After turning 42, I started thinking about collagen more often.
The thing is that our appearance and the beauty of our skin depend on this element to a large extent. Unfortunately, the amount of collagen in our skin decreases over time.
What is Collagen?
Collagen is the protein that our body relies on to ensure the health and vitality of our skin, hair, tendon, cartilage, bones, and joints. Everything that connects our body, keeping skin tone and joints strong, needs collagen.
Why We Need Collagen
Our modern diets lack the collagen that was once abundant in foods. Without dietary collagen, our body can’t replenish what’s missing. This can have an effect on our hair, skin and nails, and joints, ligaments and tendons as we age.
Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides are collagen molecules that are small enough to get quickly absorbed and used by our body. This bioavailability is the reason people see improvements in how they look, feel and move after using Vital Proteins Collagen consistently.
We can slow down this process, but it’s too bad we can’t stop it completely.
Well, yes, it goes without saying that if you want to have beautiful and youthful skin, you should break bad habits, get enough sleep, drink a lot of water, eat well, take vitamins and be healthy. I’ll try to do it in the future 
Moreover, the collagen synthesis increases retinol, which I’m trying not to use yet.
There is always a way to undergo some cosmetic treatments, but it won’t help you be young forever. Plus, all these procedures have side effects.
So, after thinking everything over, I decided to help my body produce collagen naturally by taking it as a dietary supplement. It’s available in so many options on my favorite iherb.com.
The natural collagen doesn’t form just like that and out of the blue. To produce the collagen, the body needs amino acids. If they lack in your body, the synthesis discontinues.
But it’s impossible to know if we get enough amino acids with our food or not! So, I couldn’t help but purchase the dietary supplement.
Surfing the iherb website and reading a good deal of reviews, I decided to buy a cute hefty blue tub with a scientific name: Vital Proteins Pasture-Raised, Grass-Fed Collagen Peptides.
The tub comes with a protective upper lid. Inside we see the white powder with a scoop buried there in such a way that you won’t even guess that this product has one :)
In fact, I purchased this supplement because it has collagen PEPTIDES, i.e. the small and digestible molecules.
Peptides are short chains of amino acid monomers linked by peptide (amide) bonds.
The covalent chemical bonds are formed when the carboxyl group of one amino acid reacts with the amino group of another. The shortest peptides are dipeptides, consisting of 2 amino acids joined by a single peptide bond, followed by tripeptides, tetrapeptides, etc.
The product is quite pricey. The tub with 567 g retails for about $40-43.
Amino Acids Profile:
Amount per serving:
Alanine 1462 mg
Arginine 1517 mg
Aspartic Acid 1192 mg
Glutamic Acid 2239 mg
Glycine 3719 mg
Histidine * 144 mg
Hydroxylysine 217 mg
Hydroxyproline 2058 mg
Isoleucine 271 mg
Leucine * 524 mg
Lysine * 614 mg
Methionine * 108 mg
Phenylalanine * 379 mg
Proline 2076 mg
Serine 614 mg
Threonine * 343 mg
Tyrosine 90 mg
Valine * 433 mg
What the manufacturer says:
Pasture-Raised, Grass-Fed, Non-GMO, Kosher; Our collagen powder is soluble in cold liquids
Collagen peptides promote youthful skin, healthier hair, and stronger nails
Helps keeps bones healthy and strong, supports joint health
Collagen contributes to a balanced diet and helps maintain weight
Whole 30 ® Approved, Gluten Free, Dairy Free
You should drink the collagen supplement in the morning on an empty stomach dissolving a scoop in a glass of water. Eat after 30 minutes after drinking water with the collagen. You should take this supplement at least 3 months, so a single tub is not enough to complete the course.
I’ve been using this product from October to December with my husband. We used up 3 tubs within three months in general. Therefore I think that the product goes quite a long way.
It dissolves in water beautifully and has hardly any smell.
The collagen didn’t cause any side effects.
Now let’s move onto the results. I haven’t noticed any positive changes neither on me nor on my husband.
However, I still recommend you drink the collagen with water! As for me, I’ll try some budget-friendly dupes the next time.
The reason I haven’t noticed any obvious results is probably that the product reacts too slowly in our bodies or we just haven’t found the right supplement for us. It’s hard to say.
I had high hopes for this product, but it’s too early to draw any conclusions yet.
I’m going to use collagen supplements further on!
