Collagen peptides are the broken-down form of collagen, a protein that is the fundamental building block for everything from from skin to tendons to cartilage. Collagen is found in several beauty products as well as many joint supplements.
Collagen peptide supplements are useful for improving skin health and reducing joint pain. Collagen peptides come from processed animal bones, tendons, or fish scales, and are hydrolyzed (broken down) in a way that makes them easier for your body to absorb.
They are also a good source of protein and BCAAs, and thanks to their broad range of benefits, they are becoming an increasingly popular supplement.
Want the best source of collagen peptides for improved skin and joint health? Check out our rankings of the best collagen peptide supplements on the market.
Our advisory panel and our research team rank the best health products and supplements based on performance, label accuracy, and the efficacy of the ingredients in the products.
- Best overall: Live Conscious Collagen Peptides
- Best for joints: Essential Elements Collagen Peptides
- Best for men: Transparent Labs Collagen Hydrolysate
- Team Keto Collagen Peptides
- Best for skin: Ancient Nutrition Multi Collagen
Research
Rankings
Last updated: October 29, 2022
Collagen peptides considered: 18
Hours of research: 42
Experts reviewed: 7
Scientific papers referenced: 10
| IMAGE | PRODUCT | |
|---|---|---|
Best Overall  | 1. Live Conscious Collagen Peptides
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Best for joints  | 2. Essential Elements Collagen Peptides
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Best for men  | 3. Transparent Labs Collagen Hydrolysate
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 | 4. Team Keto Collagen Peptides
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Best for skin  | 5. Ancient Nutrition Multi Collagen
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 | 6. Zhou Collagen Peptides
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 | 7. Ancient Nutrition Bone Broth Collagen
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 | 8. Sports Research Collagen Peptides
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 | 9. Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides
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 | 10. Zammex Hydrolyzed Collagen Peptides
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1. Live Conscious Collagen Peptides
For those looking to get the highest-quality collagen peptides out there, Live Conscious doesn’t mess around.
Live Conscious collagen peptides includes hydrolyzed type I & III collagen of the highest quality. It comes from Grade-A bovine, which is grass-fed, pasture-raised, and certified hormone-free.
Hydrolyzed collagen is better absorbed by your body because it is broken down into short chains, known as peptides.
There are no fillers, additives, pesticides, gluten, soy, or shellfish found in this product.
3rd-party tested and made in the USA inside a GMP certified facility. Each serving is packed with 11g of collagen peptides.
One of the better daily habits you can have — across all supplements.
Our #1 collagen peptide winner of 2023.
2. Essential Elements Collagen Peptides
Essential Elements provides hydrolyzed type I & III collagen peptides that are sourced from Grade A bovine that is grass-fed and pasture raised.
To further enhance the benefits, eight essential amino acids are added – all which are proven to nourish cartilage and repair aging ligaments, tendons and joints.
To ensure purity, this formula is 3rd party lab tested to ensure it contains no dairy, gluten, soy, or additives and fillers, making it an excellent top-three option.
3. Transparent Labs Collagen Hydrolysate
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Taking collagen can improve the appearance of skin and muscle recovery, but it matters how much you’re getting.
That is why we like Collagen Hydrolysate by Transparent Labs. It supplies 11 grams of collagen per scoop, yielding 10 grams of quality protein content. That type of quantity can’t be matched by a handful of pills.
Collagen Hydrolysate is also a breeze to take. Its flavored with natural cocoa and tastes delicious in both water and milk-type drinks.
Take Collagen Hydrolysate consistently once a day to reap all the benefits, like more youthful appearing skin, stronger joints, and faster healing muscles.
4. Team Keto Collagen Peptides
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Team Keto focus on collagen peptides for people on the ketogenic diet by flavoring this product 100% naturally with no added carbs. It’s got a wide variety of flavors available, making it a great way to boost the amino acid content of your keto diet.
5. Ancient Nutrition Multi Collagen
Ancient Nutrition makes a capsule-based collagen supplement that’s perfect for people who can’t stand the taste of standard hydrolyzed collagen peptides.
The multi collagen blend also includes a wider range of collagen types than you’d encounter in a normal collagen supplement, thanks to the broad range of sources.
6. Zhou Collagen Peptides
Zhou Collagen Peptides goes out of its way to ensure purity and quality by using third-party lab testing.
It’s definitely one of the best unflavored, powder-based collagen peptide supplement that comes from a single source.
7. Ancient Nutrition Bone Broth Collagen
Ancient Nutrition is the solution you’re looking for if you want the ultra-pure and complete protein content of bone broth as well as the skin and joint benefits of collagen peptides.
Its bone broth is derived from chicken, beef, and turkey bones, while the collagen is derived from eggshell membranes, giving it the full range of collagen types.
8. Sports Research Collagen Peptides
Sports Research uses grass-fed and pasture-raised cows as the source of its collagen, giving it both type I and III collagen. It’s a simple but effective single-ingredient collagen peptide.
9. Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides
Vital Proteins derives their collagen peptides from the hides of grass-fed and pasture-raised cows, and provides it in an unadulterated and unflavored powder form. It’s a solid source of collagen peptides, though the taste is fairly bland.
10. Zammex Hydrolyzed Collagen Peptides
Derived from grass-fed and pasture raised cows, Zammex is solid in terms of purity, if a bit unremarkable from a flavor perspective.
Category winners
Best collagen peptides overall: Live Conscious Collagen Peptides
Whether you are looking for healthier skin, better muscle recovery, or improved joint health, Live Conscious Collagen Peptides is a great collagen peptide supplement to cover all of these bases. It has bovine collagen from grass-fed cows, and moreover, this collagen comes in a specially hydrolyzed form that’s easily absorbed.
Best collagen peptides for men: Transparent Labs Collagen Hydrolysate
For workout recovery, muscle strength, or joint pain, men can look to Transparent Labs with confidence. Its ultra-clean, ultra-pure collagen peptides have an impressively high protein content, helping to sustain muscle strength, growth, and recovery.
Best collagen peptides for skin: Ancient Nutrition Multi Collagen
Collagen peptides aren’t just for muscle strength. Your skin uses collagen to retain elasticity and softness: for this purpose, we recommend Ancient Nutrition Multi Collagen, thanks to its unusually wide variety of collagen sources which help support better absorption and bioavailability.
Best collagen peptides for joints: Essential Elements Collagen Peptides
Essential Elements provides types I and III collagen from grass-fed cows that’s independently tested for purity. Whether you’re striving to keep your joints strong, or trying to tamp down on joint inflammation, it’s a great pick.
Best collagen peptides for gut health: Live Conscious Collagen Peptides
Collagen peptides help with gut health by providing concentrated doses of amino acids—that’s why we recommend Live Conscious Collagen Peptides for gut health, with its highly bioavailable hydrolyzed form of collagen peptides, derived from pasture-raised and grass-fed cows.
Best collagen peptides for weight loss: Transparent Labs Collagen Hydrolysate
For weight loss, we recommend keeping things pure, simple, and high in protein. Transparent Labs shines on all three fronts, making it our go-to choice for weight loss. Use it on its own, or mix it into a meal replacement shake for low-calorie, low-carb protein.
Who should buy collagen peptides?
A good collagen peptide supplement can bolster the integrity of your body’s connective tissue, meaning it’s well-suited for a few specific applications:
People who want healthier skin. Skin is over 90% collagen, and declines in the amount and structural integrity of this structure are one of the core causes of skin aging (1).
People who want healthier joints. Collagen also a key building block for the connective tissue that makes up joints, and research has studied its use in diseases that affect connective tissue, like rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and joint injuries in sport (2).
Research supports the idea that collagen peptides can reduce pain from all of these conditions, and as a result you’ll find collagen peptides in many popular joint supplements.
People on the keto diet who want a carb-free source of amino acids. By being a highly concentrated source of protein with nothing the way of carbs and sugar, collagen peptides are a popular form of low-carb protein powder, and thanks to this fact they find heavy use among people on the keto diet.
Since it’s so simple, so safe, and so easy to use, collagen peptides make a great addition to your routine, whether you’re looking for excellent macronutrient content or joint, cartilage, and skin benefits.
How we ranked
Collagen peptides are a broad category because there are several potential sources of raw collagen, several types of collagen that can be contained within each source, and different methods of delivering the supplement (i.e. powder versus capsules), and potential strategies for adding flavor if desired. We used these properties to guide our rankings:
Strictly collagen-derived amino acid sources. We only focused on pure collagen peptide products; combined keto-friendly protein powders that used other sources of protein as well were eliminated.
No ancillary ingredients. We also cut multi-ingredient supplements with other ingredients like glucosamine or MSM. It’s not that these are bad products—many of them are great—but if you are looking for a multi-ingredient product for joint pain, you should check out our joint supplement rankings instead.
High-quality collagen sources. Once we’d narrowed the field to only products whose sole active ingredient was collagen peptides, we looked at the source of the collagen itself. Our ideal sources were grass-fed cows (hide or bone), eggshells, or fish scales.
Having a specified source (or multiple specified sources) was a strong point for collagen peptide supplements in our rankings: a clean and well-specified source means that the product is far more likely to be pure.
Packed with multiple types of collagen peptide molecules. Similarly, we preferred collagen peptide supplements that had multiple types of collagen peptides, as opposed to just one (or no specific details on the types of peptides included).
Effective delivery mechanism. When it came to a method of delivery, our research team tended to prefer powder-form versus capsule-based collagen peptide supplements.
That’s because powder form supplements offered far more versatility, both in terms of dosage and in terms of usage. If you are taking several other supplements as a part of your health routine, the last thing you want is more pills.
We did include a few of the purest and best-designed capsule-based collagen peptide supplements for people who prefer capsules, but the top places in our rankings were all taken by powder-form collagen peptides.
Simple, clean, all-natural flavoring. Collagen by itself is not the tastiest thing around—it doesn’t taste bad, per se, just very bland (not unlike unflavored Jello).
We rewarded products that used simple and clean flavoring strategies to improve the taste of collagen without upping the carbohydrate content with sugar or relying on synthetic flavoring additives.
This meant using compounds like natural cocoa powder or stevia for natural calorie-free flavoring.
After weighing all of these factors, we had our final rankings of the best collagen peptides on the market.
FAQ
Q: What is the difference between hydrolyzed collagen, collagen peptides, and collagen protein?
A: Inside your body, collagen is made up of linked amino acids (called peptides) that are chained together to form long, fibrous, and strong strands of collagen.
Unfortunately, your body doesn’t absorb these long-chain collagen molecules very well—they need to be broken down first. Supplement manufacturers do so via a process called hydrolysis. By breaking down collagen into hydrolyzed collagen, it can be more easily absorbed by your body.
Since amino acids are also proteins, you will often see both collagen peptides and hydrolyzed collagen referred to as collagen protein.
Q: Are collagen peptides good for aging?
A: Collagen peptides target two specific problems that are caused by aging: loss of skin elasticity and joint pain caused by arthritis.
There’s a good scientific research that supports using a collagen peptide supplement to increase skin hydration and boost collagen synthesis in your skin (3).
Because collagen is the primary structural component of your joint cartilage, collagen peptides may also be useful if you have rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis.
Q: Can collagen peptides help you lose weight?
A: Collagen peptides can be a useful part of a weight loss program since they’re a great source of protein that does not provide any additional carbohydrates.
While whey protein is generally the most popular protein for weight loss, collagen peptides are a favorite among people on paleo, low-carb, or ketogenic diets.
Q: What are collagen peptides made of?
A: Collagen peptides are made of broken-down components of connective tissue found in animal bones, cartilage, tendons, scales, and ligaments.
Collagen peptides are much more readily absorbed by your body than raw collagen, and mix up much better in water as well.
Q: How is a collagen peptide supplement made?
A: The best collagen peptide supplements are made by first extracting collagen from animal byproducts like bone, hide, tendons, eggshells, or fish scales via boiling.
Once raw collagen has been boiled out, it needs to be broken down into smaller pieces by a chemical process called hydrolysis to facilitate absorption in your body.
After collagen has been hydrolyzed, it becomes a mixture of collagen peptides (also known as collagen protein or hydrolyzed collagen) and is ready for use as a supplement.
Related articles
- Low carb protein powder
- Joint supplements
- MSM
- Glucosamine
- Bone broth protein
- Vegan collagen
- Bone broth
Recap
Collagen peptides show promise as a way to increase the elasticity and youth of your skin, and there is strong evidence supporting their use as a treatment for joint pain.
Whether you are an athlete with activity-related knee pain, are suffering from osteoarthritis, or even rheumatoid arthritis, there is reason to believe that the proteins in a collagen peptide supplement are a safe and effective way to substantially improve your symptoms.
For BodyNutrition‘s #1 collagen peptide recommendation, click here.
