Collagen is increasingly popular. You’ve been hearing about it everywhere and seeing it popping up all over the internet. Having learned about the benefits of collagen, you may be interested in trying it out. Yet, you have no idea where to start.
Does topical collagen work or is liquid better? What brand to choose? What’s the best choice if you want the most benefits?
These are great questions. You are not alone. Choosing the right form of collagen is key for the best results. Let’s dive in and learn more about topical collagen vs liquid collagen.
First, What Is Collagen?
Collagen is not only the most abundant but also the main structural protein in your body. Collagen is an essential component of your connective tissues that make up your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and skin. It provides structures to your skin and keeps your bones and body healthy.
Your body naturally produces collagen, however, as you age, collagen production slows down. In fact, your collagen production starts to slow as early as your mid-20’s. The slow down of collagen results in thinning of all three layers of your skin – the epidermis, the dermis, and the hypodermis, and weakens your connective tissue, muscle, bone, skin, and hair health.
The Benefits of Collagen
Collagen has many health benefits that can improve your well-being and quality of life, including:
- Collagen may improve your skin, reduce dryness, improve elasticity, reduce wrinkles, fine lines, and scars, and create a more glowing, youthful skin.
- Collagen may improve your joint and ligament health reducing the risk of degenerative joint disease and related symptoms.
- Collagen may improve bone health and bone density, and reduce the risk of osteoporosis.
- Collagen may improve muscle mass, muscle health, and muscle strength.
- Collagen may improve your arteries and reduce the risk of heart health issues.
- Collagen may improve injury and surgery recovery.
What Is Topical Collagen?
Your search results for collagen supplements likely include both liquid and topical collagen options. You might’ve heard about topical collagen as an anti-aging serum and seen athletes drinking liquid collagen protein shakes.
What is the difference though? I am glad you asked!
Topical collagen is collagen that you use topically on your skin. It may be a cream, lotion, serum, or another topical ointment with collagen. The idea is that your body will absorb it through the skin – which is generally the area people want to see the difference the most.
Liquid collagen, on the other hand, is collagen you ingest in the form of a drink. With this method, you may not feel like you are treating your skin, but your body is getting an easily digestible form of the same active ingredient. In fact, you are very likely absorbing – and reaping the benefits of – a higher concentration of collagen this way.
Which one is better? Does topical collagen work? You are not alone. When searching for a collagen supplement and trying to navigate among liquid and topical collagen brands, many people wonder the same.
Does Topical Collagen Work?
Topical collagen certainly sounds easy and simple. All you have to do is rub it into your skin as part of your skincare routine. Does topical collagen work, though?
The short answer is: somewhat, but liquid collagen is better.
Collagen plays a critical role in your skin, muscle, joint, ligament, and bone health. Topical collagen is mostly popular for its believed anti-aging benefits. However, topical collagen may not offer any benefits besides moisturizing your skin.
There is no current research showing that topical collagen can stimulate collagen synthesis or growth.
You may wonder why topical collagen is so ineffective when it comes to collagen benefits – and why people keep using it anyway. The reason is the size of the collagen. The molecular weight of collagen simply makes them too large to penetrate the top layer of your skin, let alone get deeper into your body. Let me explain.
The outer layer of your skin is called the epidermis. It has multiple layers and, since it serves as a protective barrier against your external environment, it is incredibly difficult to get through. The second layer of your skin is called the dermis. This is where most collagen is located and needed. The mission of your topical collagen is to reach this layer.
In theory, topical collagen is supposed to reach and act on the dermis to improve your collagen levels. However, collagen molecules are too large (300,000 daltons or more) and unable to get through the epidermis. As a result, they never reach the dermis and are unable to truly benefit your skin or other parts of your body.
Topical collagen may feel nice and moisturizing. However, chances are, it doesn’t offer more benefits than that.
Why Liquid Collagen Protein May Be the Better Choice
Topical collagen aims to improve your health from the outside in. To be truly effective, what you need is an inside out approach through the oral intake of liquid collagen. Liquid collagen is hydrolyzed collagen that is broken down into peptides or smaller chains of amino acids that are able to effectively pass through barriers using an inside out approach. The process of hydrolyzation makes collagen more bioavailable. Which, in layman terms simply means your body can easily digest, absorb, distribute, and essentially use it in this form.
One of the main concerns that you may hear from collagen nay-sayers, is that collagen supplements get broken down into peptides by stomach acids before they can start doing anything good for you.
This is not true.
Collagen supplements actually get digested into amino acids and collagen peptides. This is a good thing because this way the collagen can be absorbed by your small intestine to circulate into your bloodstream, and essentially be used by your body to improve your health. Hydrolyzed form of collagen taken orally gets ingested easily and increases the collagen levels in your blood quickly.
Which Liquid Collagen Is the Best?
Not all liquid collagen is made the same, though. ProT Gold uses nano hydrolyzed collagen® that is as small as 2,000 daltons.
Why is that important?
Your stomach pores are about 4,000 daltons. At 2,000 daltons, our liquid protein can pass through easily. In comparison, whey isolate is about 18,000, full collagen molecules are about 30,000, and most hydrolyzed collagen is about 10,000 daltons. This means that they are still too large to pass through your stomach pores.
Instead of being digested and absorbed, they simply become waste. So, for example, when you ingest 15 grams of whey isolate or other hydrolyzed collagen, you may only get 10, 6, or even as little as 2 grams of protein. However, when you take 15 grams of nanohydrolyzed collagen®, you get the full 15 grams of collagen protein.
If you want to truly benefit from collagen, forget about topical collagen and most collagen brands that cannot be absorbed or used by your body properly. At 2,000 daltons, ProT Gold makes sure that the collagen you are drinking gets digested almost immediately so you get the full benefits. And, it is completely safe – even recommended – to take our collagen protein daily as a part of a healthy diet.
What are you waiting for? Try ProT Gold liquid collagen protein today, and see what difference ProT Gold can make in your health and wellness.
