Care/of’s New Ingestible Collagen Line Includes a Game-Changing Vegetarian Option

Photo: Courtesy of Care/ofAnyone who has been paying even a little bit of attention to the wellness industry over the past decade will tell you: Vitamins are big business, and the supplement market is still booming. Beyond that, a significant portion of that market is focused on beauty. Personalized direct-to-consumer vitamin brand Care/of launched in 2016, and in the years since, more than 5.5 million people have taken its personalization quiz — of those, a whopping 74% of them cited skin and hair health as a priority, according to the company. On Tuesday, Care/of is putting all that data collection to use, expanding its existing lineup of vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements with a range targeting the health of hair, skin and nails. Core to Care/of’s beauty collection is ingestible collagen. There are several traditional ingestible bovine collagen protein powders that can be mixed into beverages (in unflavored, matcha, vanilla oat creamer and lemon passionfruit), but there’s also an antioxidant “superberry” powder, a keratin supplement, a supplement with ceramides and an ayurvedic herbal supplement called shatavari with purported breakout-busting benefits. But arguably the most noteworthy and potentially game-changing of them all is a vegetarian collagen supplement in capsule form. First, a bit of background about why ingestible collagen is even A Thing and why, exactly, a vegetarian version of it is such a big deal:There’s some debate — and not as much research as many experts would like — about whether ingesting collagen can really have much of an impact on the health or appearance of skin. “Collagen, whether consumed from food sources or from supplements, is mostly broken down into its components, called amino acids, when digested,” dermatologist Dr. Arash Akhavan told Fashionista in a previous interview on the subject. “Amino acids are used by the body to synthesize other proteins, including more collagen for areas such as our skin.” So there’s no guarantee that ingesting collagen is going to directly impact the collagen present in skin, but most experts agree nonetheless that the amino acids in collagen are esse
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