We are excited to announce a new occasional blog series we will be doing. These blog posts will detail the chemistry for your skin and hair and how each one plays a larger part of keeping you healthy. We will be starting this series off with what is most associated with beauty: Collagen.
What is Collagen?
Collagen is the most abundant protein in animals. It is the primary component of connective tissue and comprises about 30% of the total protein content in the human body. There are 5 common types that the many kinds of collagen can be classified under, ranging from Types I – V. The collagen that is relevant and important to skincare is the Type I Collagen. This is the most abundant type found in the human body and is present in your tendons, skin, artery walls, bones, teeth, and scar tissue.
What does collagen do for your skin and body?
Collagen is what helps maintain your youthful look through skin elasticity. It prevents sagging and wrinkles that is the result of natural aging. While your body naturally produces collagen, this production starts to slowly decrease around your mid-to-late 20s and early 30s. About 1% of collagen is lost every year after that, which leads to the onset of wrinkles and skin sagging as the skin becomes more inelastic.
As collagen proteins are found all throughout the body, the effects of collagen decline can be seen widespread. Hair requires collagen to remain long and thick and will slowly begin to thin with age. Joints require collagen to move and function smoothly with no pain. Bones, while normally strong and dense, will lose that strength when collagen is low.
What helps with the production of collagen?
Vitamin C helps with the active synthesis and maintenance of collagen and hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid helps with speeding up your recovery time by retaining needed moisture for your skin and joints. When used together, collagen will provide the structure for your skin while hyaluronic acid will provide needed moisture and fullness. Along with regular dietary intake, our Vitamin C serum will also boost the production of collagen and hyaluronic acid when applied to your face. What Vitamin C does at a chemical level is interact with two key enzymes: prolyl hydroxylase and lysyl hydroxylase which helps stabilize collagen and strengthen its chemical structure. Without this interaction from Vitamin C, collagen will not be synthesized properly.
Our derma roller is great for face and even your body. When used on the face once a week the derma roller helps with fine lines, wrinkles, and stimulates collagen production. This roller has micro-needles, which applies a low-level of trauma to the outer layer of skin and causes your skin to begin healing itself through the production of collagen. For a more intense treatment, professional micro needling can be used as it works similar to derma rollers, but with much longer needles. These needles pierce the skin at a deeper level, causing a higher level of controlled damage to the skin.
Using collagen supplements, while thought to help with collagen production, has unclear benefits to its effectiveness. This is because these supplements will be exposed to your stomach acids and might break down during digestion without being absorbed into the bloodstream. There is, however, little harm in taking them as part of your diet. In addition to dietary supplements, foods high in Vitamin C, such as citrus fruit and ginseng, and aloe vera will also help with the production of collagen.
