Also: acetyl glutamyl heptapeptide-3 · Ac-EEMQRRAD-NH2 · SNAP-8 (Lipotec trade name; argireline extended by two amino acids)
Topical
Argireline's longer sibling, mostly DIY-mixed from peptide vials; users rarely see more than argireline.
Safety tier
Caution
strict bar
Positive
45%
of 12 reports
Per month
≈ €9–22
estimate
Rank
#19
of 61 research peptides
At a glance
Onset
Weeks; a few feel tingling on the first application
Lasts
Hours per application; nothing persists after stopping
Access
Grey market
Best effects
Smoother texture, plumper skin · softer fine lines · transient tingly, 'frozen' forehead in a few
Downsides
No visible effect for about half of users even after months · dryness (often blamed on bacteriostatic water/alcohol in DIY mixes) · DIY concentration guesswork; little guidance on dose · grey-market vial identity uncertain (formulators say some 'SNAP-8' vials are argireline)
Typical use
Community practice: 10 mg vial reconstituted in about 0.4-1 ml sterile water and mixed into 30 ml of a fragrance-free serum or cream (about 0.03%), applied once or twice daily; Lipotec's cosmetic grade is a 0.05% solution used at 3-10% of a formula.
Stacked with
Stacked with
GHK-Cu (topical): The near-universal pairing; several users conclude the GHK-Cu did the visible work. · hyaluronic acid serum: Usual carrier for the reconstituted vial. · Argireline: Same mechanism; no reason to expect an additive effect.
Safety
Tier by safety barStrict CautionBalanced CleanEvidence only Clean
Dryness or irritation shows within days and clears on stopping.
Product 2/3
Mostly grey-market 'research' vials mixed at home and applied to skin, of unverified identity (some reportedly argireline); injecting or microneedling it deep is outside this score.
Almost all Reddit use is DIY: a 10 mg grey-market vial reconstituted and stirred into hyaluronic-acid serum or a moisturiser, usually alongside topical or injected GHK-Cu. About 40% report smoother, plumper skin and softer lines, one a tingly 'hard to move' forehead on first use, but nearly every positive report is stacked with GHK-Cu, red light or other peptides. Nearly half used it daily for two months or more and saw no Botox-like effect, often concluding the GHK-Cu did the work and that they won't reorder. Dryness from the bacteriostatic-water mix is the main complaint. Felt nothing: ~40% of reports (5/12).
I reconstituted a vile and added to face serum. I also take 2mg of GHK-cu daily and use a red light for my face. Absolutely happy with results. Really helped with wrinkles. Not a miracle worker, but well worth the effort and money for me.
Positiveone vial reconstituted into face serum · Topical · wrinkles
also injects 2 mg GHK-Cu daily and uses facial red light, so heavily confounded
It definitely works. My forehead felt tingly and hard to move for a while my first time LOL. I only recently developed some fine lines (thanks to recent events), so I am trying to let those relax away.
Positiveone vial from a peptide vendor · Topical · new fine lines
45+; also GHK-Cu, RF device, Volufiline and Adifyline
I really saw an improvement in my skin quality with topical GHKCu but didnt see any "botox" like effect with Snap8 and been using for a couple of months daily now
NothingTopical · expression lines
a couple of months daily; topical GHK-Cu did help skin quality
Sold mainly as 10-20 mg lyophilised 'research' vials by injectable-peptide vendors and mixed at home; a few finished cosmetic serums list acetyl octapeptide-3, and cosmetic-grade raw material is sold to DIY formulators.
No listing can be priced, so the researchers estimate ≈ €9–22 a month.
Cheapest from trusted shops in the EU
Shop
Pack
Price
Per mg
Per month
Testing
Amazon.frEU · FRTrust 3/5Amazon.fr itself is a regulated EU retailer whose A-to-z guarantee covers non-delivery, but the listings used are small third-party marketplace sellers with few or no reviews and no public testing (the AHK-Cu serum is a generic China-made listing), so the actual vendor has only a limited track record.Ships to France for €3.99, 3–5 days.Customs risk low for parcels to France.
serum+hyaluronic acidcontents not stated
€24
—
—
No public tests
Studies
Evidence
Small human studies — manufacturer (Lipotec) claims of more wrinkle reduction than argireline; the only peer-reviewed human trial is a 24-person split-face study of a microneedle patch combining SNAP-8 with vitamin C and other actives, so SNAP-8's own effect is untested
Caveat
The topical route has the same clean profile as argireline: a cosmetic SNARE-mimic peptide with negligible skin penetration and no harm signal. This verdict covers topical use only. The same grey-market vials are sometimes microneedled deep or injected (one report here), which brings vial sterility and endotoxin risks that are not part of this entry, and some forum users mix it with DMSO to push penetration, which is untested. Identity of 'research' vials is unverified.
The peptide's chain of amino acids from its start (the N-terminus) to its end, one bead and one letter for each: A alanine, C cysteine, D aspartic acid, E glutamic acid, F phenylalanine, G glycine, H histidine, I isoleucine, K lysine, L leucine, M methionine, N asparagine, P proline, Q glutamine, R arginine, S serine, T threonine, V valine, W tryptophan, Y tyrosine. A modification such as an N-acetyl cap or a C-terminal amide changes how long it lasts in the body. Length tells related peptides apart, from a two-residue dipeptide like carnosine to a 43-residue protein like thymosin beta-4, and predicts neither effect nor safety.
Report grades
Every first-hand Reddit or X report is graded on its own, from glowing through positive, mixed, nothing and negative to bad reaction, and the bar shows how those grades split. Posts that look vendor-adjacent stay on the peptide's page but are left out of the counts.
GlowingPositiveMixedNothingNegativeBad reaction
% positive
The share of a peptide's graded Reddit and X reports that are glowing or positive, vendor-adjacent posts left out. A peptide with few reports is pulled toward the average of all reports, as if it had eight average ones besides its own, so two glowing posts cannot top the list. Peptides rank by this figure, those with no graded report yet after those with one, and Avoid ones after every other entry.
Researcher estimate
No first-hand report of this peptide has been graded yet, so the figure is the researchers' own rating out of 10 from what they read about it. It ranks after every peptide with graded reports until its own arrive.
Safety tier
Each peptide is tiered Clean, Caution or Avoid from its five risk axes under the chosen safety bar. An Avoid peptide carries a real risk of harm, a plausible route to serious harm rather than mere unpleasantness, so it stays listed with the reason but ranks behind every other entry, however good its reviews.
Safety bar
The safety bar sets how much risk it takes to rate a peptide Avoid. Strict: out on any serious mechanism with little human data, or any documented serious harm. Balanced: out on documented serious harm (unless it is obvious, reversible and from a regulated product), or a serious mechanism whose harm would be silent with no human data at all. Evidence only: out only on documented serious harm in humans that is lasting, delayed or from grey-market product.
Seen harm
Documented serious adverse events in humans, from 0 for none despite real exposure to 3 for deaths or several well-documented serious harms. Serious means a hospital or emergency visit or harm lasting weeks, so a headache or a bad night does not count.
Mechanism
A plausible biological route to serious harm at the doses people use, such as growth-factor signalling, hormone-axis suppression, heart or blood-pressure effects or immune activation. It runs from 0 when none is known to 3 when a dangerous pathway has been shown in living animals.
Data gap
How little human safety data exists for the molecule actually sold, from 0 for an approved drug with large trials and years of use to 3 for no human safety data at all. A modified analogue does not inherit its parent's trials.
Silent harm
Whether the feared harm would show quickly or stay hidden, from 0 when it is obvious and goes on stopping to 3 when it is silent and delayed, like tumour promotion or slow organ damage. User reports cannot reveal a harm that takes years to appear, so a high score here limits what good reviews can tell you.
Product
The risk of what people actually buy, from 0 for a regulated pharmacy or supplement product taken by mouth or on the skin to 3 for a grey-market injectable. In one dataset of 6,441 grey-market samples, 42–71% failed basic quality criteria and 15% carried endotoxin; taken by mouth or in the nose, a pack avoids the injection risks.
Evidence
The strongest kind of study behind the peptide's effects, from an approved drug through human controlled trials and small human studies to animal work or nothing of its own. Animal results often fail to carry over to people.
Access
How people get it: as an approved drug, a compounded prescription, an over-the-counter supplement or from the grey market, where nobody checks the vial. The channel decides both the legal position and the risk of a bad batch.
Price per month
Thirty days of the typical dose, from its low end to its high end, priced at the listing a careful buyer would choose: in stock, from a shop scoring 4 of 5 on trust (third-party tested where no score is set), failing that 3, a pure pack before a blend, a European shop first, then the cheapest per mg. The range is the dose's, not the shops'. A per-dose amount counts once a day unless the dose says otherwise. Prices are in euros at ECB rates of 2026-10-29, before shipping; the shop table keeps each listing's price per mg, per gram for bulk supplements. Where no listing can be priced the researchers' own estimate stands in, and says so.
Dose users report
The middle half of the daily doses stated in at least five first-hand reports, vendor posts left out. Where its middle sits more than twice above or below the declared dose, the month is priced at it as well, since what people take is what they pay for.
Shop trust
Each shop's trust on a 1–5 scale, read from its testing and its reputation: 1 for serious red flags (fabricated COAs, scam reports, impersonation, a closed shop), 2 for no public testing, a new shop or active complaints such as seized parcels, 3 for its own COAs or a short track record, 4 for verified third-party testing or a strong reputation, and 5 for third-party batch reports that name the shop, with years of good independent reputation. A shop without a score counts third-party batch testing as 4, its own COAs as 3 and no public tests as 2.
Best value
Within a category or a goal, a peptide that no other beats on both counts: none is rated more positively for the same or a lower monthly price, and none costs less for the same or a higher rating. The chart joins these into the best-value line; the cheapest of them and the best-rated of them both make it, so the line spans the trade-off from cheap to best. Avoid entries never count, and a peptide needs both a % positive and a price to be compared.
Testing
Whether the shop publishes lab results: third-party tested means an independent lab checks each batch, own COA means the shop's own certificate of analysis, and no public tests means neither. A certificate shows purity, not safety.
Added peptide
Some packs sold under one peptide's name hold a second one, such as 5 mg GHK-Cu in a nasal kit, stated only in the description. Sprayed in the nose or injected it reaches the blood like an injection, so it carries the risk of that route and is tiered as the injectable form, whatever its tier on the skin. A pack whose page gives no contents list may hold more than its name.