
This marble-effect drink is the signature of Erewhon, the eye-wateringly expensive organic grocery chain in Los Angeles that makes Whole Foods look like Aldi. A bottle of “hyper-oxygenated” water from Erewhon will set you back $26, while a single strawberry retails for $19. By that metric, their viral smoothies seem a snip at around $20.
Every LA celebrity from Kaia Gerber to Kourtney Kardashian has been snapped post-workout, clutching a distinctive Erewhon shake, while they’ve made limited edition versions with stars including Sabrina Carpenter and Kendall Jenner.
Gone are the days of the simple strawberry and banana smoothie – popular ingredients in these new age shakes include superfoods and supplements like blue spirulina, protein powder, creatine and sea moss gel.
And now, they’ve come for London. The Soho Health Club in 180 House has developed a “signature smoothie menu” available in all Soho House gyms. Each is touted to have its own benefit, whether you’re looking to boost performance, post-workout recovery, or hydration. The £9 drinks come in a cup with a big logo and that all important Erewhon-style swirled look, which makes for Instagram dynamite with Pilates princesses.
The FT describe them as “a coveted status purchase” – the designer handbag of the wellness industry. Their popularity is symptomatic of the lipstick effect, where sales of affordable luxuries and little treats increase in times of economic downturn. Brits are splurging on things like branded smoothies, fancy condiments or expensive face masks, rather than designer watches.
In June, designer Loewe did a pop-up in Selfridges where they sold not the leather bags which they are famous for, but multicoloured marbled smoothies and matcha lattes in Loewe branded cups.
@drinktease IT’S OFFICIAL… Our sunshine smoothie has joined the menu at LOEWE, Selfridges 💛 Made with pineapple, mango, sea moss, turmeric, coconut whip & coconut milk 🥥 📍 LOEWE, Selfridges 🕣 11am-8pm 🗓️ Until 20 June #loewepopup #summerpopup #luxurycollaboration #teasexloewe #luxuryshopping #selfridgeslondon #thingstodoinlondon #summerpopup
♬ Ruthless Sugar (Two AM Music) - Sek Hao Ho
Each retailed for around £10 and had influencers flocking to try them.
Meanwhile, a new smoothie bar called Elevate which bills itself as ‘London’s Answer to Erewhon’ has just opened in the City. The menu takes heavy inspiration from the LA grocer, with near-identical looking smoothies and protein shakes starting at a more modest £8.90.
With ingredients like hyaluronic acid and collagen, Elevate’s pink hued The Glow echoes Hailey Bieber’s famous Strawberry Glaze Skin smoothie, which she designed for Erewhon in 2022 to coincide with the launch of her skincare brand. At one point they were selling 40,000 units of the $20 smoothie a month.
@voguemagazine An #Erewhon smoothie a day, keeps the dermatologist away. Watch HaileyBieber’s episode of Vogue’s #InTheBag at the link in our bio.
♬ original sound - Vogue
Bieber has marketed it well – selling an aspiration as much as a product. She often posts selfies to Instagram clutching the swirly pink drink, and said in a Vogue video in May that she drinks one every day. “I would say it’s probably 90 per cent of the reason my skin looks the way it does,” she claimed. So for just over $7,000 a year, you can get glowing, glazed donut skin like Bieber – allegedly.
But are these smoothies even good for you? “One of the important things to check on, as far as I am concerned with a view to metabolic health, is the carb load, not just sugar,” says nutritionist Stephanie J Moore. Whether from fruits, added sugars or grains, smoothies are often surprisingly high in carbohydrates.
Elevate’s The Glow smoothie contains 30 grams of sugar and 41 grams of net carbohydrates. “Bearing in mind we should ideally have around one teaspoon of sugar in the blood, that’s a heck of a lot of glucose to burn off – or turn into body fat,” says Moore. '
“The sugar in The Glow comes entirely from whole fruits and coconut milk – no added sugars, syrups, sweeteners or additives. While it contains 30 grams of natural sugar, the impact on blood sugar is very different from consuming refined sugars,” says Elevate’s founder, Julia Baldet.
While Elevate has transparent nutritional info available on its website, most other places do not – no doubt in part because smoothies are often very high in sugar, carbohydrates and calories. With ingredients like maple syrup and dates, Bieber’s Erewhon smoothie is estimated to contain around 50 grams of sugar.
Moore adds that while these new age, supplement-heavy smoothies do contain high quality, functional ingredients, they are “unlikely to be efficacious unless one was having it every day”.
So what to have instead? Moore recommends her patients a smoothie with ingredients including frozen berries, coconut kefir, black seed oil (“a true superstar that has a ton of evidence”), a medicinal mushroom blend, an egg yolk, and bone broth powder. She advises against using a banana unless it is “very under-ripe”. The result is “not pretty and definitely not sweet”, but it won’t induce a sugar spike like the smoothies on offer around town, and will be a fraction of the cost to make at home.
Moore is more enthusiastic about whey-based protein shakes (which Elevate and gyms like Barry’s offer), which have a lower carb and sugar load.
They may be delicious and attractive, and they are always going to be better than a doughnut, but these pricey smoothies might not be the magic key to health and beauty that brands and influencers would have you believe.
