Collagen
Collagen is the structural protein that makes up most of the dermis. Arranged in fibres, it gives skin its tensile strength and resistance to tearing, and it works alongside elastin, which supplies the ability to return to shape after stretching.
If the dermis is the substance of the skin, collagen is what that substance is mostly made of. It is a fibrous protein, arranged in bundles, and it accounts for the greater part of the dermis by dry weight.
Its job is tensile strength. Collagen fibres resist being pulled apart, which is why skin does not tear under ordinary handling. Elastin, present in far smaller quantities, does the complementary job: it allows skin to return to shape after being stretched. Strength and springiness are separate properties supplied by separate proteins, and confusing them is common.
Collagen appears in two conversations in dermatology. The first is scarring: damage reaching into the dermis disturbs the arrangement of these fibres, and repair lays them down in a different pattern from the original. That difference in arrangement, rather than any missing material, is what a scar is. The second is change over time, since both the quantity and the organisation of dermal collagen alter across a lifetime, with ultraviolet exposure contributing.
The word is heavily used in marketing, which is worth knowing when reading a product label. Whether any particular preparation affects the collagen in your dermis is a question about that preparation and its evidence, not something the word itself establishes.
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