Disclosure: some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission. Bear in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality, and to create a little more ease in your life, and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

I have recently taken it upon myself to start testing out a few different collagen powder supplements. As you may know, one facet of my business is linked to the company Beachbody, who released their own collagen powder back in July. But I’m not typically one to just take things at face value, so I have been doing my due diligence to make sure I’m providing you with the best of the best!

First of all, let me share with you the value and importance of collagen in the first place.

The word itself actually comes from the Greek word “kolla”, which means glue (did anyone else’s mind immediately jump to the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding during that sentence?). So we can think of collagen as the glue of the body, in that it is the fibrous protein that makes up the muscles, organs, skin, nails, hair, teeth, bones, blood vessels, joints, cartilage, tendons, and the digestive system.

There are sixteen types of collagen, but 90% of it is “Type I”, and is the strongest type. As in, even stronger than steel! Take that, Superman. Type I is the type that is found in your eyes, bones, organs, and digestive tract. As we age, our collagen starts to deteriorate, which is what contributes to some of the negative side effects of aging. This is why taking a supplement is hugely helpful – it is going to help everything continue to function at a higher level! Not just on the superficial level you often hear about (i.e. skin, hair, and nails), but arguably even more importantly, the stuff on the inside (i.e. bones, organs, digestion, gut health, etc).

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Here are seven quick benefits of consistently taking a high quality collagen supplement:

1. The most often touted: improvement of hair, skin and nails

   Whether you’re struggling with hair loss as you age, adult acne, cellulite, fine lines and wrinkles, brittle nails, dry and splitting hair, etc., adding collagen into your diet will provide you with the necessary building blocks to combat all those things!

2. Weight management

   Collagen can increase your metabolism! Because it is a type of protein, it forms muscle by converting glucose into energy; muscle burns more calories than fat, which means you will burn more calories at rest than you would with a lower percentage of lean muscle. This is one reason why I am also a huge advocate of resistance training, but that’s a post for another day!

3. Maintain heart health

   A non-essential amino acid called proline is found in collagen, and it can impact the fat deposits in your arteries, as well as the repair process of tissues with those arteries.

4. Liver function and detoxification

   The liver is processing toxins we are exposed to on a daily basis, in order to remove them from our bodies. Collagen helps support your liver through this process, which can be potentially damaging depending on how many toxins you are consuming (like alcohol).

5. Joint health

   This is one of my very favorite benefits! Collagen helps cushion your joints, tendons, and ligaments (think of how oil helps your engine function optimally), so they can move and glide smoothly. One of the reasons elderly people tend to suffer from sore, stiff, painful joints is due to the diminished collagen supply. Start being proactive about it now, and potentially delay/avoid this problem in the future! Collagen also helps support a healthy inflammatory response in the joints.

6. Bone growth and repair

   We always think of calcium when it comes to bone health, right? But that’s only one part of the picture. Calcium contributes to bone strength, but collagen (which makes up 1/3 of the bone) contributes to the flexibility, which is crucial to preventing injuries. There have even been studies to show that collagen has a positive impact against osteoporosis!

7. Gut health

   Last, but far from least: reparation of leaky gut. Did you know that upwards of 80% of your immune system is found in the gut? If you do a quick Google search of leaky gut syndrome, you will find a whole host of information about the importance of gut health. You may also find that most people in the US are likely dealing with some level of leaky gut. I won’t go into too much detail about it here, but to sum it up – poor gut health leads to inflammation throughout the entire body, and inflammation is the root cause of many issues. Some of which you may not even realize. Collagen comes to the rescue here in that it quite literally seals up the perforations in the tissues of the gut (which is primarily made up of collagen).

   An added benefit via the reparation of your gut? Increased hormonal health. When you have a leaky gut, that triggers inflammation responses all throughout your body, which triggers all sorts of imbalanced hormones to try to battle that inflammation. Therefore, healthy gut=diminished inflammation=balanced hormones.

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Are you convinced yet? I’ve only been taking collagen for about five months now, and I can tell you it is forever a part of my daily routine. My skin has never looked better, my joints have been in next to no pain, my digestions has been better, along with many smaller benefits! All that being said, on to my reviews!

I am going to share and review them in the order I have tried them in: Custom Collagen, Beachbody Collagen Boost, Tonic Traditional Collagen, and Hot Vita Youth Collagen + Turmeric.

Custom Collagen was my first foray into the world of collagen.

I had no idea what to expect…so I basically had zero expectations. I was really impressed with the ingredient list: beef collagen peptides. That’s it! Nothing else added in at all. It’s non-GMO, it’s “clean collagen verified” (I looked it up, and couldn’t find any kind of official organization that runs this, so I can’t back up the claim in any way…but it sounds nice, right?), American owned & operated (and woman owned as well, which is cool!), although the cattle themselves come from South America. It’s pesticide free, naturally gluten free, and paleo friendly. It’s also kosher and comes from pasture raised beef, which is a great indicator for quality as well (that’s a whole other post for another day). They have their own in-house lab where they test for quality, and then they state that it is also sent out to an “accredited third party laboratory” as well.

As for my personal experience with it: it’s not as fine of a powder as I would prefer. Like all collagen powders I’ve seen, it’s unflavored, and didn’t alter the taste of my shakes at all (side note: my husband says he could taste a difference when using it in his shakes, so it likely varies depending on your sense of smell/taste). However, it did clump up a bit, and I found myself “chewing” those clumps from time to time. It didn’t necessarily bother me, but if there are better options out there, I’ll take them. I did love the price on this: $35 for 82 servings! That comes out to ~$0.43/serving. So if you want to stay stocked up on collagen long term on a budget, this could be a great option for you.

Beachbody Collagen

First, a disclaimer: as I am a Beachbody Coach, I recognize that I may have a slight bias in favor of the Beachbody Collagen. However, I have absolutely done my best to be impartial, and judge from the facts and my experience with this singular product. That being said, I have been thoroughly impressed with the quality of this collagen. It is formulated with “optimized bioactive peptides”, which have been clinically proven to provide measurable results with a smaller serving size, due to the potency of the bioavailability. There are no artificial flavors, sweeteners, colors, or preservatives. It’s just the single ingredient of collagen, which I am always a fan of.

The thing I prefer about this collagen over the previous one, is that this is an extremely fine powder.

It blends in absolutely seamlessly with all the liquids I have put it in. Part of that may also be due to the fact that it only takes 2.5 grams to make one serving, so there’s not as much powder to be blended in to get the benefits; but I never could taste even a hint of it. The main downside of this option, in my opinion, is that it’s only 28 servings. So you have to purchase it more often in order to take it regularly, which can increase shipping costs (unless you buy multiple containers at one time). This one is a bit more pricey than the last one, at $34.95 (or $26.21 if you have a coach account), which puts it at $1.25 ($0.94 as a coach) per serving. But if you’re looking for a superfine powder that is completely unnoticeable, and a more bioavailable option, this is for sure one that I would recommend.

Traditional Tonic Collagen

Traditional Tonic is the third collagen powder I have tried.

The claims that this one has on the packaging are, “gluten free, non-GMO, Paleo friendly, highly soluble, grass fed, and pasture raised.” First, let me just state that all collagen (as long as there are no added ingredients) is naturally gluten free, and paleo friendly. So those are not exclusive to just a few brands. But it is great to see that this is ethically sourced, from cows that were pasture raised and grass fed (although grass fed isn’t quite the same as grass finished, but again, that’s a topic for another day). This collagen also does not have any additional ingredients; just “100% pasture raised bovine bone collagen peptides”.

As for my personal experience with it: it’s great! It’s definitely not a fine powder, but so far, I haven’t noticed it having any issues with clumping up – as long as I give it plenty of time to dissolve. I typically put this one in my preworkout drink, and I mix it up the night before. It doesn’t take that long to dissolve, but that removes any room for error if I accidentally sleep in or something. I do taste it in my preworkout, but again, that doesn’t bother me at all. I just can absolutely tell that it’s there…so if you’re pretty adamant about keeping your drinks flavors pure, I would stick to just putting this in something like a shake with stronger flavors. This one is $24.99, but it only has 20 servings, which is a real bummer to me. That puts it at $1.25/serving – the same price per serving as the Beachbody Collagen.

Hot Vita Youth Collagen & Turmeric

We’ve reached our final contender!

This Hot Vita Collagen is also the third one I’ve tried (they both arrived in the mail the same day, so obviously I started using both of them at the same time. This one is an interesting one. As you can see on the packaging, this one is not just pure collagen – it also has turmeric in it. I’m personally a huge fan of turmeric, and the anti-inflammatory benefits it has. It also gets the collagen from more than just cattle; it also gets it from chickens. More specifically, it gets it from chicken sternums and eggshell membranes. I don’t know if that’s any better or any worse, but I did find that somewhat interesting.

The other two components of this powder are turmeric extract (curcumin, which is the part of turmeric that has the actual anti-inflammatory properties), and black pepper extract. I actually really appreciate that they include the black pepper, because that assists your body’s absorption of the curcumin; hats off to Hot Vita for that detail. The only downside of the black pepper for me personally, is that my mouth gets a little tingly if I use this powder at a higher concentration. It’s not terribly concerning, but it isn’t super enjoyable either. So I save this powder for my sports drink, which I make 24 ounces of, to dilute this powder out a little more. I also use it when I make my superfood shake a little more robust (aka, adding in more liquid, fats, and veggies). When I do that, I don’t seem to have any tingly mouth issues. It is also a superfine powder, which I am a huge fan of. This one is $59 for 69 servings, putting it at $0.85/serving.

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If you’re a “sum it up already” kind of person, here’s a quick bullet point summary for you, in order of least to most expensive:

• Custom Collagen

  • $35 for 82 servings ($0.43/serving)

  • Granular texture, can get clumpy at times, mostly flavorless

• Hot Vita

  • $59 for 69 servings ($0.85/serving)

  • Superfine texture, slight flavor

  • Added turmeric and black pepper extract, may cause slight tingling in the mouth

• Beachbody Collagen

  • $$34.95 (or $26.21 for coach accounts) for 28 servings ($1.25-$0.94/serving)

  • Superfine texture, zero flavor, highly efficient bioavailability

• Tonic

  • $24.99 for 20 servings ($1.25/serving)

  • Granular texture, slight flavor

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I am one hundred percent converted to the daily use of collagen for basically forever.

We only get one body, and I am here to do my darnedest to take care of mine to the best of my abilities. This is one simple way to do so, and I’m so glad I have discovered it! I’m sure you’re wondering which brand will be my go-to moving forward. And to be honest…I’m not totally sure! I will tell you that I can cross Tonic off my list pretty easily, just due to the price and texture. Most likely what I will do (because sometimes I like to keep life slightly complex) is use the Beachbody Collagen for my preworkout drink, and the Hot Vita for my sports drink and superfood shakes. That seems like a pretty happy medium to keep me from getting the mouth tingles, getting the benefits from the turmeric, and taking advantage of the increased bioavailability of the Beachbody one.

I really hope you were able to benefit from this post! It took me longer to create than I expected, but I really thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it…no lie! I would be forever grateful if you could take a minute, and either leave a comment below, or hit me up on social media to let me know what you thought of it! You are my guiding star; as much as I enjoyed doing this for myself, I am here to add value to your life, and try to make your life just a little easier and more clear. The more you communicate with me about how I’m doing, the more I can specifically do to help you. And if you did find this helpful, I would be so appreciative if you shared this via social media (I even have some handy buttons just below to make it easier for you), so we can help even more people find clarification as well!

Thank you for showing up, taking the time to arm yourself with knowledge today, and elevating your vibe.