Skin routine aren't bogus. Everyone has their routine, even if it is the routine of doing nothing much at all.
What is bogus, in my opinion, are the commercial produced, inflated cosmetic products that are not much better than snake oil.
I believe that a friend of mine put it best when she said “It's not about what you put on your skin. It's about what you put in your body.”
Many people ask me about collagen as one element of skincare. Collagen supplements taken orally for younger looking skin aren't going to be as effective as a topical application.
This is because collagen is required for things like healthy organs, connective tissue, bones and other life supporting functions.
As much as younger looking skin is the proverbial holy grail, your body is more interested in keeping you alive than looking like you can take the cover of Vogue.
This thread then normally winds up going down the road of comparing animal based collagen to plant based sources of collagen.
Plant based sources of collagen are more capable of assimilating with the human body than animal based sources of collagen. This is a point that I go into deeper in the comments section of What are the Benefits of Eating Seaweed Everyday?
This is due to plant based sources of collagen being smaller than animal based sources of collagen.
In the image above you can see the thicker fibrils are from bovine. The thinner fibrils are from brown seaweed like sea moss.
These thinner fibrils are more like those in our skin. Thus, they fit into the matrix better and help with more even distribution of elastin.
I prefer to use sea moss gel that I make at home from dried sea moss for my skin care routine. This is completely natural and much more cost effective than the cosmetic alternative.