OLLYHello Happyreview

New gummies from Olly are always exciting, but their new Hello Happy Gummy Worms give us all kinds of reasons to get excited!

Since Olly helped open the floodgates in the gummy vitamin cosmos in 2013, dozens of innovative gummy brands have been popping up nonstop.  Which means that Olly has had to up their game a little to stay on the cutting edge.

So, while the gummiverse has been abuzz with Ashwagandha gummies lately, Olly dropped Hello Happy, a Saffron + Vitamin D gummy 🤯.

Plus it’s shaped like an adorable little worm!

Olly sold out of their first run of Hello Happy within a week, so if that’s any indication, the world is ready for a Saffron gummy.

To be fair, Nature’s Bounty released their Stress Comfort Mood Booster gummies with Saffron, GABA, and Lemon Balm last summer, so Olly isn’t the first kid on the saffron block.

But between saffron, vitamin D, GABA, and lemon balm, we can not think of a better group of our favorite buzzwords, so we ordered both the Olly and the Nature’s Bounty Saffron gummies immediately!

We’re going to have a little saffron-off to see which gummy makes us happier.  You in?

👉 update: you can read our Stress Comfort review here.

Ok, let’s take a look at this legendary spice:

What are the benefits of saffron?

You’re probably familiar with these gorgeous red, fragile threads: the most expensive spice in the world.

Saffron has been an object of fascination and indulgence since time immemorial.  Ancient Sumerians used it to create their magic potions.  Monks grew it to offer to the Buddha.   Cleopatra bathed in it to make lovemaking more pleasurable.

But you may not know that saffron has thousands of years of history as a traditional remedy for “melancholy*.”

And there have been a number of recent studies into the potential mood-boosting properties of saffron, with very promising results.¹  Saffron may help modulate neurotransmitter levels, including serotonin and dopamine.²

It’s also a potent antioxidant and may act as an aphrodisiac, which Cleopatra knew a long time ago.

The Olly Hello Happy gummies have 30mg of saffron extract, which is about the same amount as is used in the clinical studies we’ve seen.

👉  Of course, while these studies are very interesting, saffron isn’t currently approved or prescribed for any specific condition, and as usual, more research is needed!

Why Vitamin D?

While people may call saffron the Sunshine Spice, the true bearer of that title is vitamin D.

Ok ok, vitamin D is technically a hormone, not a spice, but vitamin D is naturally produced by our bodies when we get out in the sun.

It’s crucial to get enough vitamin D to support your bones and teeth, your immune system, and a variety of cellular functions.

The research is a little conflicted regarding whether or not vitamin D can help boost your mood, but vitamin D deficiency may play a role in Seasonal Affective Disorder³, and it’s always a good idea to make sure your D levels are optimal.

These gummies have 2,000 IU of vitamin D, which is a pretty solid dose. The vitamin D in these comes in the form of cholecalciferol, aka D3.

👉 Just make sure you’re not overdoing the vitamin D through other supplements!  Too much vitamin D over a period of several months can lead to breakouts or other complications.

Gummy Worms!

Ok great, so these are basically sunshine in a bottle, but the best part?  They come as gummy worms!

The iconic worm shape is surprisingly scarce in a universe of gummies shaped like globs, cubes, and the occasional bears.

We’re sure there’s a few more worms out there, but the only other ones we’ve personally come across are the (insanely delicious) CBD Gummy Worms from Verma Farms.

And speaking of insanely delicious: we’re always huge fans of Olly’s flavors, so we were especially looking forward to trying the Hello Happies because the flavor is tantalizingly labeled as “Tropical Zing.”

Our bottle arrived surprisingly fast, as if the universe wanted us to get happy stat.

The worms were a bit smaller than we had imagined. Cute, but a little on the stumpy side. That’s fine by us though, we are always a fan of any and all gummy worms. No worm size-ists around these parts.

And Olly clearly doesn’t need much worm to pack a sunshiny punch! ☀️🐛💥

Tasting Notes

When you take the lid off, you can actually get a strong hit of saffron, surprisingly. Earthy and fecund, you get those distinct honeyed and rich aromas.

And we say surprisingly because these actually don’t taste like saffron at all! These are the Tropical Zing as promised.

The bottle describes it as “A lively blend of pineapple, peach and orange”, and apparently that combination is the exact flavor algorithm of Hawaiian Punch (and Capri Sun?) of childhood. Wow.

Maybe what’s actually making us happy is that sudden nostalgia for simpler times of jamming straws through silver bags of sugar juice.

We jest. But seriously, anyone else getting strong Hawaiian Punch vibes? It’s like that little dude with the strange thing on his head is surfing right into your mouth.

So does Hello Happy really make you happy?

We were slightly skeptical. We know that vitamin D is a dose of sunshine, but we tend to take it for our immunity and bone health. Vitamin D isn’t necessarily our first thought for a mood-booster, even though it’s a hormone that can also support brain function.

But hello, Saffron!

This was our first time working with Saffron as a supplement, instead of a little extra flavor in our rice, and we have to say we love it.

These 30 mg deliver a pretty potent experience, and we definitely felt a mellow improvement with our ability to go through a busy day with a little lift.

In our experience, these won’t beat you over the head with happiness, it’s more of a subtle background glow of contentment: noticeable, and kind of gives a little baseline support to our mood.

What we’re saying is we wholeheartedly recommend the Hello Happy, and love this new addition to the Olly Gummy Lineup.

These are (as always with Olly 🤤) delicious and a much-needed burst of sunshine for our minds. We’ve been saying hello to happy every time we pop a few worms in the morning. You don’t even have to be an early bird to catch ’em.

And if you reallllly want to go to a daily zen, we highly recommend thinking of adding Goli’s new Ashwa gummies to your gummy routine, too.  It’s been our dream gummy cocktail lately.