Cosmopolitan beauty writer Lucy Partington (24) shares her experience of a 30 day skinade course...

Collagen is the word on everybody's lips at the minute and there's a whole host of supplements available, but the main question is whether or not they actually work. Do these products really boost your collagen, leave you with plump, baby-soft skin and can they have any impact on your hair and nails?

I'm 24 so, actually, my collagen levels are alright (my main skin concern right now is that it's quite dehyrated), but things tend to start going downhill when you reach 25 apparently. Despite that, I still thought it'd be an interesting experiment just to see exactly what happens, and to find out whether or not it's all just a grand old waste of (quite a lot of) money.

"I would recommend giving Skinade a go if you want plumper, more hydrated skin with less lines and wrinkles - the results speak for themselves." - Lucy Partington, Cosmopolitan Beauty Writer

The trial

I did a 30 day trial of Skinade, a collagen drink that claims to work from the inside out, rebuilding and strengthening the collagen as well as boosting the skin's natural hydration levels and reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. The collagen in the drinks is sourced from fresh-water fish, so no good if you're a veggie! That's also something I had to put to the back of my mind while I was doing the trial.

The drinks themselves had no impact on my life and having them daily wasn't a chore. I did have to set an alarm on my phone that went off at 11am though just so I didn't forget. It's apparently best for them to be drunk after breakfast. I was expecting them to taste vile, but actually they weren't too bad. They have a slightly peachy flavour that definitely smells worst than it tastes, so I suggest bypassing the sniffing and just drinking it as quickly as possible. Some people would probably say it's easier just to pop a pill, but there's around 7000mg of collagen in each bottle, which would amount to having to take 20 large pills a day I for one definitely don't fancy doing that.

The results

To see whether or not the drinks had any affect, I visited SANTI skin clinic in South Kensington, London, to have various skin readings taken before and after my 30-day trial. I didn't actually notice any physical differences in my skin (unless being told that without makeup it looked good!), but the readings do suggest otherwise. The most impressive were that my skin hydration levels increased by 30.5% and skin thickness increased by 3.5% - and you can see in the picture below that my skin appears thicker and the collagen structure (the yellow blobs) look denser than before the trial (before is on the left, after is the right).

As well as that, I did notice my hair get thicker. My nails are already quite strong but I imagine if they were weaker I'd have noticed a difference in those too. Overall, I would recommend giving Skinade a go if you want plumper, more hydrated skin with less lines and wrinkles – the results speak for themselves.

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