Take a quick stroll down your local pharmacy’s supplement aisle, and you’ll likely find yourself in a sea of products that claim to do everything from boosting muscle mass and strengthening the gut to regulating hormones and making you an overall healthier individual.
Of course, there’s no such thing as a magic pill that can make all of your health and wellness dreams come true in a blink of an eye, but if you’re on a mission to improve your skin, hair, and nails, there’s no denying that biotin and collagen are both pretty magical.
What are these two increasingly popular nutrients, and how do they differ? Let’s find out.
What Is Biotin?
Simply put, biotin (aka vitamin B7 or vitamin H) is one of eight B-complex vitamins — a family of water-soluble vitamins crucial to your overall well-being. They help with both physical and emotional health. Feeling exhausted despite catching plenty of zzzs? You may just be lacking in the vitamin B department.
Fortunately, it’s quite rare to be deficient in biotin. In fact, your body only requires a small amount each day, and it’s readily available in a wide variety of healthy whole foods, such as:
- Avocados
- Bananas
- Legumes
- Nuts
- Seeds
That said, if your diet lacks this essential B vitamin, a deficiency is sure to follow suit. And when this happens, it can manifest as dry, scaly skin, rashes, hair breakage, weak or brittle nails, and a number of other not-so-favorable issues.
The good news is that taking a daily biotin supplement can usually do the trick to help keep a deficiency at bay while supporting healthy skin, hair, and nails.
What Are the Benefits of Biotin?
Biotin is known to offer some of the best advantages for the body’s hair, skin, nails, and overall health. Although there are many, here are a few of the top benefits that you may experience when taking biotin:
Hair Growth
One of the greatest benefits of biotin is that it stimulates the production of keratin in hair and can speed up the rate of follicle growth. With a regular intake of this essential B vitamin, you can support the health of your gorgeous locks while adding a lustrous shine to them. Biotin also helps prevent hair concerns like dandruff, scalp itchiness, and breakage.
Skin Health
Biotin is crucial for energy production and helps the formation of fatty acids that nourish the skin. When people have a B7 deficiency, one of the telltale signs is dry, scaly rashes. Biotin also plays a pretty substantial role in the process of metabolizing fat — which is essential for maintaining healthy and happy skin.
Nail Strength
You won’t be able to make your nails grow faster if you take biotin, but many studies show that the coveted vitamin can strengthen weak or brittle nails, making them less likely to break, chip, peel, or split. In other words, if you’re on a mission to boost the health of your nails — take biotin.
Many different supplements contain biotin, but we recommend Daily Love Multivitamin + XOmegas. Why? Because this multivitamin doesn’t only contain biotin to help support your nails but calcium, iron, and zinc, too.
What Is Collagen?
The other supplement that gets beauty gurus excited is collagen.
A structural protein found rich in connective tissues like the skin, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and joints, collagen is the most abundant protein that makes up the human body. It’s also present in animals such as cows, chickens, fish, and even eggshell membranes, which is why it can be derived and made into supplements.
Unlike its counterpart (ahem, biotin) collagen is insoluble in water and needs to be broken down so your body can absorb it. This is why collagen powder is so popular. The amino acids in collagen peptides — or “hydrolyzed” collagen — have been broken down, making them easy to digest.
What Are the Benefits of Collagen?
Collagen provides a myriad of incredible benefits. The fibrous protein may support:
Muscle Growth
As you get older, you may notice you’re not able to build muscle as easily as you once could in your younger years. You may even begin to lose muscle mass.
While many culprits can potentially be behind this common problem, part of the reason could be because up to 10 percent of your muscles are made up of collagen. And since collagen production tends to slow down as we age, it’s not surprising that older individuals often struggle to obtain new gains.
Many experts agree that a good quality collagen supplement may help combat the symptoms of aging and boost muscle growth. Not sure where to find one? Check out Call Me Collagen — a grass-fed collagen peptide powder that is unflavored, sugar-free, carb-free, and packaged in 30 individual, 100% recyclable tear sticks that are convenient to take on the go.
Healthy Skin
Want glowing, baby bottom smooth skin? Collagen can help as it seems to support a graceful aging process by reducing the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, and dryness while improving skin elasticity. What’s more, consuming collagen not only prompts the body to produce more of its own but also promotes the production of other skin-supportive proteins like elastin and fibrillin.
Scalp Health
Just like the presence of collagen supports the health of your skin, this essential protein is beneficial for the scalp, too. Collagen helps the skin on your scalp replenish skin cells to maintain skin elasticity, which ultimately prepares the skin for strong, healthy hair roots.
To give your scalp a boost, consider taking a hydrolyzed collagen supplement— like Call Me Collagen. This unflavored, grass-fed collagen peptide powder is clinically proven to give you thicker hair with less breakage.* Perfect for those dreaming of long, gorgeous tresses!
Conclusion
In short, biotin is an essential B vitamin paramount for metabolism, whereas collagen is a fibrous protein that forms the structural framework for bones, cartilage, skin, tendons, and other connective tissues.
Another difference between the two is that biotin helps with the functioning of hair, skin, and nails, while collagen is physically present in hair, skin, and nails. Additionally, collagen is a nutrient that the body can naturally make. On the other hand, biotin is not naturally produced in the body but is found in many food sources, like fish, eggs, and avocados.
Here at Love Wellness, we create natural solutions for natural problems. Why? Because we experience them too! Whether you’re looking for a great collagen powder to support healthy skin or biotin to grow long, lustrous hair, you can always count on us to have just what you need to look and feel your best.
Sources:
Fingernails: Do's and don'ts for healthy nails | Mayo Clinic
Biotin – Vitamin B7 | The Nutrition Source | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Collagen | The Nutrition Source | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Structure and Function of the Skeletal Muscle Extracellular Matrix | PMC