The science · 03 Wrinkle
500 ppm is a dose, not a shortfall.
A technical record of this ampoule: what is in the vial, how each figure is stated, and what has not been measured.
Specifications · formulations · provenance
Units and conventions
- Concentration
- Stated in ppm and as percent by weight. 10,000 ppm = 1%.
- Length
- Needle diameter in micrometers (µm). Depth in millimeters (mm). 1 mm = 1,000 µm.
- What a concentration is
- The amount present in the sealed vial. It is not a statement about how much crosses the barrier.
- Mass figures
- Where a mass in grams is given it assumes a density of about 1 g/mL. The manufacturer has not published a density, so every mass here is an estimate from volume.
What is in the vial
- Acetyl hexapeptide-8
- 500 ppm = 0.05% by weight. About 889 g/mol
- Adenosine
- 400 ppm = 0.04% by weight. About 267 g/mol
- Gardenia florida fruit extract
- 250.5 ppm = 0.02505% by weight
- Copper tripeptide-1
- 1 ppm as the manufacturer states it. That figure is in dispute, see the note under the peptide table
- Palmitoyl pentapeptide-4
- 0.1 ppm as the manufacturer states it. Same dispute
- Anemarrhena asphodeloides root extract
- 50 ppm = 0.005% by weight
- Fragrance
- None added
- Format
- 50 mL crimp-sealed medical glass, aluminum crimp, rubber septum, flip-off cap
- Origin
- Developed and made in South Korea
Why a peptide is dosed low
500 ppm sits four hundred times below the niacinamide in the 01 ampoule. Molecular size is why.
Molecule size against the barrier
Every active in the range plotted against a rough size gate from the permeation literature.
Formulated for an open channel
An ampoule meant to meet skin that has just been opened is a different brief from a serum meant to sit on an intact barrier. It arrives sterile and single integrity, and it is dispensed at the moment of contact rather than applied afterwards.
You cannot open skin and then open a pump.
The manufacturer's dataset
The laboratory in South Korea that makes this ampoule keeps an engineering dossier on it. The owner of this shop asked for the whole thing to be published rather than a selected line or two. It is below, in full, at the numbers the laboratory states. Where its own numbers disagree with each other, that is printed too.
Read one thing first. Every figure here was taken in a named test system. A bench rig, a dish of cells, or twelve pieces of real skin kept alive on a bench. None of them was taken on you.
So each figure is printed with its method beside it, never underneath in small type. A laboratory number with no method attached reads like a forecast about your own face, and it is not one. With the method attached it goes back to being what it is, which is a true record of something somebody measured.
The method is not the fine print. The method is the claim.
The plain-language methods note is next, and every table on this page links back to it.
How to read these figures
- Manufacturer-stated
- The figure comes from the laboratory that makes this ampoule. It is published as given, with the test it came from. re:tones has not repeated it.
- In vitro
- In glassware. Cells, enzymes or tissue in a dish, outside a body. It shows what a molecule does to a target. It does not show what a product does to a face.
- Ex vivo
- On living tissue taken out of the body and kept alive for the test. Closer to skin than a dish. Still not a person.
- Dermal explant
- A small piece of real skin, kept alive in the lab. n=12 dermal explants means twelve such pieces were tested. Twelve is a small number, and it is printed because you should know it is small.
- Franz cell diffusion assay
- A bench rig. Skin or a membrane is clamped between two chambers. The formula goes on top and the fluid underneath is sampled over time, to see how much crossed and how fast. It is the standard way to compare delivery. The skin in the rig is not attached to anybody.
- Gene expression
- How much a cell reads a particular gene. A change in gene expression is a change in an instruction. It is measured a long way upstream of anything you could see.
- Fibroblast
- The cell in the lower layer of skin that builds collagen.
- MMP-1
- Collagenase. The enzyme that breaks collagen down.
- SNARE complex and SNAP-25
- The machinery a nerve ending uses to release its signal to a muscle. A peptide that mimics part of it interferes with that release.
- n
- How many were tested. n=12 dermal explants is twelve pieces of skin. A figure with no n is a figure you cannot weigh.
- ppm
- Parts per million. 10,000 ppm is 1%. 500 ppm is 0.05%.
- Test system not stated
- The dossier gives the figure but does not say what it was measured in. Those rows are marked, because an unnamed method is worth less than a named one.
- Unresolved
- The dossier contradicts itself and we have not settled it yet. Marked rather than tidied away.
- What none of this is
- None of these figures was measured on somebody using this product at home. None of them is a statement about your skin, and none of them tells you what to expect.
Manufacturer laboratory data, 03 Wrinkle
From the 2026 engineering dossier held by the laboratory in South Korea that makes this ampoule. Manufacturer-stated throughout.
Twelve explants is a small sample and 82.4% is a large number. Both are printed at full size. How to read these figures.
The ternary peptide cascade
Three peptides, and the order the laboratory says they act in. The primer goes first and the copper peptide follows it.
Two conflicts in the manufacturer's own document, printed rather than tidied. First, the dossier gives copper tripeptide-1 as 1 ppm and palmitoyl pentapeptide-4 as 0.1 ppm, while the percentages printed beside them in the same table, 0.000001% and 0.0000001%, work out to 0.01 ppm and 0.001 ppm. That is a hundredfold apart. Second, acetyl hexapeptide-8 is 500 ppm on the carton, so a 1:1:0.1 ratio cannot describe these three at once. The ppm figures the laboratory states are printed here and its engineer has been asked which set is right. How to read these figures.
The gardenia extract, and the root extract with it
Two botanical extracts, both specified by ratio and by extraction method rather than by name alone.
Gardenia is also why this is the only one of the three that is not colourless. How to read these figures.
The delivery platform, measured on a bench
All three ampoules ride the same seven-stage nano-vector platform. It is the payload half of the system, engineered for a channel the device has already opened. A peptide that stops at the surface is a peptide you paid for and did not use. Manufacturer-stated, 2026 dossier.
A Franz cell is a bench rig, not a face, and 94.7% is what crossed a membrane in that rig. The device is what opens the channel this platform was engineered for. Neither half is sold as the whole system. How to read these figures.
Evidence grades
- Substantiated
- Traceable to a manufacturing specification, a supplier ingredient statement, or the physical product.
- Manufacturer-stated
- A measurement supplied by the laboratory that makes the ampoule, published with the test system it came from. re:tones has not repeated it and does not present it as a result on a customer.
- Test system not stated
- The dossier gives the figure without saying what it was measured in. Printed as given, and marked.
- Unresolved
- The manufacturer's document contradicts itself. Printed with the contradiction shown, and referred back to its engineer.
- Reference figure
- A published literature value used for scale, not a re:tones measurement.
- Not published
- The manufacturer has not supplied it. Listed rather than estimated.
- Not claimed
- re:tones has run no consumer panel and no clinical study of its own. Where a percentage appears on this site it belongs to a manufacturer measurement in a named test system. It is not a re:tones result and not a statement about any individual.
Claims ledger, this ampoule
Every figure this page uses and what it rests on.
Every figure on this page names its own basis.
Back to the science index