If your skin doesn’t feel as soft or firm as it used to be, you might be losing your natural collagen. Collagen is the protein that binds your skin cells together, playing a key role in maintaining your skin’s elasticity. And that’s not all, as collagen is vital in keeping your hair follicles and bones healthy as well.

Collagen in creams vs. fish collagen powder

Retinoid creams have long been in the market to help restore collagen into your skin, but the newest trend is to add them into your diet. Being a protein, collagen is hard to absorb into your skin. For skin cells to fully absorb all the nutrients, the proteins have to be small enough to pass through the cell membrane. This means it may take a very long time for results to show.

Which brings us to fish collagen powder. Korean superstars and beauty influencers have sworn by it. Generally it was believed that it wasn’t worth ingesting animal-based collagen as it would be absorbed into the blood as an amino acid, and when they are synthesised with other proteins this way, the absorption rate can be very low. However, fish collagen powder, which is mainly extracted from pollack and salmon skin, has a very small molecular weight, and because of this it has up to 84% absorption rate.

What does this mean?

Fish collagen powder may be a great supplement to your skincare game. Use retinol creams to help in healing acne and sun damage to your skin, but consider ingesting fish collagen powder to help in decreasing wrinkles and cellulite, as well as improving your skin’s hydration, firmness, smoothness, elasticity and softness.

What makes fish collagen powder so great is the fact that it is a powder. In powder form, it’s easy to incorporate into meals, and being tasteless, it’s easy to add into smoothies, soups and even your morning coffee.

More so, it’s not only good for the skin, but it also helps in alleviating symptoms of arthritis and maintaining your blood sugar. But keep in mind that fish collagen can also cause side effects of diarrhoea or nausea, especially when you first start taking it. And if you’re allergic to seafood, we would recommend against taking it.