Aqua Glow is a British sparkling drink that puts 5,000mg of VERISOL collagen peptides, five vitamins and zinc into a 250ml can, and from Saturday 18 October its four-packs arrive in 229 Waitrose stores at an introductory £5.50. Online, a 12-pack of Berry Crush on aqua-glow.com costs £24.99, which works out at about £2.08 a can.
Barely a year after launch, the brand has picked up a Waitrose meal deal slot, a Free From award and a fast-growing list of stockists. So is this the easiest beauty habit you can buy, or a pricey soft drink with a good story? Here is our take.
Where did Aqua Glow come from?
Aqua Glow entered the UK market in autumn 2025, and it has moved fast since. According to Retail Times, it was already stocked in selected Boots and WHSmith Travel stores, Booths, Ocado, Amazon, the Holland & Barrett marketplace and more than 100 independent shops before Waitrose came calling. Since 9 September, chilled single cans of Berry Crush (RRP £2.49) have been sold in 101 Waitrose stores and count towards the meal deal; the four-can multipacks of Berry Crush and Mango Passion follow on 18 October.
The awards are real too. Mango Passion was named Overall Drink Product of the Year at the Free From Food Awards 2026, and the brand says it was also crowned Best New Brand at the UK Soft Drinks Awards. Co-founder Jamie Gripton describes the Waitrose deal as “a huge leap forward for the brand”, and the stated mission is simple: take collagen out of the supplement cupboard and put it in the chiller.
What is inside a can?
According to the official product pages, every 250ml can contains:
- 5,000mg of VERISOL bioactive collagen peptides, made in Germany by GELITA (bovine, so not suitable for vegans or vegetarians).
- 100% of your daily reference intake of vitamin C, niacin (B3), B6, B12 and biotin, plus 25% of your zinc.
- Real sugar but no artificial sweeteners or preservatives: 5.5g of sugar and 50kcal in Berry Crush, 4.8g and 43kcal in Mango Passion, 4.8g and 40kcal in Citrus Bliss.
- Three flavours: Berry Crush and Mango Passion, plus Citrus Bliss (lemon and lime), the newest addition to the range.
Source: Aqua Glow (official product pages, checked on 17 October 2026).
Our take: the right collagen, the wrong price for a daily habit
Let us start with what Aqua Glow gets right, because it is more than most collagen drinks. VERISOL is one of the few collagen ingredients with proper human trials behind it. In a 2014 double-blind, placebo-controlled study from the University of Kiel, published in Skin Pharmacology and Physiology, 114 women aged 45 to 65 who took 2.5g a day for eight weeks saw eye wrinkle volume fall by 20% compared with the placebo group. A can of Aqua Glow holds twice that dose. The vitamin claims are the standard, carefully worded ones (vitamin C contributes to normal collagen formation, biotin to the maintenance of normal skin), not wild promises. And the format is a genuinely smart answer to the main reason people give up on collagen: nobody enjoys stirring powder into water every morning.
The catch is the maths. Collagen only shows results with daily use for weeks, and Aqua Glow is clearly pitched as a daily drink. At £2.08 a can from the brand’s own shop, one a day comes to about £760 a year. There is no subscribe-and-save plan on aqua-glow.com, which is odd for a product built around a daily habit, and on 17 October the online four-packs were showing as unavailable, so the 12-pack is your only option there.
Customers are not unanimous either. On Ocado, Mango Passion averages 3.9 out of 5 and Berry Crush 3.7 out of 5 (15 reviews each), solid but a long way from the five-star chorus on the brand’s own site. Taste is personal, which is exactly why the Waitrose four-packs are good news: £5.50 for four (about £1.38 a can) is a cheap way to find out whether you like it before committing to 12.
If you mainly want the collagen rather than the fizz, a powder is far cheaper. The Myvitamins Beauty Collagen Stick Packs give you 28 single sachets with 8g of collagen peptides each, plus vitamin C and biotin, in orange, strawberry, mojito and lemon flavours. On 17 October 2026 they were £14.99 (Myvitamins lists an RRP of £29.99), so about 54p a serving. You do have to add water, and they are sweetened with sucralose, but that is a quarter of the price of a can.
Our verdict: Aqua Glow is one of the better collagen drinks on UK shelves, with a properly studied ingredient at a generous dose and a taste many people clearly enjoy. As a treat in your meal deal, or a swap for your afternoon fizzy drink, we like it a lot. As a daily beauty routine at full price, it is an expensive way to drink 5g of collagen. Worth knowing: the daily dose used in that Kiel study was 2.5g, half of what a single can contains.
Who is it for?
It will suit you if you have tried collagen powders and given up, if you are already buying a fizzy drink at lunchtime, or if you like your wellness habits to taste of something. It is not for vegans or vegetarians, and with 4.8g to 5.5g of sugar a can it is low in sugar but not sugar-free. Aqua Glow is for adults aged 18 and over; check with your GP or pharmacist first if you are pregnant, breastfeeding or taking medication.
Prefer collagen on a regular delivery? Our Absolute Collagen listing covers a liquid collagen sachet plan delivered every two or four weeks. And if inner beauty in unusual formats is your thing, read our take on RIN Glow Strips, the Korean glutathione strips that melt on your tongue.
Price and availability: the essentials
- Product: Aqua Glow sparkling collagen drink, 250ml cans with 5,000mg of VERISOL collagen, in Berry Crush, Mango Passion and Citrus Bliss.
- Online: Berry Crush, Mango Passion and Citrus Bliss, £24.99 for a 12-pack (about £2.08 a can); the £8.99 four-packs were unavailable on 17 October.
- Subscription: none on aqua-glow.com; one-off orders only, dispatched within three to five working days, UK delivery only.
- Waitrose: single Berry Crush cans at £2.49 in 101 stores (in the meal deal); four-packs of Berry Crush and Mango Passion in 229 stores from 18 October at an introductory £5.50.
- Ocado: Mango Passion four-pack and Berry Crush four-pack at £8.00 each, with a buy any four for the price of three offer until 3 November 2026.
- Prices checked on aqua-glow.com and ocado.com on 17 October 2026.
Try it with a 12-pack of Berry Crush on aqua-glow.com, compare with the Myvitamins Beauty Collagen Stick Packs, or browse our pick of beauty boxes.
Questions & reviews
Have a question about this box?
Share a question, opinion or experience. Our team reads every message and will reply.