What Do You Think About Collagen Supplements for the Skin?
15 Dec 2025 · 6 min
Rachel Vargo, a board-certified aesthetic nurse, explains why she changed her mind about collagen supplements. Collagen drops 1 to 3 percent yearly with age and about 30 percent around menopause. The source matters: bovine, poultry, and marine collagen have different benefits.
Questions this episode answers
About 1–3% per year.
About 30% (almost overnight).
Over 20,000 rejuvenation treatments.
Chapters
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What do you think about collagen supplements for the skin? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times Best selling author, author, celebrity nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health expert. Linda from YouTube asks, what do you think about collagen supplements for the skin? Hey, it's JJ and I've got celebrity skills skin expert and board certified aesthetic nurse Rachel Vargo with me to answer this question. Rachel is an accomplished international clinical trainer and academically published award winning author in the space of aesthetic medicine and nursing and also an executive board member of the Plastic Surgery Nursing Journal. She's also one of the biggest tomboys you'll ever meet and grew up taking apart motors, riding motocross and and riding horses. We'll be right back with the answer. Stay with us.
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Collagen supplements in the skin. Literally, I get asked this every single day. Rachel, what do you think about taking collagen? And it's funny, I actually used to poo poo this, to be totally honest with you. I've been in the industry of aesthetic nursing and aesthetic medicine for the last 10 years and have provided over 20,000 rejuvenation treatments. And I'm even an executive board member for Plastic Surgical Nursing Journal. To be honest, whenever I attend conferences to learn about the latest advancements in anti aging and rejuvenation, collagen is never talked about. Collagen supplements rather, however, what is talked about are laser treatments to promote collagen and all sorts of exciting injectables and things like that that claim to do just that. But the collagen supplements conversation is not happening and it actually drives me crazy. So if I'm just going to be totally honest with you, in the past, working with clients when they say they have taken a collagen supplement, they kind of can be a little bit disappointed about it because I think when they take it, they were hoping that it was going to magically deposit more collagen in their fine lines and wrinkles that are say for example, around their eyelids. So to help with hooding eyelids, help with low brows, crow's feet lines around the lips, sagging jawline, smile lines, frown lines, all sorts of things. So that's unfortunately where I think collagen supplements for the skin have sort of gotten a bad rap. So is that people take these supplements hoping for the world, and this is definitely something that I see across all anti aging products and procedures, is that it's never going to be just one thing. But what do I personally think about collagen supplements for the skin? I love collagen supplements. In fact, I am a complete convert. I actually as a clinician kind of used to really downplay the importance of taking an external collagen supplement. And I would say a laser can do that. Or use your skincare to tell your skin to make more collagen or use your sunscreen to protect the collagen that you have, but not to take collagen. And it's funny because over the last couple of years, this is something that I'm now asking every single client I work with. Are you taking collagen supplements? And more and more people are saying yes, which is great. But collagen really is one of the most abundant proteins in our bodies, and unfortunately, we lose about 1 to 3% of it as we age. This is actually in the clinical data. And also when we hit menopause, we lose about 30% of it almost overnight. Typically, people are going to start to see changes in their skin regarding collagen loss when their estrogen starts to drop off. So that can start to happen the late 30s, early 40s, but kind of shortly sharply happens when women enter menopause. So, yeah, certainly I am a recommend. I am recommending that my clients take collagen supplements for the skin, but I'm also strongly recommending that you also start to care about where that collagen is sourced from. So collagen is coming from primarily beef, poultry, or marine. And unfortunately, what a lot of people aren't considering is, well, what were the farming practices like for that animal while it was living? Because the collagen is being derived from animal skin. So this is a conversation that I do actually have with collagen formulators, and there's one brand in particular that I really, really like that actually sources their collagen from sustainably farmed fish farms, which is really cool. And they actually have their collagen with a co factor in it as well. So when you're taking one thing, it's great when that one thing is sometimes mixed with a couple of things, but. And you're getting a number of benefits in one product. So, yes, I am a firm believer in taking collagen supplements, but just to be completely honest with you, I wasn't for a very long time. I was perhaps a little brainwashed by the aesthetic nursing and aesthetic medicine industry. But thank you to you, jj. You've actually really helped to open my mind to this whole other way of caring for ourselves with the community that you have, which I'm so grateful for.
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