They booked me in for a knee replacement — then my sister showed me her scar, and why the second knee always follows …and the two words on the tub that finally changed everything
I’d already watched my sister go through a knee replacement. One knee done — a scar from the top to the bottom, months in a frame — and within two years the other knee started grinding the exact same way. “We’ll do that one too,” the surgeon told me, like it was just my turn next.
And I’d done everything they tell you. The walking. The weight. A collagen every single morning for two years. My skin looked better than it had in a decade. My nails grew like weeds. My knees didn’t care.
I wasn’t being lazy and I wasn’t doing it wrong. I was feeding the wrong part of my body and calling it progress — because nobody told me there was more than one kind of collagen.
£280 of collagen, and not a single scoop ever reached a joint. If you’ve been told you’ll need a replacement, or you’re watching one knee while the other starts to go — here’s what I’d tell myself if I could go back two years.
I used to be the one who opened every jar in the house.
Now I hand them to my husband without asking. My fingers don’t properly wake up until half eleven. Typing aches by Thursday. I stopped knitting — the thing that kept me sane through every winter — because my hands wouldn’t let me finish a row.
I took collagen for eighteen months. Good brands, the expensive ones with the clean labels. My hair grew thicker than it had been in years. My hands kept getting worse.
I wasn’t choosing wrong. I was choosing something that was never designed for hands in the first place — because nobody told me there was more than one kind.
£280 of collagen, and not a single scoop was the kind my joints are actually made of.
The weight came off. That part worked.
What nobody warned me about was everything else. My knees ache more now than before I started, not less. My grip is weaker. Getting out of a low chair makes a sound it never made six months ago.
I started collagen because everyone on the forums said to — protect your joints, support your body through the change. Twelve weeks of the most expensive powder I could find, and my skin looked phenomenal. My joints felt exactly the same.
Turns out the collagen I was taking was built for skin. Not one milligram of it was the kind a joint is actually made of — and nobody, not the brand, not the forum, told me there was a difference.
£280 of collagen, and I’d been feeding my face instead of my knees.
The thing that cracked it wasn’t a doctor or a podcast or a sponsored Instagram post.
It was a one-star review I read at quarter past five in the morning, half-scared I was already next for the saw.
A woman — sounded about my age — wrote: “Three months and nothing. Then I found out there’s a completely different collagen for joints and I’ve been taking the skin one this whole time. Nobody tells you this.”
I sat up in bed and searched it. And then I felt like an idiot, and then I felt angry, because she was right. Nobody tells you this.
Here’s everything I learnt in the weeks that followed, so you don’t have to piece it together at 5am like I did.
The two words that change everything
I used to check one thing on a collagen bag. The price. Turns out there are two words that split every bag on the shelf into two completely different products — and I’d never read either of them.
Beauty collagen or cartilage collagen
There are two collagens and they go to completely different places.
Beauty collagen (Type 1 & 3) goes to skin, hair and nails. It’s what nearly every bag on the shelf is made of, and it does that job beautifully. My nails have honestly never been stronger.
Cartilage collagen (Type II) is what a joint is actually built from. The cushion between the bones in your knees, your hips, your hands.
I’d been buying beauty collagen for my joints for two years. It was never going to reach them. Not because it’s bad — because it’s designed for somewhere else entirely.
Undenatured
Fine, I thought. I’ll just buy the cartilage kind then. That’s where I hit the second wall.
Most collagen has been smashed into tiny pieces at the factory so it dissolves nicely in your drink. The label calls that “hydrolysed.” A lot of it gets heated on the way through too, and heat does to collagen what it does to an egg. Once it’s cooked, it doesn’t uncook.
Smashed and cooked is fine for beauty collagen. For cartilage collagen, it’s the whole problem — because your body has to recognise it, and there’s nothing left to recognise.
The word you want is undenatured. Sometimes written UC-II. It just means nobody cooked it and nobody smashed it.
“Then why is the dose so tiny?”
This is the bit that made me feel daft. Cartilage collagen may support joints at just 40mg. That’s a pinch. Meanwhile I’d been buying the biggest tubs I could find because surely more is more.
But your body only has to see it. It doesn’t need filling up with it. Beauty collagen is building material, so you need a big scoop. Cartilage collagen is more like showing your body a photograph — it recognises it and may respond.
“Can I still put it in my coffee?”
Not boiling hot. I was annoyed about that too, briefly.
Then I decided it’s actually how you know it’s the real thing. If a powder could sit in scalding coffee and shrug, there’d be nothing delicate left in it to ruin. Mine goes in cold water first thing, or in my coffee once it’s cooled enough to actually drink. Took me a week to stop forgetting.
One more thing I did, which my husband thinks is unhinged. I stopped reading the five-star reviews and read only the one-stars. That’s where people tell you the truth about the taste, and about whether it did anything.
Vital Proteins
❌ beauty collagen — wrong type for joints
My first one, like everybody’s. Two months waiting for something, anything, to loosen up. Nothing did. It’s beauty collagen — Type 1 & 3, hydrolysed — so it was never going anywhere near a joint.
Then I went down a rabbit hole I wish I hadn’t, because this is the one with the lead and cadmium warnings. For something I’d be taking every single day, that was that.
Bottom line: lovely for skin. Wrong type for joints, and the warnings sealed it. (their own disclosure)
Garden of Life
❌ beauty collagen — wrong type for joints
I really wanted this one to work. Clean, no fake taste, nothing to complain about. But it’s another beauty collagen — Type 1 & 3. Same story as the first, minus the safety cloud. Two months, nothing in my hands and nothing in my knees.
The one-stars all say the same thing about it clumping in a cold drink, and they’re right, it does.
Bottom line: a genuinely nice skin collagen. Just not a joint one.
Obvi
⚠️ cartilage collagen in name only
This is the one that taught me to read further down the label. Five types of collagen, Type 2 somewhere in there. Sounds like the complete answer.
Having a few types isn’t the problem, plenty of good ones do that. The problem is what the cartilage collagen is doing in there. It’s the smashed kind, and there’s barely any of it. Just enough to get the name on the box.
Bottom line: a name on an ingredients list isn’t the same as enough of it.
Elavate
❌ menopause label, beauty formula
I had real hope for this one. They talk about the collagen collapse in menopause and it feels like someone actually understands. But there’s no cartilage collagen in it anywhere — no undenatured Type 2 — so the joint promise is resting entirely on beauty collagen. My hands were just as stiff at six in the morning.
Bottom line: a menopause angle on the front is marketing. It isn’t a formula.
The Collagen Co.
❌ beauty collagen — wrong type for joints
You’ve seen the ads, everyone has. Flavoured shakes, big glow story, very pretty. As a daily drink it’s the nicest thing on this page by a mile, I’ll give them that.
But there’s no cartilage collagen in it at all. Joints weren’t a side note here, they were never in the plan.
Bottom line: a lovely beauty shake. Not a joint formula.
Lumo Cartilage Collagen
✅ the one I reorder now
I nearly didn’t bother. After five rounds of “lovely for your skin, nothing anywhere else” I was done. But this was the first bag where both words were right — cartilage collagen, undenatured — so I gave it one more go.
- Type 2, undenatured. The cartilage kind — not cooked, not smashed, at the 40mg the studies used. This is the part that may support the cushion your joints depend on.
- Hyaluronic acid. This is what helps cartilage hold onto moisture — the reason getting out of a chair may start to go quiet again.
- Vitamin C. Your body can’t build collagen without it. It’s what helps make the rest usable.
My sister started it the day after her first surgery. Nobody’s booked her second knee since — that’s her conversation with her surgeon, not a promise I can make you. But I know which tub is in her cupboard.
And yes, there’s beauty collagen in it too
I should be straight about that, having just spent five entries explaining why beauty collagen isn’t for joints. There’s bovine and marine in here as well, at a proper amount, not a sprinkle.
That was never my complaint though. My complaint was buying beauty collagen instead of the cartilage kind and being told it was the same thing. Here the cartilage collagen is doing its own job at its own proper amount, and the beauty collagen is a bonus on top. My nails get their turn — my knees just stopped being ignored.
Where it all comes from
I emailed and asked, because after the lead business I ask now.
- Type 2
- chicken, and it’s made cold on purpose so it stays whole
- Beef
- Grass-fed
- Marine
- Wild-caught, North Atlantic
What it costs, since I promised to be honest
I’d been buying two things at once. A big beauty-collagen tub and a separate joint supplement that did nothing. This is one scoop instead of two purchases, which is genuinely how my monthly spend went down rather than up.
My old beauty-collagen tub alone was £1.30/day. 60-day mobility guarantee — if you can’t walk, crouch, or jump better, your money back.
Most women just set it to reorder so they never run out. One scoop on repeat — no gap, no re-ordering, no running out halfway through the month.
And how it tastes
This mattered more than I expected. Two of the bags above I quietly stopped taking because I dreaded them, and a supplement sitting in the cupboard doesn’t work on anybody.
This one’s unflavoured and goes like a light creamer. No chalk, no clumps, no fishy note. First one I haven’t had to talk myself into.
One honest thing. It isn’t overnight. I noticed something around two weeks and it kept building from there. Individual results vary — but if you’re going to judge it on day four, don’t start.
Bottom line: the only one on my list where both words were right. It’s the one I reorder.
Check the Lumo Cartilage Collagen formula →cartilage collagen · hyaluronic acid · vitamin Cit sold out on Amazon — their own site is the only place it’s in stock now
You didn’t choose wrong
You’re not lazy. You didn’t skip a step. You were aiming at the right goal with the wrong product — while the clock quietly ran on your other knee.
Every scoop you took was working. Just not where you needed it.
You’re the woman who did everything right and still woke up stiff. Who stopped suggesting the walk. Who quietly handed the jar to someone else.
A month from now, you could be planning that walk instead of dreading the stairs. Reaching for the jar without thinking about it. Sleeping through without your hip deciding it’s morning at five.
It starts with feeding the right collagen. The cartilage kind.
If your joints are why you’re here
The whole thing, in 6 ticks:
- Check the type. Beauty collagen (Type 1 & 3) is for skin. Joints need cartilage collagen (Type 2).
- Check for “undenatured.” Not hydrolysed, not heated. Whole.
- Don’t chase the big tub. The cartilage kind may support joints at 40mg. A giant scoop is usually a lot of the wrong kind.
- Look for what’s missing. Hyaluronic acid and vitamin C. Most bags have neither.
- Read the one-star reviews. That’s where the taste and the “did nothing” live.
- Give it two weeks. Judge it on the stairs, not on day four.
If your bag says Type 1 & 3, it’s beauty collagen — and your joints never got the memo.
Food supplements should not be used as a substitute for a varied, balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. Do not exceed the recommended daily intake. Keep out of reach of children. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication or have a medical condition, consult your doctor before use. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Individual results vary; testimonials are real but not typical.
Comments (287)
My husband had his done last year, 6 weeks in a frame, awful. I’m not waiting for mine to get that bad. Turned my tub over — Type 1 & 3. Of course.
That’s exactly it Sheila. Turning the tub over is the one thing nobody tells you. x
Three weeks in and I got out of the car this morning without that little groan. Small thing, made me smile.
The “undenatured” bit got me. Been buying hydrolysed for years because it dissolves better. Checked mine. Hydrolysed.
On the list for a replacement myself. Not cancelling anything, but I’d rather know I tried the right type first. Week 5, stairs are easier.
I take a Type 2 from the health shop and it does help — but mine has no hyaluronic acid. Switching.
Asked my pharmacist about the chicken Type 2 thing. She said yes, that’s really where it comes from. Learn something at 62.
So sceptical, wasted money on so many. Worked out I was spending more on a collagen + a joint pill separately. This was less for both.
Week 6, back out in the garden. Didn’t think I’d type that.
57, felt like the only one whose collagen “wasn’t working.” Mine’s hips more than knees. Thank you for writing this out so plainly.