Collagen

What is collagen?

Collagen is a protein.

"Often, collagen is discussed in relation to the skin. It works with keratin to provide the skin with strength, flexibility, and resilience. As people age, however, collagen degradation occurs, leading to wrinkles. As such, it is an important substance for those looking for ways to fight the visible effects of aging on the skin. Some skincare professionals actually advise people on ways to stimulate the production of collagen in skins cells." (Source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-collagen.htm)

People who want to look younger, prettier, handsomer, reduce wrinkles, reverse signs of aging, can use this piece of information.

That's why the market for beauty products, including collagen, is booming.

Do you drink Vitagen? There's a new version of Vitagen, which has collagen added to it.(Supposedly). It's more expensive than your normal Vitagen, and a local TV actress is the spokeswoman for it. Here's more info if you are interested.

Two other beauty brands also sell collagen products.

FANCL Tense Up EX, sold by FANCL, is purported to contain collagen.

Imedeen Prime Renewal is being sold by IMEDEEN. Also said to contain collagen.

How come I know so much? Personally I don't take these stuff. But friends of mine have been talking about them, and using them. And yes, these stuff are not cheap.

Of the few friends who are trying these products, two of them are using the Fancl and Imedeen products, a 3rd friend is using the collagen matrix sold in Nature Farm.

My friends swear that this stuff works. Their skin is better, pimples heal faster, their wrinkles are lesser, so on and so forth.

Let's work out some costs here.

Imedeen costs USD260 for 1.5 months supply. So that's about USD3 a day. (From Amazon.com website)

Fancl costs about SGD6-7 for a bottle (if you buy in bulk, otherwise it's about SGD8 a bottle), dosage is one bottle a day.

Expensive! To me at least. I come from a middle income family. My friends are not that well off either, though they hold full time jobs.

I myself don't believe that it works. I think they are behaving just like Dissonance Theory predicts.

What are the dissonant cognitions at work here?

"I'm buying and eating collagen" and "Collagen is expensive"

There's a few ways to resolve the dissonance.

One way is to change one of the cognitions directly. So either they stop taking collagen, or they convince themselves "Collagen is so cheap! Less than 10 bucks a day!".

Another way is to add cognitions that support the behaviour. So they tell themselves that taking collagen DOES make them prettier, and their skin smoother. So theirbehaviour is now justified.

So my friends are choosing the 2nd method to reduce dissonance. They are telling each other that taking collagen DOES make their skin better. And they are trying to convince me to start taking too.

Having taken Psychology, (especially STATS with John!) we know that causality can't be proven so easily.

So many confounding variables could have caused the change, or PERCEIVED improvement in skin condition. Stress, sleep, environment (working in an aircon environment vs non aircon), food intake, exercise, close relationships and many others.

Of course the websites claim that scientific research was done and the results prove that their products REALLY work. But we all know that many many things can go wrong.

ESPECIALLY if the research was funded by the company that made the product!

So I think my friends need to take Psychology. :p

This example also shows how easily people are persuaded to part with their hard-earned money. People who want to look good and young, have a FEAR of aging. So anything that is aimed at reducing this fear ("drive reduction theory") would convince people to act to prevent or slow down this aging.

If a person doesn't care about his or her looks, their susceptilibity to such messages would be lower.

If these people are inoculated against these messages (as suggested in inoculation theory), they will be less susceptible. One good example is moi!. After having gone through 3 gruelling stats modules, I'm now better inoculated against these 'scientific' research and claims!