It Works is a cosmetics upstart founded in 2001 that has met quite a fair bit of success in the industry. However, from first glance, it stands out from the typical beauty and nutrition companies in two ways.
Firstly, it carries an impressive range of nutritional supplements and other products, even clothing items and branded merchandise on its online store. Essential oils and keto products are also sold exclusively at the online store.
Secondly, It Works actively seeks to expand its network of ‘ambassadors’ (i.e. independent home-based distributors) to promote its products — most of whom do their sales on social media platforms, or through word-of-mouth.
As a multi-level-marketing company, It Works! is a thriving one, with over a million loyal customers and an astounding $1.2 billion in revenue in just three years according to Business Insider in 2015. However, as a nutrition company, do its products actually work? Let’s take a closer look at the It Works! Greens supplements, one of its bestselling nutrition lines, to find out.
Quick Navigation
According to the website, It Works Greens is meant to be taken to improve the body’s overall health and wellness. Adding on to an entire range of It Works! products, the Greens supplements come in several forms — namely Greens chews, or Greens Blend tubs and sachets.
From its official website, The Greens Blend comes in chocolate and berry flavors, though an orange flavor surfaces on other resellers like Amazon.
According to its website, there are three main benefits of taking ItWorks! Greens supplements:
- Alkalize The Greens blend is designed to “alkalize the body, restore pH balance and support the immune system for health and wellness”. What’s little known is that maintaining a good pH balance is very important for our bodies, as our blood requires the right acid-base balance to function healthily. Naturally, our lungs and kidneys work hard to help us to maintain this balance, but even small variations from the normal range can have a great impact on vital organs.
- BalanceWith ingredients full of “naturally occurring vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and enzymes in their bioactive, bioavailable form”, the supplements are created to give a nutritional boost in such a way that maximizes the body’s rate of absorption — meaning that you are supposed to get the most out of whichever Greens blend you purchase and consume.
- Detoxify Similar to many other nutritional products on the market that hinge on this buzzword, the Greens blend promises to detoxify and cleanse the body of harmful toxins, hence improving health. It boasts “a complex blend of 34 different varieties of fruits and vegetables” together with Matcha Green Tea, all with natural nutrients for the best cleansing effect.
Apart from the main ingredient list provided on the website, the full breakdown of the natural blend of ingredients in the Greens blend is not made public. This means while customers like yourself can find out what ingredients are used, you don’t know exactly how much of what is used.
On the product page, It Works! lists the following as ingredients of the Greens Blend:
- Acidity-fighting magnesium and potassium blend
- 52 herbs and nutrient-rich superfoods
- 34 fruits and veggies
- Matcha Green Tea
At this point, the descriptions are still quite vague and they don’t say much about what is actually in the product. To get a better sense, you’ll have to navigate to a section labeled “Further Product Info” or look closely at the packaging yourself. If you do, you’ll find that there are similar ingredients in all three flavors of the Green Blend. Listed below are the few that are most significant:
Blue-Green Algae (Spirulina)
Spirulina is known to provide protein and vitamins, together with antioxidant properties and regulation of the immune system.
Spinach
Spinach is widely regarded as a functional food due to its diverse nutritional composition, which includes vitamins and minerals, and to its phytochemicals and bioactive that promote health beyond basic nutrition. In essence, it is good for against obesity and fights off heart disease in the long run.
Matcha Green Tea
You may also be interested in: Our Recommended Greens Powder
According to studies, green tea is the healthiest beverage on the planet, and it is used to improve brain function, fat loss and lower the risk of cancer in adults. It has shown to help improve physical performance and boost the metabolic rate as well.
Pea Fiber
This protects against chronic illnesses and contains a lot of fiber and antioxidants. It also helps to promote a healthy gut environment.
Apple
While commonly taken for granted, this fruit is known as a miracle fruit as they are high in vitamin C and fiber, while being low in calories, with no fat or cholesterol. In fact, all of these benefits mean that apples are the fruit that may mitigate the effects of asthma and Alzheimer’s disease.
With over 34 fruit and vegetables blended into a fine powder, there’s no telling how much of each one scoop of the powder contains. The blend itself is also proprietary, so it’s kept a secret from the general public.
What we know, however, is that only very small amounts of each ingredient are inside each jar because of the sheer number of ingredients said to be inside! While potassium and magnesium are some of the most useful and healthier supplements out there and are indeed present in this product, there are so many other natural ingredients in the Blend. This means that for every serving, there might be too little of each element. The potency is likely to be very low and you certainly cannot replace eating real fruits and vegetables with the Greens Blend.
Another thing to note is that although this product is said to be soy-free, dairy-free, non-GMO and vegan with no artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners… Its source produce is not organic, unlike some other powdered greens on the market at the moment.
As mentioned previously, this supplement comes in chocolate, berry and orange flavors, so there’s some variety for you to decide on which one you like the best. However, you should note that the official product page currently only sells the berries and chocolate flavors.
The recommended way to consume this product is to mix two scoops or one sachet’s worth of product with eight fluid ounces of water or juice — so the consistency of what you drink is ultimately dependent on what you dissolve it in. However, it’s possible that the texture can become gritty if not dissolved well, especially for the berry-flavored version of the product.
Taste-wise, the feedback is generally positive according to online reviews, especially for the chocolate and berry flavors. While the official It Works products page does not show any online reviews specific to each product, many customers have taken to other sites like Amazon to share their thoughts.
According to these online reviews, there are several common points. To start, many have praised the fruity flavor of the product, specifically for the berry-flavored Greens Blend. That’s no surprise since the Greens Blend Berry flavor is flavored and sweetened with malic acid, citric acid, Rebaudioside A (stevia) and other natural flavors.
In comparison, there are less favorable reviews for the orange-flavored Greens Blend, which is by far the most unsweetened out of all three flavors. It’s definitely not a taste for everyone! In fact, some reviews on Amazon have compared it to “grass” and brought attention to its bitterness. A few had also taken issue with an aftertaste that is similar to that of stevia, but that was not a concern for most people.
As for the chocolate-flavored Greens Blend (like similar tasting Detox Organics), it contains cocoa as an additional main ingredient, as well as several additional additives of potassium citrate, sea salt, potassium citrate, silica, and Rebaudioside A (stevia). While there are mixed reviews of the chocolate flavor itself, it’s likely that the flavoring and additional ingredients will hide the leafy or even earthy taste of the Greens blend much more than the other two flavors.
All three flavors retail online on the official It Works products page at $55 for each individual jar. With each jar being only 6.35 ounces (or 180 grams), this matches the average price for green powders on the market.
For serving size, every serving is recommended to be about two scoops or one sachet’s worth of powder, which is 6 grams in effect. Thus, every jar has just about 30 servings, with every serving costing you a little over $1.80. In addition, with just one serving a day needed, a jar can last slightly more than a month.
As for sachets that are sold in packs of 30, the added benefit of being able to grab and go comes with a cost: each serving would cost you $1.96.
If the product seems to be working, but the price point of each serving seems hefty to you, there is a Loyal Customer discount available which puts every jar at the retail price of $33, and every serving at over 70 cents. To get this discount, you have two options:
Join by paying a one-time $50 membership fee. With this additional membership fee, not only do you get discounted prices on almost all products, but you also get free shipping and a reward system with what they call ‘Perk points’. These points can be used for rebates or rewards in future orders.
Join by committing to 3 months’ worth of auto-shipments. By choosing this option, you automatically sign up to receive the same products, on the same date, with payment using the same credit card in the following months. There’s flexibility here as well — you can edit these orders or change the date you receive the products each month.
In addition, there is also a special bundle price for the Greens Blend Berry. Instead of buying just one for $55, there is the option of getting three at $79. With three times as many servings, this option gets you about three and a half months’ supply at 87 cents per serving. Compared to other brands on the market today, this is one of the more affordable greens products.
If you are considering purchasing this supplement, your safest bet would be to buy it online from either the official It Works page or on Amazon.
However, beware of sellers or pages trying to sell off the old Greens formula! The older version has different packaging and purportedly contains ingredients of lower quality or soy-based products. There are also some sellers online who also sell out-of-date formulas that have long passed their expiry dates, so do check before purchasing anything from these sites.
Even on official platforms, do watch out for hidden sign-up costs or automatic monthly shipping that you can opt-out from if you choose to.
The other way to get the products is if you personally know an independent distributor that you can physically get products from. In fact, It Works, well, works closely with its independent distributors, encouraging all to buy in bulk to reduce shipping costs. As a result, it’s also likely you might even be able to get the Greens Blend at a cheaper rate if you get it from someone you know.
To sum it all up, the It Works Greens line certainly claims to have a host of benefits that are ultimately up to customers to decide if they work or not.
However, the business model of these supplements is counter-effective in ensuring that customers get the best products there are for the best price. For instance, the model of reliance on independent distributors creates a problem where each individual distributor may not fully understand every product when selling it.
There is also a lack of transparency in terms of the exact amount of ingredients and serving sizes, and then there’s the problem of it being a proprietary blend, meaning we don’t know what exactly is in it. It would be great to know what actually goes into the product and the real benefits that it can bring. Whether it works or otherwise, it’s the customer’s choice and unique preferred experience, but there are definitely better green supplements on the market by more transparent companies.
Sources:
- https://www.businessinsider.com/is-it-works-legit-2015-8?IR=T
- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-proven-benefits-of-spirulina
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27353735
- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/top-10-evidence-based-health-benefits-of-green-tea#section3
- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/green-peas-are-healthy#section1
- https://www.livescience.com/44686-apple-nutrition-facts.html
Our Recommended Greens
Among the best in green superfood powders is SuperGreen TONIK.
Its amazing how this supplement combines organic greens, brain and immune nutrients, all in one easy, great tasting drink. Plus, you get all the vitamin and mineral you need each day.
Author Profile
- Hi, my name is Sandra! I am the main author and reviewer of Super Greens Expert. I am a keen juicer as I was want to get all my daily veggies. Having found super greens I now use one such supplement daily.
