Pigs' feet and turtle blood fuel Japan beauty trend

By Sophie Hardach and Yoko Kubota

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - Jelly drinks, pigs' trotters, and now turtle meat and blood: a beauty craze over food rich in collagen, considered to be good for the skin, has added some unusual items to Japanese menus.

Japan's collagen supplements and cosmetics have already caught on overseas, and a Japanese pigs' feet restaurant has opened in New York.

Other products catering to the new passion for cartilage in one of the world's biggest skincare markets may be harder to export.

"Suppon", or soft-shell turtle, is a traditional delicacy here, but used to be served mainly to men -- it is said to boost sexual performance. Recently, female diners have taken over.

"There is a lot of collagen in suppon meals. All our female customers that come to eat collagen say their skins are doing much better the next morning, when they put on make-up," Sosuke Miyagawa, the owner of suppon restaurant Hanabishi, told Reuters.

He added that now about 70 percent of the customers who order suppon meals are females, many of them in their 30s, and demand is on the rise.

His own beauty tip for a perfect complexion: "We cut the neck of the suppon and squeeze out the dripping blood, then mix that with Japanese sake or plum wine. This gives an instantaneous effect."

Cosmetic surgeons around the world inject collagen to plump up lips, and using gelatinous foods as a beauty boost in itself is not new. In the United States and Europe, many women eat gelatin to strengthen their hair and nails.