100% yes — but really depends on how much you take daily, that you do take it daily, and that you take the right type of collagen. Not every collagen powder is created equal.
Collagen is a type of protein that all living, breathing animals— including humans— produce. It makes up our bones, muscles, skin, and hair. Think of them as gatekeepers of moisture in our cells; and without this collagen "wall" to keep our cells hydrated, our cells increasingly lose structure, leading to weaker, stretchier, and thinner skin. And of course, this is what causes wrinkles, fine lines, dry skin, cellulite, and the loss of structure in your hair follicles (integral to holding on to your hair). And unfortunately, time and our environment, such as pollution, smoking, eating fried foods, and more, cause our body produce less and less of it (a rate of 1.5% a year). Ingesting collagen facilitates new regeneration of skin, muscle, bones and joint cells, something my mother and grandmother never let me forget if I ever decided to be picky with my food.
Obviously, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that what we put into our body directly translates to how we look and feel. Still, I do think that most of us either like to conveniently forget, or underestimate just how much what you ingest, translates to your skin. If you take a second to trace some of our most frustrating skin and hair problems to their roots, you would find yourself circling back to your stomach and liver, two of our most stressed out, hung over organs. And you’d also see, that whether it’s inflammation or fatigue, something probably was a bit off at the cellular level.
The crystallization of just how important ingestible skincare to was to the health of my skin LeptoConnect, actually only occurred to me in my early twenties, when I got severely burned from scalding hot oil. Instantly studded with blood blisters up and down both of my arms, I couldn’t leave the house in daylight for weeks. I had to turn to silicone patches, topical creams, litres of bio oil, mederma, and prescription ointments to ensure that my skin would heal without much scarring-- but saw little to no effect.
When almost nothing worked, I decided to take to the internet’s advice and started taking 20g of collagen daily for its regenerative and healing benefits. And despite hating the taste of it, I stuck to it daily. After about 3-4 weeks, I started noticing a dramatic change -- my blister-turned scabs were starting to disappear. But the differences I noticed were not just on my arms, but in my face and hair. My eyelashes, brows and hair got so much thicker, and my skin, once chronically dry, didn't need as much topical attention as it used to.