Originally Posted by Wolfsheadish:
“Surely no collagen can be vegan?”
Don't call me Shirley!
Congratulations for picking that up...strictly speaking "collagen" is produced only by animals cells...so collagen can't be vegan...or shouldn't be classed as vegan...
normally
I guess you can get collagen from recombinant systems (animal genes in a potentially "vegan" expression system (yeast or bacterial cell culture))....would that be vegan?...perhaps philosophically not...I don't know.
The use of the word "collagen" in the cosmetic industry can be very misleading, the product name may have "collagen" in it but the product may not have any proper "collagen"....sort of like "Meat Free Chicken" you can get in shops....can chicken be vegetarian?...yes, if it's meat free chicken, apparently
Products derived from extensins, a group of plant proteins, are variously marketed with terms such as "plant collagen", "phyto collagen" or "botanically derived collagen"...so strictly not really "collagen" but the product my have the word "collagen" in the name...so the product could be vegan, depending on what the other ingredients are and the production methods.
There are also products with "collagen" from (natural) yeast extract (not genetically modified), SBC uses this "pseudo collagen" in their "Collagen Body Butter":
http://www.sbcgels.co.uk/collagen-body-butter
The word "collagen" is in the name of the product, "Collagen Body Butter", but the "collagen" is derived from yeast....so not proper "collagen"...but as before, the product could be vegan, depending on other factors.
More confusingly there's a review of SBC "Collagen Gel" on Amazon which suggests that in the product the reviewer bought was formulated with yeast extract "pseudo collagen":
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-revi...owViewpoints=0
http://www.amazon.co.uk/SBC-Collagen...dp/B002HRMU7A/
So a product from the same manufacturer (SBC), with the same product name (Collagen Gel), but with two formulations, one perhaps vegan (with natural yeast extract), the other one not vegan (with marine collagen derived from fish)
