- Access
- Supplement
- Cost / month
- ≈ €4–13
- researchers' estimate; no listing to price
Builds over days or weeks of regular use rather than with each dose.
r/30PlusSkinCare· · 272 upvotesOriginal ↗
I ordered The Ordinary’s Argireline and apply it LIBERALLY twice a day. I am extremely stoked at these results but do believe there’s some beginner gains happening here
GlowingThe Ordinary Argireline 10%, liberally twice daily · Topical · deep forehead lines
39F, had Botox twice but found it too expensive; 2.5 weeks, B&A photos; suspects some hydration confounding
r/30PlusSkinCare· · 15 upvotesOriginal ↗
This duo totally changed my skin. Early 30s, so lines are minimal but saw big improvement in the forehead and 11 lines in 3x months of daily use 1-2x a day.
GlowingThe Ordinary Argireline + Matrixyl, 1-2x daily · Topical · forehead lines, 11s
early 30s, 3 months of daily use with Matrixyl
r/30PlusSkinCare· · 36 upvotesOriginal ↗
I tried Argireline for a few months and it did absolute diddly squat. Went in for Botox and it worked perfectly.
NothingTopical · expression lines
a few months, then Botox, which worked
- Users report
- Splits users roughly in half. The positive half describe softer forehead lines, 11s and crow's feet within days to weeks, a 'mini-Botox' feeling of a slightly harder-to-raise brow, and Botox lasting a few weeks longer; several only noticed it when they stopped. Before-and-after posts on r/SkincareAddiction and r/30PlusSkinCare (1,500 and 540 upvotes) drive much of the enthusiasm and are usually paired with Matrixyl or tretinoin. The other half used up a whole bottle and saw nothing, and long-term users who stopped often looked the same. A recurring minority get headaches each time they apply it (worse when spread over the whole forehead), and a few describe cold-like sinus and ear pressure, or swollen eyelids, that recurs on rechallenge and clears when they stop. Felt nothing: ~20% of reports (5/25), more in 'has anyone tried it' threads.
- Best effects
- Softer forehead lines and 11s (dynamic, expression lines) · fewer fine lines around the eyes · mild 'frozen' feel, brow harder to lift for hours · may extend the interval between Botox appointments
- Downsides
- Headaches with each application in a minority (dose/area dependent) · cold-like sinus/ear pressure or eyelid swelling in a few, clearing on stopping · lines can look worse or 'sagging' when overused on the forehead (a few reports) · occasional breakouts or stinging · stops working within days of stopping; watery texture · inactivated by direct acids and strong vitamin C applied together
- Watch
- Allergic-type reactions (periorbital swelling, sinus and ear symptoms) reported first-hand by a few users, one needing steroids; these resolved after stopping, and no lasting harm has been reported
- Evidence
- Human RCTs — one placebo-controlled RCT (n=60, Chinese subjects) plus the developer's small 30-day study; FDA in-vitro work found almost none of a 10% cream gets past the stratum corneum (0.01% reached the epidermis, none the dermis), so a Botox-like action at the muscle is doubtful and much of the effect may be surface hydration
- Caveat
- The molecule itself has a clean record (non-toxic orally, CIR safety review, mass-market use since the early 2000s) and barely penetrates intact skin. The headache and sinus reports are a real, recurring minority pattern without a known mechanism; they are unpleasant and reversible rather than a harm path, so treat a headache after applying it as a sign to apply it to a smaller area or stop. 'Sagging' worries come from a handful of anecdotes and have no documented case. SNAP-8 (acetyl octapeptide-3) is Lipotec's longer analogue with the same mechanism and is tracked as its own entry.
- Typical use
- A few drops of a 10% solution (10% of a dilute raw-material solution, not 10% peptide) on forehead, glabella and crow's feet, once or twice daily on dry skin before other serums; keep it a few millimetres off the lid margin and start with a small area if prone to headaches.
- Getting it
- Over-the-counter cosmetic: The Ordinary Argireline Solution 10% (now 'Argireline Solution 10%'), 20% serums from Skin Deva, Innocosvate and others, and many multi-peptide serums (Buffet, Naturium).
- Stacked with
- Matrixyl: The standard Reddit pairing: argireline first on expression lines, Matrixyl over the whole face. · Botox: Used between injections; several users say it stretches the interval by a few weeks. · tretinoin: Common base; apply at a different time from acids and vitamin C.