Well, I’ve had to eat my words! For years I’ve dismissed claims that collagen powders help the skin produce collagen. The basis for my distain came from the fact that any food or supplement once consumed will be broken down into its smallest nutritional units and then remade into whatever the body chooses. The idea that a fibre of collagen from a cow or pig could make its way into your body and then deposit itself in the skin was preposterous to me!

Then along came my health crisis and my opinion changed. What I discovered while healing my gut was that collagen powder, while good for the cells lining the gut were also great for our skin!

What was it that changed my mind? I learnt that collagen can be absorbed across the intestinal barrier and into the blood in short chains of three amino acids. These little peptides, while a long way from being full collagen fibres, give the skin a head start in the collagen making process. 

However, that isn’t even the most important thing about collagen powder! Learning more about the two main amino acids that make up collagen completely swayed me. These amino acids are proline and glycine. They are both considered to be non-essential because technically our bodies can make them from other amino acids. However, in reality your body can’t make enough proline and glycine to meet its own demands. This means we DO need to get them from our diet and unfortunately, they are both very hard to source in any meaningful quantity. The only known sources providing good amounts of proline and glycine are bone broth and you guessed it, collagen powder!

So the upshot of this is yes, collagen powders do work!

- Janine Tait, Bestow Beauty Founder