Every once in a while we hear about ingredients that just get people talking. Remember the celery juice craze? Yeah, we do too. One ingredient that seems to have stuck around for quite a bit now is collagen. For those who don’t know, collagen already exists in our body and is a great thing to consider for promoting skin elasticity. However, collagen products aren’t always plant-based and our plant-based friends are often left with seeking other options. We turned to Jasmine Lee and Victoria McAbee, founders of Whimsy Official, who’ve brought one of the few plant-based collagen supplements to the market about the benefits and truth surrounding the hero ingredient.
Collagen 101
“Ingestible collagen was designed to help the body create more collagen on its own,” they said. For those who may not know, having a higher collagen production is what allows our skin to be bouncy, glowy, and full of elasticity. “Vitamin C, D, and E are all excellent sources to help produce collagen,” they explained. As we mentioned above, collagen already exists in our skin, but as we age it begins to deplete and supplements like the Glow Getter Collagen Blend should be considered.
Plant-Based Collagen vs. Traditional
“Our Glow Getter Collagen Blend is strictly plant-based because we believe in giving our body the purest form of nutrients straight from the primary source!” The brand’s collagen blend uses organic blue pea flower as a primary ingredient. “The health benefits for skin are through the roof, and it’s such a beautiful blue color,” they said. Blue pea flower is a powerful superfood and an excellent source for Vitamins A, C, and D, allowing it to aid in anti-aging, stress and anxiety relief, and overall skin health and glow. Other ingredients include prickly pear, Rhodiola (adaptogenic herb), maca, and goji berry. “Our vegan collagen powder is unique in that it’s not made from rice bran solubles, a popular ingredient amongst plant-based collagen supplements,” they explained. Rice bran is high in fiber, but because it’s highly digestible, the nutrients from collagen supplements can be lost during the body’s natural digestion process.
“Using plant-based collagen instead of animal-derived collagen is also much better for your body long term (we believe) because it equips your body with all the proper nutrients and tools it needs to do its own work when producing collagen,” they explained. “Animal-derived collagen is pure collagen from another living being, and we feel that while many people swear by it, it’s simply just putting a bandaid on the issue rather than getting to the root,” they added.
Ethics and Sustainability
Sustainability is a big part of the Whimsy Official brand and both Lee and McAbee are committed to ethical and sustainable practices across the board. “There are certainly many trends surrounding sustainability and plant-based wellness and beauty, but we feel that the best results come when we treat it as a lifestyle,” they said. “By nourishing our bodies – both internally and externally – with botanical ingredients, we’re taking from renewable resources and honoring our planet.” There’s such an abundance of clarity that comes from being good to our bodies and to our planet, and those choices have such positive ripple effects. On their website, the brand states that they will never use animal products or animal by-products in their own products.
Buy Whimsy Official’s Glow Getter Collagen Blend for $49 today.