By know most consumers have heard of marine collagen.
But what is it? It is a sort of collagen product that is derived from various saltwater algae for example the species Laminaria and Padina and from time to time cod fish.
These products are usually limited to facial masks, facial creams and those are are designed for oral ingestion.
There is no injected version at the moment on the markets.
It is also unknown if such products will be developed at a later time.
Marine collagen does have a number of advantages as opposed to bovine and human based collagen sources though.
And it seems to work a bit differently than conventional products.
For one, most creams are designed to replace and encourage collagen development within our bodies instead of just replacing lost stocks of the protein.
Its primary use is to stimulate the growth of type III collagen within our skin.
As this protein is a rather large molecule, it has problems when going through our skin.
As such, new methods have to be found to encourage absorption rates.
With usual collagen sources, injections are used to go around the problem.
With marine collagen, polypeptide technology is utilized.
Polypeptides have been discovered to quicken the synthesis of new collagen molecules in our skin.
It is a relatively new competitor in this area of beauty products.
As such, there is not a whole lot of information on the matter at this moment in time.
What is plentiful in its place, are the actual products themselves.
Loreal, Olay as well as Eleris are just some of the big names that have entered the market and have a selection of facial creams and capsules for ingestion.
Regardless of the claims by the numerous companies claiming great things for it there haven't actually been any concrete tests carried out on the long-term and short-term value of marine collagen unlike many plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery procedures.
The same can be said for any recognized side effects that may surface from using these products.