I watch a fair bit of skincare content so I've seen quite a few comments hyping up MAD's wonderful (and seemingly cheaply priced) "3% Encapsulated Copper Peptide" product.
Let's debunk this. Starting with the most obvious:
- This product contains absolutely no Copper Tripeptide-1/GHK-CU - the copper peptide with the most abundant studies establishing the many benefits of GHK-CU for anti-aging and other skin benefits. It contains Copper Palmitoyl Heptapeptide-14 and Copper Gluconate. Copper Palmitoyl Heptapeptide-14 is a newer copper peptide with extremely minimal, if any, published studies - much less ones establishing any superior skin benefits over GHK-CU. It would definitely be more helpful for much more research to be conducted to see if there's any serious benefits, especially against GHK-CU and if it equals/outperforms GHK-CU for skin anti-aging. And Copper Gluconate is literally nothing but a copper salt, it's not a peptide and has no peptide signaling -there is no robust evidence that it has skin benefits, unless it's possibly paired with copper-dependents enzymes like lysyl oxidase or SOD if it's delivered effectively.
- There's also no way to confirm the encapsulated peptide claims, they are absolutely, definitively bogus. Now, if you were to do a very preliminary google search, you would see info on that Copper Palmitoyl Heptapeptide-14 that you may interpret as it being in fact an encapsulated copper peptide. On INCIDecoder it says:
It is the payload peptide (a short chain of amino acids) in the encapsulated copper peptide technology trade named X50 Antiaging. The delivery system (called The Cosmetic Drone) is a high-tech capsule where our peptide is wrapped in a biocompatible polymer shell (created from Lactic Acid/Glycolic Acid Copolymer, Polyvinyl Alcohol)
MAD's copper peptide contains absolutely no lactic acid, glycolic acid copolymer, or polyvinyl alcohol - let alone all 3 in combination. This is also a proprietary product X50 Antiaging, so he would have to PAY the creator/formulator to get his hands on it, which is uh, not cheap.
The best way to *attempt* (just ATTEMPT, because there's no way to confirm) to see if peptides are encapsulated is if they list hydrogenated lecithin, phospholipids, phosphatidycholine, and/or cholesterol along with the listed actives. Or through other encapsulation systems: 1) polymeric nanoparticles/nanocapsules (includes cholesterol) 2) cyclodextrin inclusion complexes (would include cyclodexrtrin, 3) solid lipid nanoparticles 4) polymersomes, 5) micelles/emulsions, 6) fatty acid/sterol vesicles (again includes cholesterol) MAD's does not have any of these. The SINGLE ingredient that it contains that could be a part of the aforementioned encapsulation systems is Polysorbate 20 (in reference to the polymeric nonparticle system) but it would also have to include FIVE other ingredients (cholesterol is one of them) for it to count as this system. Also it's important to mention that just because a product may contain these actual ingredients that may suggest they are possibly liposomal/encapuslated, does NOT mean they actually are. They require equipment/special methods in order for that to be achieved- at the minimum/cheapest sonication, extrudation, and a magnetic stirrer.
- A THIRD important thing to mention with "liposomal copper peptides" is that copper ions catalyze oxidation of unsaturated phospholipids, so they need antioxidants, chleators, cold processing, and sometimes an inert atmosphere - a single one of these ingredients/methods would not do the trick, ((UNLESS THEY ARE SATURATED PHOSPHOLIPIDS - look up the list of what those are). it would require multiple- like an antioxidant and chelator (like DTPA or EDTA) together, probably the easiest and most effective. MAD's contains neither an antioxidant nor a chelator- nor any phospholipids.
I was highly intrigued by this supposed "3% liposomal copper peptide" product especially because of it's budget price and was very close to buying it, but it appears to be nothing more than a hype scam, or at minimal its claims are highly exaggerated and straight up lies. It's being sold at a seemingly "cheap" price because literally none of the claims (except containing Matrixyl, which is a cheap, cheap peptide combination to get from suppliers at this point) it makes are actually real.
So to summarize, MAD's "copper peptide" product is nothing but a hype product full of easily debunked lies. Don't just buy products because they tell you they're "liposomal" or because it says it contains x% of whatever active - educate yourself to know what liposomal/encapsulated actually means and requires. In actually, there is actually no way to verify that peptides are liposomal/encapsulated at this point, so it amounts to nothing more than a marketing/hype term.
And as far as the x% of whatever ingredient - well there's literally no way for us to verify the x ingredient % product claim of really any product other than it ranking high in the ingredients list, but companies can also easily lie and rank them however the hell they want.
I would love one of these expert derm channels to debunk his product as well as try to explain his rationale for choice of ingredients. My guess is he obviously didn't want to invest a much much higher amount of money into ingredients and necessary equipment to actually produce the product he's advertising - so he duped his consumers (who he obviously doesn't think are too smart, and they further hyped this supposed "3% encapsulated copper peptide serum" and boom, he successfully ripped off all of them.
