Collagen

It depends what you mean by work. A collagen molecule is far too big to pass through the skin and become collagen in your dermis. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.

What collagen and its smaller cousins do well is hold water at the surface. Skin looks plumper, feels softer and fine lines look less obvious while it is hydrated.

For actually making more of your own collagen, the ingredients with the evidence behind them are retinoids, vitamin C and peptides. Plenty of the products here include those too.

Peptides are short fragments of protein. Collagen is the full length version.

Because peptides are small, they can get into the skin and act as a signal that tells your cells to build more collagen of their own. That is the mechanism worth paying for.

• Medik8 Advanced Pro Collagen+ Peptide Cream and SkinCeuticals Collagen Pro-Solution are built around that idea
• Biodance Collagen Peptide Jelly Serum Mist takes a lighter approach for daytime
• Medicube EGF NAD Firming Serum works on firmness from a different angle

A product with collagen on the front and peptides in the formula is doing both jobs, surface comfort and a real signal underneath.

Pick by what you want it to do rather than by the word on the box.

• Overnight repair: Medicube Collagen Night Wrapping Mask, the one most people try first
• A quick plumping hit: Biodance Bio-Collagen Real Deep Mask, also sold in a 4 pack
• Daily moisturiser: Medicube Triple Collagen Cream 4.0 or Dermalogica Pro Collagen Banking Water Cream
• Serum: Dermalogica Pro-Collagen Banking Serum or COSRX 5 PDRN Collagen Intense Vitalizing Serum
• Toner or essence: Medicube Triple Collagen Toner or TIRTIR Collagen Core Glow Essence

The research is more promising than most people expect, though it is still thin and a lot of it is funded by the companies selling the powder.

The theory is that drinking collagen peptides sends fragments into the bloodstream that nudge your body to produce more. Some trials show improvements in skin hydration and elasticity over eight to twelve weeks.

We do not stock a collagen supplement at the moment, so everything on this page works on the outside of the skin.

Your own collagen production starts slowing in your mid twenties and drops more steeply around menopause. That does not mean you need a collagen cream at twenty five.

What matters far more at that age is daily SPF, because UV breaks collagen down faster than anything else you do. Biodance Invisible Collagen Peptide Sun Fluid and Medicube Collagen Glow Sunscreen cover both jobs at once.

From your thirties onward, a retinoid and a vitamin C serum will do more for firmness than any product with collagen in the name.

Two different timelines, and mixing them up is where disappointment comes from.

• Hydration and plumpness show up within days. A sheet mask does it in twenty minutes
• Firmness and line depth take three to six months of consistent use, and that is the peptide and retinoid side of the work

If a product promises visible lifting in a week, it is describing the first timeline and hoping you will read it as the second.