6 Amazing Collagen Benefits for Hair
Collagen is one of the core building blocks for many of our bodies’ tissues, including skin, nails, and hair. In a nutshell, collagen is a protein (in fact, the most abundant protein in your body!) that excels at forming flexible shapes.
It’s perfect for keeping your skin taut yet stretchy, and it can also be used to form the durable keratin that comprises fingernails and toenails. But collagen also plays a key role in supporting and repairing hair cells and follicles. In fact, collagen provides tons of benefits for our hair – let’s take a look at six of these amazing benefits in detail. By the end, you’ll know exactly why you should prioritize collagen in your hair care products and supplements.
Build New Hair Strands
For starters, collagen helps to give your hair follicles and cells the amino acids they need to build new hair cells.
Here’s how it works:
- Your body has to build a keratin molecule: a vital protein necessary for constructing hair cells, skin cells, and fingernail cells.
- Many of the necessary amino acids to build keratin are found in collagen molecules.
- So, when you consume collagen or when your hair cells receive collagen directly, they can break down the collagen into amino acid building blocks, especially proline, which is the most important component for keratin molecules.
- Then they can use those amino acids to construct keratin.
In this way, collagen is absolutely necessary, so your body can build hair in the first place. However, it’s also important to note that your body can get the proteins to build keratin from other sources. Because of this, other elements of your diet or wellness routine will also affect how easily or readily your body constructs new hair cells and strands.
Support Stronger Hair Strands
Speaking of hair strands, collagen is also important so your body can repair any damaged strands.
This is similar to the above benefit in that collagen gives your body the building blocks it needs to create new hair cells when necessary. Say that a few hair strands are damaged after using a new hair care product or accidentally getting your hair tangled on a curling iron. Your body needs to repair the damaged strands so they don’t continue to split down to the root.
In that case, collagen products and supplements may give your body extra protein to support new hair cells without having to replace hair strands entirely. In this way, collagen may help to reduce your hair from thinning due to damage.
Reduce Hair Follicle Damage
If your hair follicles are in danger of degrading or being damaged over time, collagen may also provide benefits. That’s because collagen, among its other effects, works as an antioxidant.
Antioxidants like collagen are counterpart molecules to “free radicals.” Free radicals are unstable molecules that zip around and damage other cells or molecules in your body. Free radicals gradually accumulate in the body because of air pollutants, dietary choices, environmental stressors, and other factors. You could see several negative side effects if you have too many free radicals, including damaged hair follicles (the tiny nubs from which hair strands grow and are nourished).
Antioxidants counteract free radicals by donating electrons and stabilizing those molecules. Many studies have indicated that antioxidants like collagen can fight off up to four different free radicals. In this way, collagen may help your hair look and feel its best over a long time by preventing environmental degradation.
On top of that, collagen’s antioxidant effects can protect your hair strands and follicles from being torn or damaged from daily activities, other hair care products, scalp dryness, and so on.
Reduce Hair Thinning
Earlier, we touched on the potential of collagen to help with hair thinning. This is true across the board, not just for hair thinning when it comes to minor damage or accidents.
As we get older, our bodies naturally produce less collagen (alongside other key proteins). Because of this, our bodies become less capable of producing new hair strands, which can contribute to hair thinning and hair loss (especially in men).
Therefore, giving your body extra collagen to work with could do wonders to support your hair health and thickness over time. Similar to how collagen serums and supplements can promote healthy skin and hair.
This isn’t to say that collagen alone can entirely turn back the hair clock. Even exercising regularly, taking melatonin supplements, and watching your diet carefully can’t prevent aging entirely! But it may help you enjoy thicker, fuller hair for longer than you might otherwise.
Reduce Gray Hair
Similarly, collagen can reduce the chances of gray hair formation, especially when used over long periods of time.
Hair turns gray when our hair follicles don’t contain as much melanin as they did before. Our follicles gradually contain fewer pigment cells, so they lose their color. However, giving your hair follicles plenty of collagen may help support their strength and youthful vigor for longer.
However, keep in mind that gray hair (and hair color in general) is highly influenced by genetics. While collagen may help to a limited extent, it can’t replace hair dye or any genetic factors that might ultimately determine when you start to see the first gray hair poking out of your scalp.
Support Scalp Health
Last but not least, collagen can also help support your scalp’s health over time. Your scalp's skin is highly susceptible to dryness, which is a big problem because it has to remain relatively oily to lubricate hair on your head and keep those strands healthy and safe.
If your scalp becomes dry, you could experience itchiness, dandruff, and other minor side effects. Due to its effects on skin cell health, Collagen may contribute to a healthy scalp and ensure that your scalp remains moisturized.
Additionally, collagen can help your scalp skin cells replicate healthily or repair themselves after daily wear and tear. With the right collagen supplement, you may be less susceptible to dandruff, and your scalp may feel more comfortable and less itchy, even in dry environments.
Summary
Ultimately, our hair (and skin and nails) wouldn’t be possible without the amazing benefits of collagen, nor would it remain healthy and lustrous for years on end. Collagen hair care products or supplements are vital in a holistic wellness routine, especially if you want to turn back the clock on aging.
That’s also why Hope Health offers a wide range of organic, healthy supplements, like our Organic Greens + Supplement. It’s packed with 100 percent natural ingredients like parsley, spinach, broccoli, and more, and it’s ideal for boosting gut health and sustaining foundational wellness: just like collagen. Our Hydrate face moisturizer is also packed with collagen-boosting peptides so that you can enjoy better skin health.
Check out this supplement and our other healthy offerings at our online store today!
Sources:
The structure of people's hair | NCBI
Collagen | The Nutrition Source | Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health