Soluble Collagen

Soluble collagen is one of the most notoriously famous skincare ingredients. In short, it is a special protein that is a building block of our skin, soft tissues, and joints.

As a skincare ingredient, soluble collagen won't help to regenerate collagen in the skin, but it is a fantastic humectant moisturizer with an excellent ability to bind water to the skin’s surface and form a film on the skin’s surface, thereby preventing more skin damage by mechanical impairments.

Topically applied collagen also helps in the healing of small cuts and wounds.

Collagen is a very big molecule that forms even bigger structures in our cells, where several collagen strands twist together to form a helix - which can be up to 0,3 mm long (which is HUGE when we are talking about cells). These huge structures make the skin elastic and flexible, but also able to spring back after you pull on it.

For skincare purposes, collagen is obtained from farm animals such as cows and pigs, or fish and other marine animals.

There are several types of collagen. The skin consists of tissue built mainly by type I, III, and V, where type I is the most abundant (and therefore also the one most commonly used in skincare products).

Since collagen molecules are so big, it is nearly impossible for them to penetrate the skin, and so they form a humectant (moisturizing) layer on top of the skin. There are other versions of collagen that might be used in skincare products, such as hydrolyzed collagen or collagen amino acids, which have a better ability to penetrate the skin.