Collagen is a key ingredient in our vitamins for healthy skin and for a good reason. Today, we take a closer look at this nutritional powerhouse and share why it's better to ingest it than rub it over your skin.
What Is Collagen?
Collagen is a protein your body makes naturally. In fact, it's the most abundant protein in your body, found in your muscles, bones, skin, and tendons.
This important component helps hold the cells in your body together, giving them energy and structure. It is also responsible for strengthening your skin and increasing its elasticity.
Benefits of Collagen
A healthy supply of collagen can keep your skin looking its best. Proven to relieve dryness, reduce the appearance of fine lines, scars, and wrinkles, and even give you a more youthful glow.
However, the results go beyond skin-deep. You also need collagen to optimize the health of your bones, joints, and ligaments and your bone density. Conditions such as degenerative joint disease and osteoporosis can occur when your body's structures weaken over time.
Especially if you're active in the gym, it's important to know that collagen can also increase muscle mass and strength and aid injury recovery. Cardiovascularly, it can strengthen arteries and overall heart health.
In other words, it's all-purpose nutrition that keeps you looking and feeling your best from the inside out.
Changing Collagen Levels
If collagen is responsible for so much of our overall health, you might assume that your body will always produce plenty of it, and your natural levels will never falter. However, that is not the case.
You have a dense supply of collagen when you're younger, but it doesn't last forever.
Researchers have found that your collagen levels will start to decline in your mid-20s. From there, they continued to fall by about 1% annually.
As your collagen levels slowly begin to decline as you age, the process causes all three layers of your skin, the epidermis, dermis and hypodermis, to start thinning. It can also weaken your connective tissue and other parts of your body, including your muscles, bones and hair.
Both men and women can benefit from supplements containing collagen. Not only can these nutrients support adequate amounts of healthy skin, but you'll notice a difference throughout your body.
Why Take Collagen Orally?
If you browse the skincare aisle of any drugstore, you're sure to find tons of topical creams, gels, and serums that list collagen as a key ingredient.
As the name suggests, topical collagen is a type of collagen that you rub directly into your skin. The idea is that your skin will absorb it right away. Seeing as skin care concerns are the most common reason people turn to collagen supplements, this approach should work.
However, the problem lies in the size of the collagen molecule.
Its molecular weight makes it too large to penetrate the top layers of your skin effectively. While it may be on the outer layer of your skin (epidermis), it can't do much more than moisturize it.
Since your skin acts as a natural barrier against the outside environment, it needs to be extra tough. Most of your natural collagen is stored in the skin's second layer, called the dermis. In theory, this is where you need more nutrition and where topical collagen creams need to reach.
The only problem? Collagen molecules are too large to move beyond the epidermis, let alone reach the dermis. As a result, the effects are only skin deep.
How We Use Collagen
The inability of collagen to penetrate deep into your skin is one of the highlights of any anti-aging product.
Instead, you'll find ingredients like coffee bean extract, ascorbyl tetraisopalmitate, and hyaluronic acid. It increases your body's natural collagen production and helps maintain collagen synthesis. They target your collagen levels from the inside, not the outside.
Collagen is also one of the top three Vitamin Gummies ingredients, designed to be ingested orally. When consumed in this format, collagen is more bioavailable, which means it's easier for your body to digest, absorb, and use. Researchers have found that taking collagen orally triggers a special set of amino acids, known as the building blocks of collagen, which send signals to your body to increase collagen production.
Combined with other skin-loving ingredients, including biotin and zinc, collagen kicks into action. With regular use, you will find that it helps increase your skin's natural elasticity, reduce visible fine lines and wrinkles, and strengthen your skin barrier. Plus, collagen keeps your skin well-hydrated, which can help you look younger and healthier.
Discover Our Vitamins for Healthy Skin
Here, we believe that health and wellness start from within. In addition to our topical products, such as face creams, we also invest in tackling your skincare concerns at their root.
Our vitamins for healthy skin are formulated with all the skin-strengthening ingredients you need and no fillers you don't. If you want to rejuvenate your skin and achieve a healthier appearance, just two days is enough.