Does Topical Application Of Collagen Really Work? An Expert Explains!
Who doesn't love extra care and pampering, such as the thing with your skin? It glows differently when you pamper it with external nutrients, but do all external nutrients make your skin happy? We all know that external vitamins and oils work magic for skin but what about collagen, does that work? Let's find out.
What is collagen? 
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body. Its fiber-like structure is used to make connective tissue. As the name implies, this type of tissue connects other tissues and is a major component of bone, skin, muscles, tendons, and cartilage.
So in simpler words, collagen is the fiber that is responsible for holding your skin tight and preventing it from sagging, it provides elasticity to the skin layers and lessens the wrinkles.
Nowadays, you’ll find all the products that claim to lessen your wrinkles and fine lines, to give you healthy-looking skin that will have collagen in it. In fact, collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body, making up from 25% to 30% of the whole body protein content.
To date, 29 types of collagen have been described, however, over 90% of collagen throughout the body is of types 1 through 5, with type 1 being the most abundant.
Why Does Your Skin Need External collagen? 
As you age your skin starts to lose its elasticity and forms fine lines around the lips and under-eye, these are addressed as signs of aging. These factors may differ from person to person, smoking and drinking habits may speed up the aging process. Sunlight also contributes to damaging collagen production, too much exposure to ultraviolet light makes its fibers unravel.
The science behind: Increasing age has a lot of impact on the skin, ageing decreases the thickness of the skin layers right from epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis. These layers of skin play a vital role in protecting, nourishing, and making skin look healthy.
The epidermis is the protective barrier between the body and the environment, whereas the dermis holds the firmness of the skin, takes the charge of regulating sebum and sweat, and keeps hair follicles in shape.
Beneath the dermis is the hypodermis, a layer with subcutaneous adipose fat cells and several other connective tissues. The decrease of collagen in the skin is accompanied by this layer, usually, 1% of collagen is lost every year after maturity. This secret lies deep within the skin layers.
Does topical collagen really work? 
No evidence can say that collagen when applied topically works for skin. As collagen production is done by hypodermis, the innermost layer of the skin, it is not possible for any topical application to deeply penetrate that layer.
The dermis and the epidermis serve as the barrier for any component to pass through them. Theoretically speaking, collagen should reach its origin to help the skin tissues to produce more collagen, but the collagen molecules that you apply topically are just too large to plunge below the surface of the skin and boost collagen production.
Typically only molecules of size 500 Daltons or less can effectively cross the skin barrier. Collagen when applied externally surely improves the skin moisturization, maintains hydration, and supports the skin tightening.
What does a product with collagen in it do?
Now that you know that external collagen itself cannot boost internal collagen production, look for the peptides along with collagen in your skincare products.
As Peptides are small chain amino acids and are also smaller in their molecular size they can cross the skin barrier and penetrate the skin. These peptides help the skin to boost collagen production and lift the sagging skin resulting in reducing wrinkles and fine lines.
Also, retinol and vitamin C helps in the production of free radicals across the skin and result in reversing the inflammation that causes damage to the natural collagen. Topical vitamin C in the form of L-ascorbic acid with concentrations between 5 and 15% was proven to have a skin anti-aging effect.
Learnings
Not all collagen products work effectively on your skin, some may do the work some may not. Look for peptides accompanied with collagen to do the trick for you, also keep your skin nourished with vitamin C and retinol to have forever younger-looking skin. Keep your skin hydrated and protected from harmful sun rays, you can use the DeBelle Mineral Sunscreen with SPF+++ for better collagen protection.