Collagen Bright

Brand: Esu Esu Medicine

Cost: 324 yen

Found At: Family Mart

When Grandma sends you a birthday card with a middle-aged woman who is extremely pleased about getting carded, you know that it is time to step up your beauty routine. Clearly, I am not as young as I used to be and I need to supplement my diet of chips and chocolate with something to maintain the glamorous good looks for which I am famous. Usually, I would spring for B.B. Sparkling, but I felt like I needed something stronger now that I am 27 and shopping around for burial plots. So, I hunted down the most powerful, most medicinal looking vial in the “vitamin shot” section of the local convenience store. Not only was the bottle the horrible brown color that I associate with quality medicine, but the label was in English, giving it an international cache that I particularly like.

And it better work, because it tastes like grape cough medicine and has enough collagen in it to kill a horse. In theory, if I keep drinking it, I should have beautiful skin, less pain, and, according to one website, it will “hold together [my] bones and muscles” – which I was not aware was a problem. But I can’t imagine having to drink one of these horrible brown vials every day, so it seems that I must age as nature intends it. Or, at least, limit my beauty routine to B.B. Sparkling and fancy green tea.