You've spent money on collagen. Maybe more than once. You took it consistently — or tried to — and waited for something to change. And either nothing did, or the change was so subtle you couldn't be sure it wasn't just good lighting.

So when studies make headlines questioning whether collagen works at all, part of you probably thinks: I knew it.

But before you write it off entirely, the research is more interesting than the headlines suggest. And what it actually found changes the question you should be asking.

What 114 women aged 45–65 revealed about collagen

In one of the most cited collagen skin studies ever published, a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 114 women between the ages of 45 and 65 were given a specific daily dose of hydrolysed collagen peptides for 8 weeks. The results were clear and measurable: a 20% reduction in eye wrinkle volume. Improved skin elasticity. Better hydration. All confirmed by objective clinical measurement, not self-assessment.

This wasn't a marketing study. It was peer-reviewed, independently conducted, and published in a respected scientific journal. The women in it looked younger after 8 weeks. The data said so.

So why do so many people take collagen for months and feel nothing?

The answer is in the dose and what surrounds it!

The dose most products don't tell you about

The women in that study were taking 2,500mg of collagen per day.

Most collagen products on the market contain between 2,500mg and 5,000mg per serving. That puts them at the very bottom of what research considers a working dose — and many deliver even less than that, dressed up in attractive packaging and sold at a premium price. You're not getting a therapeutic dose. You're getting a marketing dose.

What EssenzaVital delivers instead

EssenzaVital® delivers 13,000mg of hydrolysed bovine collagen in a single 25ml serving. That is more than five times the dose used in the study that produced those measurable results — in one daily bottle, already dissolved, already bioavailable, ready to absorb from the first sip.

The dose question alone already separates most products from the research they claim to be based on. But there's a second issue, one that goes deeper, and that almost nobody in the industry talks about honestly.

The cellular problem that dose alone can't fix

Taking collagen peptides gives your body raw materials. But whether your cells can actually use those materials efficiently depends on something else entirely — something that declines with age just as collagen does, but that no standard powder or capsule addresses.

That something is NAD+. 

What NAD+ decline means for your collagen?

NAD+ decline is a hallmark of ageing — directly associated with reduced cellular health and function, resulting in reduced collagen production. In practical terms: if your cells don't have sufficient cellular energy, they can't make good use of the collagen you're giving them. You're supplying raw material to a factory with the power cut off.

By age 40, we've lost about 25% of our collagen. But NAD+ levels in skin decline by almost 60% between young adulthood and middle age — meaning the cellular machinery that processes collagen degrades faster than the collagen itself. This is the gap that most products, and most studies, don't address.

Think of it this way: collagen is the material. NAD+ is the workforce that knows what to do with it. Without the workforce, the materials sit there.

What changes when you approach it differently

The studies that showed the weakest results largely tested one thing: collagen in isolation, at doses too low to matter, in formats that required full digestion before anything reached the bloodstream.

EssenzaVital® was designed around a different question entirely: what does a formula need to contain for the body to actually use collagen properly, not just receive it?

A formula built around four things, not one

The answer has four parts. A therapeutic dose 13,000mg, not a token amount. Hydrolysed bovine collagen across Types I, III, V and X, covering skin, joints, hair, nails, bones and connective tissue — not just Type I the way most marine collagen products do. Hyaluronic Acid to support skin hydration and joint lubrication from within. And NAD+ — the piece that restores the cellular environment in which collagen actually works.

NAD+ enhances fibroblast function — the cells responsible for producing natural collagen and elastin — leading to stronger, more resilient skin structures that rebuild from within. It doesn't just add more collagen to the equation. It restores the conditions in which collagen works.

Designed specifically for women after 40

For the women's formula specifically, French maritime pine bark extract adds antioxidant protection, supports microcirculation, and plays a role in hormonal balance during menopause — making EssenzaVital® one of the very few collagen products genuinely designed around what happens to a woman's body after 40.

Combined with a liquid delivery format — which offers superior bioavailability compared to powders that require full digestion before anything reaches your bloodstream — you're working with a fundamentally different set of conditions than the ones tested in most published trials.

This isn't a loophole in the science. It's what the science was always pointing toward.

So should you bother with collagen?

The honest answer: it depends entirely on what you're taking, how much, and what it's paired with.

A low-dose powder taken inconsistently, in isolation, with no supporting ingredients? The research is sceptical — and fairly so. That's not a collagen problem. That's a product design problem.

A high-dose liquid collagen — 13,000mg, formulated with NAD+, Hyaluronic Acid, and targeted botanicals, taken daily as part of a consistent routine? That's a different product category entirely. Designed around a better understanding of how ageing works at the cellular level, not around what's easiest to manufacture and market.

The question was never whether collagen works

The 114 women in that study got results with 2,500mg. You'll be taking more than five times that dose, with everything the study was missing built in.

The question was never whether collagen works. The question was always whether you were taking enough of it — and whether your cells were in a condition to use it.

EssenzaVital® Liquid Collagen with NAD+ — for the ones who read past the headline.