Purpose <p>This study investigated the response kinetics of plasma carotenoids and skin carotenoid status (SCS) with short-term changes in carotenoid intakes in mostly healthy, young Asian adults.</p> Methods <p>This was a crossover, double-blinded randomised controlled trial with 4 acute interventions, whereby all participants (<i>n</i> = 16) consumed a 7-day low-carotenoid (LC) diet, followed by their habitual (HB) diet for about 15 days before the next LC diet. Fasting plasma carotenoids and SCS were assessed at baseline and post-intervention for all dietary periods using reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography and resonance Raman spectroscopy respectively. This study was registered in clinicaltrials.gov as NCT04323826.</p> Results <p>Significantly greater individual and total plasma carotenoids (<i>P</i> &lt; 0.001) were observed after the HB diets compared to LC diets overall. These were coupled with significant changes in total plasma carotenoids (<i>P</i> &lt; 0.001) throughout the study and significant associations between changes in carotenoid intakes and changes in total plasma carotenoids (<i>ρ</i> = 0.731, <i>P</i> &lt; 0.001). However, no significant differences in SCS (<i>P</i> = 0.83) were observed after the HB diets compared to LC diets overall, with no SCS changes observed throughout the study (<i>P</i> = 0.93). Moreover, no significant associations were observed between changes in carotenoid intakes and changes in SCS (<i>ρ</i> = -0.035, <i>P</i> = 0.71).</p> Conclusions <p>Plasma carotenoids reflect short-term (7-day) changes in carotenoid intakes, while SCS does not. These results suggest that plasma carotenoids can serve as sensitive biomarkers for detecting short-term changes in carotenoid intakes while SCS may not be a suitable alternative biomarker for such applications.</p>