Collagen for looking naicer. Please give me the idiot’s guide and recommendations

[NumberLIT]

I’ve been meaning to get round to this but every time I start looking it seems totally overwhelming, so now I call on the power of MN to guide me as the significantly overgrown and wrinkled child I am.

What do I need to take and how, please? Bonus points if it’s at the cheaper end or I’ll fall at the second hurdle, especially at this time of year.

I’m relatively low-maintenance (DH would probably beg to differ!) - as in I like to look nice but I’m pretty entry-level and happy there.

Current status:

• Recently 40
• Signs of peri starting
• Lines on face, obviously, but I don’t think massively more than would be expected for my age (people tend to guess me as my age. A few have thought I’m older)
• Hair is appalling. Thin anyway and prone to breakage. Can’t wait for hormones to really ramp up 🫣 Dealing with this in all other ways I can, so just focusing on collagen today.

Help me, o wise ones.

Bump for the evening

I used to buy Bulk collagen coffee then when they started doing collagen hot chocolate - ,well, it's fun getting healthy, isn't it?

My hair got thicker, I had less joint pain but as far as wrinkles are concerned - it's hard to tell really.

It's a minefield. There's bovine collagen, marine collagen and even vegan collagen which sounds a bit dubious to me.

The marine collagen tastes bloody awful. Like the boiled up fish bones and skin it is. And, my dears, the smell!

The science behind it all is a bit dodgy. Can your body really tell the difference between collagen and any other protein? Especially once it's been churned about in your stomach acid?

My thicker hair and less joint pain could have been due to me generally doing keto/higher protein at the time. It's all gone out of the window now because of the cost of living and being finally diagnosed with Lyme disease and anaplasmosis which was called "Functional Neurological Disorder" (which is sort of code for it's all in your head - the symptoms are real but they can't find any physical cause) for four years but I was trying to treat by myself with supplements and strict diet. I didn’t know it was Lyme, I just tried to alleviate the symptoms a bit. Now my pesky borrelia and other parasites have been caught bang to rights I'm on high dose antibiotics and other fun stuff and am just glad to be able to keep anything down.

It's worth a try. The Bulk bovine hot chocolate is gorgeous if you don't mind a hint of gravy taste in your cocoa.

I looked into collagen and decided not to waste my money as apparently it doesn't work. There's no proper science behind it

If you are heading for peri and your hair is a problem, make sure you are over 70 in ferritin as this was causing me to lose hair by the handful.

Also apparently eating jelly cubes works just as well.