A jar of sixty gummies at two a day lasts thirty days, which makes it the natural unit for a trial. The trouble with a month is memory. By day thirty, nobody can say with any confidence what their skin looked like on day one. A short log solves that, and it takes about a minute a week.
Before you start: day zero
Write down the date and take three photographs in the same place: a bare face by a window, the back of one hand, and your nails. Daylight beats a bathroom bulb, and the same spot makes the pictures comparable. Note what else is going on, such as a new moisturiser, a change of shampoo, a stressful month or a run of bad sleep. You are looking for a clean test, and each change you list is a thing you can later rule out.
Week one: the habit
Nothing visible is expected. The job is to find the moment in the day when two gummies fit. The directions are to chew two about thirty minutes ahead of a morning or afternoon meal and to drink a full glass of water. Tick each day. If you miss one, take your usual two the next day and do not double up.
Week two: the practical checks
Ask the dull questions. Is the taste fine? Are the gummies sticking together in the warmth? Is the jar in the right place? Is anything upsetting your stomach? If you notice a reaction you did not expect, stop and speak to a doctor or pharmacist. Check the jar is stored somewhere cool and dry, not on a sunny sill.
Week three: the label sum
Pull out your other supplements and add the figures. Vitamin A (630 mcg per serving here) and zinc (2.7 mg) are the lines most worth totalling. If you take a multivitamin as well, it may be better to choose one product than to carry both. This is also a good week to book a blood test if one is due, and to tell the lab about the biotin.
Week four: the first honest look
Take the same three photographs and put them beside day zero. Skin renews itself over roughly four weeks, so this is the earliest anyone could reasonably see a difference in the skin. Fingernails grow only a few millimetres a month, and hair more slowly than that, so most people see little or nothing at this stage. Write down what you see in one sentence, and also what you cannot tell.
What to do with the log
- Judge from the pictures and the notes, not from how you felt when you wrote them.
- If nothing has changed, a second jar and a second month of notes is a fair continuation. Hair and nails need months, not weeks.
- Money-back cover on every box lasts sixty days, so there is time to decide. Keep your order details and read the seller's terms before the window closes.
- If you did notice a change, check what else you altered before crediting the jar.
A log will not make a supplement work, and it will not guarantee a result. It does give you something better than a hunch. The nutrients on the panel are described on the nutrients page, and the six-jar box is the lowest price per jar at $49; order Gelagen when you are ready to start.
A template you can copy
On a single page, write the date, then five short lines: how many days you took the gummies this week, any change in diet or skincare, how your skin looks in one sentence, how your nails look in one sentence, and one question for next week. Five lines a week is four pages across the jar, short enough that you will keep going and long enough to be useful when you read it back.