In this video Dr. Shereene Idriss, a cosmetic dermatologist, openly discusses her own experience of collagen loss at age 42 and critiques the overwhelming market of collagen‑boosting products. She explains that facial aging involves multiple layers—bone, fat, ligaments, and skin—using a couch analogy to illustrate why focusing solely on collagen is insufficient. Idriss emphasizes two core at‑home practices: daily sunscreen (specifically ISDIN) and a consistent, gentle retinoid (Shani Darden), arguing that consistency beats intensity. She shares a personal six‑month trial of oral collagen supplements, noting no observable benefit and calling for stronger research. The video then outlines a budget‑based strategy for anti‑aging investments: $50 should go to sunscreen and retinoids; $500 toward an in‑office procedure that addresses a specific concern; $1,000‑$2,000 toward targeted treatments such as microneedling, fractional laser, RF, or ultrasound, depending on the issue. Idriss describes her problem‑first approach to cosmetic procedures, detailing her spacing of Botox, a recent fat‑stem‑cell‑enriched fat transfer, limited tightening sessions, and the possibility of a future facelift if excess skin develops. Throughout, she stresses that skincare has biological and personal ceilings, and that the goal is to balance skin quality, structural support, and volume rather than chase endless collagen‑centric solutions. She invites viewers to share their own experiences and ends with an encouraging note about aging gracefully.
Chapters
I talk about collagen loss all the time, like it's something happening to the outside world— my patients, my family, my friends— but hello, it's happening to me too. And I definitely have started to think very differently about what I'm willing to do and spend my money on as I get older and hopefully wiser. Because the second people start to hear collagen loss, they automatically start getting targeted on social media with expensive collagen powders, creams, peptides, serums, devices, lasers, tightening treatments. Basically every lotion and potion under the sun that is promising to rebuild your fountain of youth and what you're losing. And I do not do all of those things. There are very few things that I am extremely consistent and religious about. There are some very popular collagen boosters that I'm just not convinced are worth my money. And then there is a point where I start to think that buying another serum stops making sense in its entirety. Okay, just doesn't make sense. So I want to show you how I am thinking about collagen in my own face now at 42, what I do at home, what I'm willing to do in office, what I skip, and where I as a cosmetic dermatologist would spend my money if I had a limited budget. But first, we do need to clear something up. When you look at yourself in the mirror and you're thinking, I'm losing collagen, are you actually looking at collagen loss? Your face is not just collagen. You see, we blame collagen for almost everything because it's an easy thing to understand. understand. Collagen is collagen, but your face is so much more complicated than just that. And I like to think about your face like a couch, like this bad boy. Your skin is the fabric. It's the upholstery. I can't say that word. And underneath it, you have the frame, your bone structure. You have the cushions, your facial fat. You have ligaments and muscles and connective tissue that's holding all of those fibers together and keeping them in place. And then you have the beautiful fabric sitting on top of it all. Now, as we age in life, every layer is changing actively. Your bones are remodeling, your fat is shrinking and shifting and redistributing, and your support structures are changing. And yes, the skin itself that produces less collagen becomes less firm, less resilient, a little bit loosey-goosey. So when you look in the mirror, you might look and say, my face is sagging, I need more collagen. And that may be part of the problem. But it may not be the entire problem. And that fully matters because skincare can improve the fabric, but it cannot rebuild the couch from the inside out. And I see that in my own face. My skin doesn't quite bounce back like it used to, nor as quickly as it used to. My under eyes do feel a little bit different. For the first time in my life, I finally genuinely understand the value of targeted hydration around the eyes, which I did not in my 30s. I'm seeing a little bit more hollowing. My lips are not as plump and juicy as they once were. And some of that, yes, is skin. Some of it is absolutely not. So before I treat anything, my first question is always, what am I actually trying to fix? So what am I actually doing at home? Very honestly, the stuff that's doing the most heavy lifting is extremely boring, and that is starting with sunscreen, my favorites. And I do love this one by ISDIN. And of course, a retinoid. And my all-time favorite is one by Shani Darden. But something fun is coming. Consistent skincare is truly what's going to make the biggest difference. And sunscreen has the ability to protect the collagen that you already have. And a retinoid is one of the very few things that actually has really strong evidence behind it, not only supporting your collagen production but also improving the quality of aging skin. And I do want to emphasize something that I have said forever, so much so that I even trademarked consistency over intensity: the strongest retinoid is not necessarily the best retinoid. If your tretinoin and prescription Tret is destroying your face and you're using it maybe once or twice a week, but you're avoiding it for 3 weeks. I would much rather you use something much gentler, way more consistently so you can get to the best results because collagen remodeling happens slowly over time and not overnight. And I do think that my philosophy as I've gotten older has actually become even simpler, that consistency beats complexity. I do not need 10 different bottles that all say collagen on them. That is besides the point. I want to understand what each thing in my routine is doing and whether it has truly earned its place to stay in my routine. And if you are watching this video and in your 40s and you're thinking, I didn't even start early enough, I want you to stop right now. You have not missed your window. Welcome to your window, and this is where we begin. The collagen boosters I personally do not prioritize, and this is where I think marketing gets way ahead of the science and of us. A product containing collagen does not mean that you are putting collagen back into your face, and we have to set that from the beginning. Plumping can simply mean hydration. Peptides can be interesting, but the word peptide by itself means almost nothing to me. Growth factors can also be interesting, and so can PDRN, exosomes, NAD+. There's a lot of interesting biology in a lot of these conversations, but interesting biology, right? And this is where I would spend my money are not the same thing. For me, the fundamentals still come first, and then if I have my basics covered and I want to play with something extra, fine, no harm, no foul. But am I going to go spend my whole paycheck chasing every new ingredient that comes on the market just because somebody called it a collagen booster or a collagen boosting ingredient on a bottle? Absolutely not. So in full transparency, I actually tried collagen supplements, and I did take them consistently. Consistently every single day for almost 6 months. And I really, really, really, really tried to see the results that people are talking about. And I kept the rest of my routine relatively stable. And I really wanted to know, am I going to see more elasticity, more hydration, more firmness? Am I going to look like a fetus? But personally, I saw nada, niente, zip, zilch. And now, that does not mean that I'm telling you collagen supplements are definitively useless or a no. There is some kind of research there, but I do think we need way better studies before we can make any sort of sweeping statement that they are great or they are useless. And here is the very important distinction that I think we're all missing. Something can have plausible biological mechanism, but it's not necessarily creating meaningful enough results for you and me to see, like Cardi B said, and for me to spend my money on. And after 6 months, it wasn't worth the cost for me. So if you take collagen and you love it, don't come at me, okay? And if you can afford it and you feel like it's doing good for you, I'm not going to come to your house and confiscate it. You do you, keep taking it. But personally, I cannot in good conscience tell you that that is where I would personally spend my own money if I had to pick. And honestly, I would rather put that money towards a personal trainer because in my 40s, building muscles— and one day I will show you guys— and maintaining bone strength is a much bigger part of how I am thinking about aging than adding another supplement to my cabinet. And when does skincare stop being the answer? I think skincare has 2 ceilings. There is the biological ceiling, right, where what can skincare physically change? And then there's your personal ceiling. What are you willing to accept? If you're someone, right, who's happy with your face, and you're not spending mental energy thinking about something, maybe there's nothing else for you to do. But if something is bothering you, I would say more often than it isn't over the course of a week, then I think it's very reasonable to ask, can skincare actually fix this? Because skincare can improve the quality of your skin. It can stimulate collagen. It can help with pigmentation, fine lines, hydration, and even texture superficially. But it cannot replace lost volume. It cannot rebuild your bone. It cannot reposition your facial fat, and it cannot solve every form of laxity. And that is not skincare failing. That is you recognizing that you're trying to treat a different layer of your couch. So how do I think about cosmetic procedures now? And I am a cosmetic dermatologist. I do not start by asking, what is the best device? I ask, what am I trying to fix or change? Where does the problem actually live? And what is the least amount that I need to do in order to address it? And if my problem is pigment, maybe we're talking about laser with skincare. If it's texture or photo damage, maybe some resurfacing will help. But if we are talking about deeper laxity, maybe we should be considering an energy-based treatment that can help to tighten. But if it's volume that we're talking about, that's a different conversation. And I'm very, very cautious about constantly not chasing more collagen because those procedures do not automatically mean better treatments. If you are repeatedly creating inflammation or introducing heat into your facial tissue when you don't actually need to, you can potentially start creating a whole slew of other problems. And if the real issue is volume loss, repeatedly tightening the face It's not going to replace that volume. Your face is just going to shrink and get smaller. My goal is not to have the tightest face possible. It is to have the right balance when it comes to skin quality, structure, and volume. So what am I personally doing at 42? For me, it has always been that subtle is dramatic. I am not trying to embalm myself and stop the aging process altogether. I want to age beautifully as me. And so right now what I do is I space out my Botox sessions. I said that weird. Because I want my muscle movement to fully come back, so I don't do it more than twice a year. I also recently had a fat stem cell enriched fat transfer because I wanted to address both the volume and the skin quality at once, and I am going to give it a little bit more time before deciding whether or not I need to get filler, if at all, this year. I am going to tell you all about this procedure in an upcoming video next week, so please make sure that you are subscribed so you do not miss out on that. I also like to space out tightening treatments. I do not do this more than every year and a half to 2 years roughly. It is a very slow and steady and silent investment. And then there is one treatment that I used to be pretty dismissive of in my 20s and 30s that I have completely reconsidered in my 40s, and I'm going to do a whole video on that because there is a lot to unpack. So again, stay tuned. And yes, someday I am going to probably have a facelift. If I eventually develop true excess skin laxity that surgery is actually designed to correct, personally, I would rather do that. That solves the problem right away than spend years chasing it, trying to tighten my way around it and not getting that satisfaction that I'm looking for. And that's really how my thinking has evolved. Do a little bit, do the right thing, do it at the right time, and make sure that you keep an open mind to stay open to how you're feeling so that you can evolve with yourself Over time and not put the burden of how other people perceive you into your heart. So now if I had $50, $500, or $2,000 to spend, where would I actually put my money? Starting with $50, 1,000% in sunscreen and retinoids, because protect the collagen that you have and continue to consistently stimulate your skin. I personally care so much more about what you do for the next 5 years than something promising new collagen over the next week. Month because we are aging over time. If I had $500, assuming that the skincare is already solid, I would probably stop buying more collagen serums and start saving my money towards an in-office treatment that addresses an actual concern. And if I have between $1,000 to $2,000, this is where we start choosing intelligently a procedure based on a problem. It is microneedling, maybe, maybe we're doing a little bit of fractional laser for texture, maybe we're doing a little RF or ultrasound for tightening in the right But there is no, unfortunately, universal best collagen treatment. They all work differently at different depths, and it really depends on what your issue is. And if money were unlimited, I still wouldn't do everything. I would probably invest more in treatments that address the underlying structure as I age rather than endlessly stacking collagen stimulation on top of itself in the form of products or even like tightening, because the goal is not to spend more. The goal is to spend intelligently and to really look at your life as you're aging in order to target the problem as it appears slowly over time and not to try to do it all at once. I don't think the goal is to chase every possible way of building collagen. My goal is to understand what is actually changing, protect what I have, stimulate my own skin in ways that I personally trust, And then intervene more when and if I actually need to intervene, because aging and getting older doesn't mean doing everything all the time. It means getting better at deciding what is actually worth doing for you. Have you personally tried anything that has helped your skin's firmness? And if so, I would love to hear about it. Please tell us all about it in the comments so that we can all learn and grow together. And in the meantime, I hope you all have a beautiful Saturday. Bye.
