If you know anything about me you know that I love to challenge myself for no good reason. I think to myself, "Etinosa, what should you try today?" seriously that's how it goes. Then, I convince myself that I need to buy all these things that people have been talking about that have helped them. This time around I decided to try Collagen for an entire month. Here's the thing before starting this collagen challenge I had already been using collagen. I bought a collagen serum At TJ Maxx and was using that every morning with my skin care routine. I had also bought some collagen gummies that I was taking everyday like it said on the bottle. To be honest, I didn't really see a difference in my skin and so I just thought to myself that my skin was immune to the benefits of collagen.
Well, one random day I was at Whole Foods, to get a juice and low and behold a huge container of Collagen peptide powder was sitting right when I entered the building. It was a sign from God that I should give collagen another chance. (I should make the disclaimer that I'm kind of impulsive.) So I picked it up and had it in my cart throughout my trip in Whole Foods and was uber excited to try it out. I had very little knowledge of how collagen worked in the body. I had really only had experience with it topically. So like most researchers do I went to Pinterest to do some deep dive research. Pinterest is the place you go when you want it see only the positives. Everything it was saying on Pinterest indicated that my hair, nails, skin and joints were about to be flourishing. Taking collagen was about to take my life to exactly where I wanted to be. Long shiny hair, thick nails and a clear face. I mean come on, it doesn't get any better than that. SIKE!!
After drinking the powder for about 2 weeks I went on my Insta story to talk about it and show a little update on how things are going. I asked my followers if they had ever used Collagen and the majority of them said that they have not. But one of my follwers direct messaged me with this story below
" What brand are you using?? I tried the Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides (blue box) and it F***KEDDDDDD up my skin!!! I broke out terribly around my mouth/ chin and they were cystic acne like which I've never experienced in my life before!!! it's taken over two months to clear and now I have discoloration left over. so just be careful cause my dermatologist and facial lady told me everyone reacts differently but sometimes peptides cam really cause flares!"
If that's not a horror story I don't know what is. Here are some links to articles about
Collagen the good and bad. My follower is right the week I started taking the collagen my chin started to break out, but I didn't think much about it because I normally breakout on my chin. After reading some articles about the effects of taking collagen Peptides it made sense as far as the location of my break outs. I got like three pretty bad pimples on my jaw line (Never happened before) and then I got two on the my chin that were pretty stubborn. I became very diligent with my skin care routine and tried to avoid wearing makeup. Eventually the initial breakout subsided and my skin started to look really even. My pores looked smaller and i didn't find myself having to color correct so much.
Overall I could definitely see that my skin improved. I was really hoping that I get rid of the under the skin acne I have on my chin but clearly that was a dream. I don't have as many breakout any more which is great specifically on my forehead. what I would recommend is that you take collagen in conjunction with going to see an estheitician to keep help with extractions and giving your skin what it really needs to thrive.
If you are in the Kansas City, Missouri area I would HIGHLY recommend Fohni Wright. I have known her for a couple of years now and I can easily say before her I didn't really care much about getting facials but they really do help out a lot especially if you want your skin to glow. Check her out on instagram @healswright and tell her I sent you!