Dr David Reiner
Nutraviva medical advisory board
Dr Reiner reviews Nutraviva's product claims, sourcing documentation and batch testing protocols, and advises on how the range is described to customers.
Skin, hair, nails and ageing well
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One Teaspoon a Day. Wild Caught, Not Farmed. Nothing Else in the Tub.
A 5g teaspoon of hydrolysed marine collagen peptides from wild-caught North Atlantic fish. Type I, the collagen most abundant in skin. One ingredient on the label, no flavour, no sweetener, and it dissolves clear in water, coffee or a smoothie.
It is almost never one thing. Somebody starts on marine collagen for their skin, and three months later mentions, almost in passing, that their nails have stopped splitting. Somebody starts for their nails and ends up talking about their hair.
That pattern is the most consistent thing in our reviews, and it is not what marine collagen gets advertised on. It gets advertised on one promise at a time, because one promise is easier to sell.
This is an ad, so weigh it accordingly. The reasons below are the ones people give in 81 published reviews, and the arithmetic at the end is arithmetic you can check yourself.
- 4.9 out of 5
- 81 verified reviews
- 94%
- gave it five stars, 76 of 81
- 92c
- a serve, 600g pouch
- One
- ingredient, 5g a serve
Reviewed by our advisory board
Our ingredients list is one item
Turn over whatever beauty collagen you have in the bathroom cabinet. Everything after the first entry is taking up room in the scoop that collagen is not. Ours is one line, and this is the whole of it.
Marine collagen peptides
5g per serve, one level teaspoon
Pure and unblended. No flavour, no sweetener, no filler, no anti-caking agent and no added vitamin C deciding your intake for you. Hydrolysed to a low molecular weight, so it dissolves in seconds in hot or cold liquid. Type I, the collagen most abundant in skin. Sourced from wild-caught fish from the North Atlantic, never farmed and never from Asian or freshwater fisheries. Halal certified, non-GMO, gluten free, keto and paleo friendly. Australian owned and operated.
Beauty from within, one ingredient
Marine Collagen
What people report
Ordered by how often it comes up in our reviews, not by how well it sells. These are reports from customers, not outcomes we promise.
Skin that looks and feels better. The most reported change, and rarely a dramatic one. What people describe is texture. Smoother, softer, less papery on the backs of the hands. Marine collagen is almost entirely Type I, the collagen most abundant in skin, which is why it is the one people reach for when skin is the goal.
Nails that stop splitting. Usually the first thing anyone notices, because you are looking at your hands all day. Most often reported somewhere between weeks four and eight.
Hair with more body. Generally the last of the three to come up, between weeks eight and twelve, and usually after the nails have already changed.
Keeping up with what your body is already losing. From the mid-twenties you make a little less of your own collagen each year. Hydrolysed peptides supply glycine, proline and hydroxyproline, the amino acids the body draws on to build its own, as part of a normal diet. This is the long game, and it is why people stay on it for years.
It tastes of nothing. Unflavoured and odourless, so it goes into the morning coffee without a second thought. This is the reason people are still taking it in month three, and it matters more than any other line here.
Easy on the stomach. Pre-hydrolysed peptides ask very little of your digestion, which is why customers who found bovine collagen heavy tend to get on with this one.
92 cents a serve. One ingredient, 5g of it, on the 600g pouch. A price that makes a daily habit affordable for years rather than months.
How long until you notice a difference?
This is not an overnight fix, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. It is a slow build. Knowing roughly when to expect what is what keeps people patient enough to stay with it.
0 to 30 days
It becomes part of the morning
A teaspoon into coffee or a cold drink, no grit, no taste. Nothing visible yet, and that is normal. This is the point most people give up. Keep going.
30 to 60 days
Nails are usually first
Customers report fewer splits and faster growth. Nails are simply the easiest thing to see, which is why they come up first.
60 to 90 days
This is where the mirror starts to agree
Skin hydration and texture are most often reported here. It is also the window the published collagen research uses.
90 days and beyond
You stop thinking about it
Most people stop noticing the collagen. It is simply part of the morning, and most report the baseline holds for as long as the daily teaspoon does. That is the whole proposition: not a transformation, a slope you keep up with.
Individual results vary. Always read the label and follow the directions for use. Talk to your healthcare professional before use, particularly if pregnant, nursing or taking medications.
The change you see first is in the mirror
Skin comes up more than any other single thing in our reviews. What people describe is rarely dramatic. It is texture. Smoother. Softer. Less papery on the backs of the hands. The word that comes up most is not “younger”, it is “better”.
Type I is the collagen most abundant in skin, and marine collagen is almost entirely Type I. That is the whole reason marine is the one people reach for when skin is the goal, rather than anything exotic about the fish.
Hydrolysed collagen supplies the amino acids the body uses to build its own, as part of a normal diet.
As you age, your own collagen production slows
Collagen is scaffolding. Skin, hair follicles and nail beds all depend on it, and from your mid-twenties the body replaces it a little more slowly than it loses it. That is a decades-long slope, not an event, and not a condition.
Which tells you what to expect. Published collagen research runs eight to twelve weeks of daily use before it measures anything. Anyone promising a fortnight is selling you a trial, not a result.
It also tells you what actually matters, and it is not the brand on the pouch. It is whether you are still taking it in a year. Everything after this is about making that likely.
Where your collagen comes from matters more than the word on the tub
Marine collagen is not one thing. A great deal of what is sold in Australia is farmed fish, or fish from waters nobody names on the label. If a tub will not tell you where the fish came from, that is usually the answer.
Ours is wild caught in the cold North Atlantic. Not farmed, not from Asian or freshwater fisheries, and we can tell you that because we chose the supplier after a long search and trial rather than buying whatever was cheapest that quarter.
It is halal certified and non-GMO, and the certificates are on file rather than implied by a badge.
If it tasted of fish you would never take it twice
Taste and mixability come up in our reviews more often than hair, and nearly as often as skin. On a beauty product that sounds like a footnote. It is the whole game.
A 5g teaspoon dissolves clear in hot or cold drinks in seconds, with no odour and no gelling. Reviewers use the word tasteless without being asked to, which is the most boring fact on this page and probably the most important one.
Unflavoured powder disappears into the coffee you were already making. No new routine, nothing to remember, nothing to tolerate.
There are hundreds of marine collagens. Why this one?
01
Type I, the collagen most abundant in skin
Collagen is not one substance. Type I is the kind concentrated in the dermis, the layer that gives skin its firmness, and marine collagen is almost entirely Type I. That, rather than anything exotic about the fish, is why marine is the one people reach for when skin is the goal.
02
Hydrolysed to a low molecular weight
This collagen is broken into small peptides before packing, so it dissolves in seconds and the body does less work to use it. Intact collagen molecules are too large to absorb efficiently. Hydrolysed peptides skip that bottleneck entirely.
03
Glycine, proline and hydroxyproline
Collagen peptides are unusually rich in three amino acids, and that combination is what makes collagen different from whey or a plant protein. They are what the body draws on to build its own collagen, as part of a normal diet.
04
One ingredient on the label
Marine collagen peptides, and nothing else. No flavour, no sweetener, no filler, no anti-caking agent. Most beauty collagens are a blend of eight to fifteen things, and the collagen is rarely the largest of them.
1
ingredient, 5g a serve
05
92 cents a serve on the 600g
A 600g pouch is 120 teaspoons, so one serve a day lasts about four months. At $109.95 that is 92 cents a day. Most flavoured beauty blends sit between $2 and $3 a serve for less collagen and a longer ingredients list.
120
serves in the 600g pouch
What you are actually comparing
Collagen is sold by the gram and priced by the package, and the two rarely line up. Our own figures are checkable on this site today.
Nutraviva Marine 600g
Typical flavoured beauty blend
Cost per serve
92c per serve
$2 to $3 per serve
Serve size
5g, one teaspoon
2.5g to 5g
Ingredients
One. Marine collagen peptides
8 to 15, usually flavoured
Added sweetener
None
Stevia, erythritol or sugar
Peptide form
Hydrolysed, low molecular weight
Often unstated
Sourcing
Wild caught, North Atlantic
Farmed or unspecified
Serves per pack
120 in the 600g
14 to 30
Compared against the typical flavoured beauty collagen sold in Australia, not against any named brand. Our figures are current on this site; the category column is a general description, not a quote for any particular product.
The questions that come up most
The same worries come up every time. Here are the honest answers.
Hydrolysed marine collagen peptides from wild-caught fish, and nothing else. No flavour, sweetener, filler or anti-caking agent.
No. It is unflavoured and odourless and dissolves clear. In plain water a few people notice it; in coffee, tea or a smoothie they do not.
One 5g teaspoon a day, in any hot or cold drink. It is heat stable, so coffee is fine.
Most customers report nails first, at around four to eight weeks, and skin between eight and twelve. Published collagen research uses the same window. Give it 90 days before you decide anything. Individual results vary.
Most people report more than one thing. In our reviews the most common combination is skin with nails, and hair turning up a few weeks later. Individual results vary.
Marine is almost entirely Type I, the collagen most abundant in skin. Our bovine Collagen Hydrolysate is Type I and III and the better everyday protein option at 10g a serve. Plenty of customers use both.
Yes, halal certified. It is also non-GMO and gluten free, and suits keto and paleo diets.
No. It contains fish and may contain traces of crustacean. If you have a fish or shellfish allergy, this is not the product for you, and our bovine Collagen Hydrolysate is the alternative.
Three formats, same single ingredient in all of them. The 600g pouch is 120 teaspoons at 92 cents a serve and the best value by a distance. The 280g is 56 teaspoons at $1.51. The sachet box is 14 pre-measured 5g sachets at $2.85 a serve, which is the one to take travelling or to try before committing to a pouch.