Veg Peeps!
Your girl is floored right now! Why? Because an amazing ingredient just became a real thing in my world, and it’s good for you and the animals!
In my last post, I reported getting the Anti-Wrinkle and Energizing Eye Masks from Grace & Stella and contacting them to support them removing the collagen. Well to my surprise, they reported there was no need to worry about that collagen since they source it from SEAWEED! What? Any long-time vegan guy or gal knows that collagen seen in an ingredient list was always a no-go. Literally, most text written on the subject reported that collagen is ALWAYS non-vegan. Well my beautiful peeps, welcome collagen back into your lives because these days high-quality beauty companies are including seaweed collagen into their products. This is new to me and likely becoming more mainstream, but the field of beauty has known of this ingredient for many years. And guess what? It turns out that seaweed collagen is even BETTER than the animal-derived variation of the molecule. How do I know? Veg Girl’s been on the keyboard doing her research.
According to 100% Pure, a long-time favorite brand of this Veg Girl, seaweed collagen was named their ingredient of the month earlier this year. They awarded this distinction due to seaweed collagen’s capacity to retain significant amounts of moisture which they describe by having you envision a seaweed snack and how that plumps and increases in size when wet. They claim it absorbs 1,000 times its weight in water which means that your skin with a little seaweed collagen can do the exact same. Part of this is due to the fact that it naturally contains hyaluronic acid. In that, it also helps with reducing wrinkles, regenerating cells, and having properties that are well-absorbed by the skin. Permeability is an important factor when considering whether a product can actually work in the manner proposed. At various levels based on the certain type of materials, tissues, cells, organs, or species, their capacity to take in other ingredients, chemicals, elements, etcetera depends on their openness or goodness-of-fit between the two entities. It’s like the idea of putting a square in a round peg or a round ped in a round peg. Some things sound like good ideas in theory, but in reality, the particular cell, skin, or other membranes, for example, will not actually open for that ingredient based on a poor fit of either weight, size, or shape. The best thing about seaweed collagen is that it is the same type of collagen in your skin, so your skin is highly permeable (or open) to receiving it (Veganlogy) which cannot be said for animal collagen. Metro reports that we do not absorb animal-derived collagen. That’s why the products that contain this magical sea veggie ingredient can guarantee that within minutes of using their products you’ll see your skin plump before your eyes. This product is good for body, hair, skin, and nails.
Seaweed collagen, also known as ogo seaweed or even marine collagen (though marine collagen also refers to collagen derived from fish so be careful), can also be eaten and provide the body the same benefits inside and out. In fact, one site reported that we lose half of our collagen by the time we enter mid-life, thus ingesting this seaweed is a good way to compensate for that loss. It’s hard to know how much that will help, but we all know the benefits of eating seaweed and other sea vegetables.
In conclusion, Grace & Stella reported their product does not contain animal-derived collagen, thus my product is vegan! I am so happy for the animals, and that so many non-vegans were given the opportunity to see how wonderful cruelty-free beauty can be when FabFitFun included this in their winter 2017 box.
Also, if you’d like to try a seaweed powder that you can mix into your own cream for masks and such, this product is supposed to work well for plumping the skin and even temporarily reducing the appearance of cellulite. I’m thinking of giving this a test run and will update the blog via a separate post when I’ve had a chance to review it and test the claims fully. According to my price checker app, Honey, this has a low price of $17 and a high price of $23 on Amazon. **** Some people in the reviews reported that they used it for eating, but always check with the supplier and possibly your doctor before supplementing/eating anything.
I was able to find Ogo Seaweed on Amazon ($17.95 per ounce) which is meant for eating and is apparently very common in Poké bowls. It ends up being just under $300 per pound, but since it’s dehydrated, I’m thinking you can grind it up and use just a small amount of powder as a supplement instead of eating. Again, I’m going to try this out and let you know!
Most importantly, please spread the word that there are vegan collagen alternatives so that people can have healthy, clean, and cruelty-free options. If you know those folk who think bone broth is the way to go, inform them as well since they will absorb more collagen by eating some ogo seaweed and actually SEE the results they desire.
Go sea vegetables and the cool companies that use them!
References
100% Pure @https://uk.100percentpure.com/blogs/feed/what-is-seaweed-collagen
Veganlogy @http://veganlogy.com/2013/05/11/ogo-seaweed-natural-vegan-collagen/
Metro @http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/02/recipe-no-bone-broth-with-wild-seaweed-and-why-its-better-for-you-than-animal-bone-broth-5785776/
2 comments
Do you have a brand of ingestible seaweed collagen that you can take as a supplement?
Maria,
I did some research and see that OZ Naturals used to make a vegan seaweed collagen supplement, and it even had amazing reviews. Amazon no longer sells it nor does the OZ Naturals site itself. I’ll keep looking. I’ve got an info request in with a couple of companies to see if their collagen supplements are vegan. I’ll keep you personally posted on that.
In the meantime, I found these two possible alternatives depending on your intended use and updated the post with this blurb:
Also, if you’d like to try a seaweed powder that you can mix into your own cream for masks and such, this product is supposed to work well for plumping the skin and even temporarily reducing the appearance of cellulite. I’m thinking of giving this a test run and will update the blog via a separate post when I’ve had a chance to review it and test the claims fully. According to my price checker app, Honey, this has a low price of $17 and a high price of $23 on Amazon. **** Some people in the reviews reported that they used it for eating, but always check with the supplier and possibly your doctor before supplementing/eating anything. I cannot know how much collagen would be in this either. I’ve been researching and a group out of California does describe nutrition facts but not collagen nor iodine content. You want to be cautious not to overdo your iodine intake.
I was also able to find dehydrated Ogo Seaweed on Amazon which is meant for eating and is apparently very common in Poke bowls. It ends up being just under $300 per pound, but since it’s dehydrated, I’m thinking you can grind it up (mill it somehow) and use just a small amount of the powder as a supplement instead of eating. Again, I’m going to try this out and let you know!