Palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7

A four-amino-acid peptide with a fatty acid attached, listed on labels as Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7. The sequence Gly-Gln-Pro-Arg is, according to the Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel, a natural fragment of antibodies. It almost always appears together with palmitoyl tripeptide-1 in the raw material sold as Matrixyl 3000.

Sold as

Applied to the skin (cream, serum)

Legal status in the EU

A cosmetic ingredient under EU Regulation 1223/2009; the review panel judged in 2014 that it is safe at the levels used, typically under 10 ppm. The annex to Regulation 655/2013 requires claims to be supported by "adequate and verifiable evidence" and for that evidence to be relevant and methodologically sound. An ingredient only ever studied in a mixture cannot, therefore, be credited with a documented effect of its own.

The review panel classes it as a skin conditioning agent. The mechanism given in marketing — damping down an inflammatory response that would otherwise break down the skin's structure — could not be verified against any peer-reviewed original source in this review.

Part of the bodyWhat happensHow it is knownKind of evidence

The skin where you put it

Nothing you would feel. Patches of the raw material were taped to people's backs nine times over three weeks. Two weeks later a fresh patch went on, to see whether the immune system had learned to react to it. It had not. No redness, no itch, no allergy.

Measured in 52 healthy men and women aged 18 to 79, in a repeated-patch test collected by the US Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel. The material tested was Rigin, a trade mixture holding 500 parts per million of this peptide. It went on as 0.2 ml under a sealed patch on the upper back, nine times over three weeks. One challenge patch went on a fresh site two weeks after that. The panel concluded the results did not indicate a potential for skin irritation or allergic contact sensitisation. The test report was never published. It is one of three documents about this peptide that Prof. Karl Lintner handed to the panel on 17 March 2014; the hen's egg eye test and the genetic-damage test are the other two.

Measured in people

Source [01]

The deeper layer of skin, where wrinkles form

This is the thing the ingredient is sold for, and it is the thing nobody has measured for this peptide by itself. In the two human studies that exist it was one ingredient among several in a cream. Both reported that skin looked smoother and firmer at the end. Neither can tell you whether this peptide did any of it.

Two small human studies, both of mixtures. In the first, 24 volunteers with an average age of 56.1 years used a cream containing 3% Matrixyl 3000 — this peptide plus palmitoyl tripeptide-1. It went on one half of the face, and the same cream base without the peptides on the other, twice a day for two months. Deep wrinkles and skin roughness fell significantly from the starting point, while the plain base changed nothing significantly. That study was never published as a paper: the panel's only reference for it is a supplier synopsis reproduced on a skincare website. In the second, published in 2024, 37 women aged 20 to 55 used an eye cream containing 0.0001% of this peptide — one part per million — plus three other active ingredients, twice a day for 12 weeks. Skin moisture, elasticity and collagen density all rose. The paper states in its own words that it did not include a control or placebo group. The cream was supplied by Mageline Biology Tech, which employs four of the paper's ten authors.

One small study

Source [01]Source [05]

A wound, in a mouse

In diabetic mice with a wound cut into the skin, a gel carrying this peptide together with stem cells closed the wound. It also damped down the chemical signals that keep a wound inflamed, and grew more small blood vessels into it. This is the only living body in which the peptide has been shown to change anything measurable. It was a gel put into an open wound, not a cream on unbroken skin.

Seen only in mice. The peptide was chemically bonded to chitosan, a sugar from shellfish shells, to make a gel that can be injected. Stem cells taken from human baby teeth were mixed into it. The mice were made diabetic with a chemical called streptozotocin. The combination closed more than 95% of the wound. It cut tumour necrosis factor-alpha — one of the messengers that calls for inflammation — by about 75%, and interleukin-6, another such messenger, by about 81%. It raised interleukin-10, a messenger that calms inflammation, by about 58%, and a marker of new blood vessels by 69%. Published in 2025. The gel, the stem cells and the peptide cannot be separated from one another in these results.

Only seen in animals

Source [06]

Skin cells in a dish

Human skin cells grown in a dish were fed the two-peptide mixture. On one reading of the record they made more collagen, more fibronectin and more hyaluronic acid the more they were given — the building materials that make young skin springy. On another reading of the same record, no such pattern was seen at all.

Seen only in a dish, and the source contradicts itself. Human skin cells were grown with vitamin C plus either palmitoyl tripeptide-1 alone, at up to 7.5 parts per million, or the two-peptide mixture, at up to 11 parts per million. Table 4 of the Cosmetic Ingredient Review report records a dose-dependent rise in collagen I, fibronectin and hyaluronic acid with the mixture but not with the tripeptide alone. The summary section of the same report, describing the same experiment, states that no dose response was observed. The experiment was never published as a paper — the panel's reference for it is a supplier synopsis reproduced on a skincare website — so there is no way to check which sentence is right.

Only seen in a dish, not in a body

Source [01]

The eye, if a product gets into it

Mildly irritating in the only test on record, and that test was not done on an eye. It was done on the membrane inside a fertilised hen's egg. That membrane is used as a stand-in for the lining of the eye, so that rabbits do not have to be.

Seen only outside a body. Rigin, the trade mixture holding 500 parts per million of this peptide, scored a mean irritation index of 3.75 and was classed as slightly irritating. The panel ran the same method on a related raw material, Dermaxyl, which scored 0.8 and was classed as practically non-irritating. The harsh detergent used as a positive control in that run scored 12.0. No test of this peptide in a human eye or an animal eye exists.

Only seen in a dish, not in a body

Source [01]

The body's inflammation signals

The reason usually given for this peptide is that it turns down interleukin-6, a chemical messenger cells release to call for inflammation. Less of that messenger is meant to mean less breakdown of the skin's supporting structure. Nobody has published a measurement of that happening in human skin.

Claimed rather than tested. A 2021 review from the University of Porto went looking for the evidence behind this ingredient. It traced the interleukin-6 claim to a single 2015 paper, five of whose nine authors work for the company that sells the raw material. That paper's published abstract describes a set of skin imaging methods and reports no measurement of interleukin-6 at all. The same review found no study of this peptide for calming sensitive skin; the only documents supporting that use were two Chinese patents. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel lists the ingredient simply as a skin conditioning agent, and the word interleukin appears nowhere in its 2014 report.

Claimed, never tested

Source [01]Source [07]Source [08]

We found no published, peer-reviewed study of palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7 on its own. The review panel cites a supplier experiment on the Matrixyl 3000 combination over two months showing a statistically significant reduction in deep wrinkles and skin roughness (p < 0.01), but there is no way to separate out what this individual ingredient contributed. A systematic review with pooled analysis in Frontiers in Medicine (2026) covered 19 randomised studies with 1,341 participants, of which only 2 topical studies with 105 participants between them, and reported very high inconsistency between studies. That review does not cover palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7 specifically.

Nobody has published a time course for this peptide on its own. In the 24-volunteer study of the two-peptide mixture, the first and only measurement point was 56 days. In the 37-woman eye cream study, the doctors and the women themselves reported visible change in moisture, roughness, springiness and fine lines by week 8. The headline figures were taken at week 12, which is the longest anyone has been watched using it.

What was measuredWhat happenedIn whomHow it is known

Deep wrinkles and skin roughness

Both fell significantly after 56 days on the half of the face treated with the peptide mixture (p < 0.01 against the starting point). The half treated with the same cream base without the peptides showed no significant change from its own starting point. No figure was published for how large the fall was.

24 volunteers, average age 56.1 years. A cream containing 3% Matrixyl 3000 went on one half of the face and the plain cream base on the other, morning and night, for 2 months. The report does not say whether the volunteers were men or women. Never published as a paper; reported second-hand in the 2014 safety review, whose own reference for it is a supplier synopsis on a skincare website.

One small study

Source [01]

Skin elasticity and tone

Both rose significantly after 56 days on the treated half of the face (p < 0.01 against the starting point). The plain cream base changed nothing significantly. Again no size of change was published.

The same 24 volunteers, average age 56.1 years, 2 months, cream containing 3% of the two-peptide mixture.

One small study

Source [01]

Skin moisture, springiness and collagen density around the eyes

Moisture up 28.12%, springiness up 18.81%, and collagen density measured by ultrasound up 54.99%, after 12 weeks. There is no comparison group behind those numbers. The cream went on one side of the eye area and nothing went on the other, and the authors write that the study did not include a control or placebo group.

37 healthy women aged 20 to 55, average age 44.6. An eye cream containing 0.0001% of this peptide, 0.0002% palmitoyl tripeptide-1, 0.25% of a yeast and rice ferment and 0.1% N-acetylneuraminic acid, twice daily for 12 weeks. The cream was supplied by Mageline Biology Tech, which employs four of the paper's ten authors.

One small study

Source [05]

The band of tissue just under the surface of the skin

An ultrasound measure of that band got thinner, and its density improved, after the two-peptide blend was applied. A microscope method that looks into living skin showed a better-organised supporting structure than a dummy cream did. The published abstract gives no number for either.

Not stated in the published abstract: it gives neither the number of people nor how long the cream was used. The paper is mostly about trying out ways of imaging skin, and the peptide blend is one of the things it applied. Five of the nine authors work for SEDERMA, the company that sells the raw material.

One small study

Source [08]

Safety data does exist: a repeat-patch test in 52 people aged 18–79 with the raw material Rigin (500 ppm pal-GQPR) showed neither irritation nor contact allergy, and a standard test for genetic damage was negative across five bacterial strains. The same raw material was classed as mildly irritating in a membrane test, with a mean irritation index of 3.75, which matters for products used near the eye. The real uncertainty is about effect, not safety.

EffectWhat it feels likeHow often

Skin irritation

The strongest safety finding about this ingredient is a negative one. A sealed patch is a harsher exposure than a cream on the face. Under one, the material produced no reaction the graders could score.

None in the 52 people aged 18 to 79 who wore patches of the raw material for nine sessions over three weeks.

Source [01]

Allergy to the ingredient

The two-week gap and the fresh patch site are the point of that test. An allergy has to be learned, so it only shows up on a second meeting. Nobody reacted. Fifty-two people is too few to rule out a rare allergy.

None in the same 52 people, checked with a challenge patch two weeks after the last exposure.

Source [01]

Stinging or watering if it gets in the eye

This matters because the ingredient is sold in eye creams. A slightly irritating score outside a body is not the same as a burning eye, and nobody has checked whether it translates.

Not measured in any eye. The only eye-related test was on a membrane inside a hen's egg, where the raw material scored 3.75 and was classed as slightly irritating.

Source [01]

Anything reported by people using it in a real product

That one report was filed in January 2015 by a 70-year-old man. It lists a hydrating serum as the suspect product, alongside four other things he was taking, and records acne, flaking skin, swelling, anxiety, depression and a worsening of an existing condition. Since 2022 the company named on a label has had to report serious reactions; everything else arrives only if somebody chooses to write in. The regulator states that filing a report is not an admission that the product caused the event, and that these reports cannot be used to work out how often anything happens. One report is not a pattern.

Not measured. The US regulator's public complaint file for cosmetics held 52,219 reports when it was last updated on 7 July 2026. The peptide cannot be searched for there at all: the file records brand names, not ingredients. Exactly one report names a product with Matrixyl 3000 on the label.

Source [09]Source [10]Source [11]

Damage to genes, and harm to a developing baby

The standard bacterial test for genetic damage was run on the raw material across five strains of salmonella. It was run with and without the liver enzymes that can turn a harmless substance into a harmful one, and came back negative in every strain. Studies of effects on fertility or on a pregnancy were, in the panel's words, not found in the published literature.

The first was tested and found nothing. The second has never been tested at all.

Source [01]

These are the amounts the studies below gave their participants, and they are here as facts about those studies. They are not a recommendation, not a starting point and not a range to pick from. What a person should take, if anything, is a question for a doctor who knows them.

The 2024 eye cream study in 37 women aged 20 to 55, the only published human study that names a concentration of this peptide

0.0001% of the peptide — one part per million — in an eye cream that also held palmitoyl tripeptide-1 at 0.0002%, a yeast and rice ferment at 0.25% and N-acetylneuraminic acid at 0.1%. It went around one eye twice a day.

12 weeks

Source [05]

The skin tolerance test in 52 people aged 18 to 79 that the safety conclusion rests on

0.2 ml of Rigin, a trade mixture holding 500 parts per million of the peptide, under a sealed patch on the upper back

Nine 24-hour patches over three weeks, then one challenge patch after a two-week gap

Source [01]

What people report

• Whether this peptide on its own changes a single wrinkle — it has never been given to a person by itself in any published study
• How much of it, if any, crosses the outer layer of skin and reaches the cells that build collagen
• Whether it lowers interleukin-6 in human skin, which is the mechanism the ingredient is sold on
• What one part per million, the amount in the one marketed cream with a published concentration, does compared with nothing at all
• What happens beyond 12 weeks — that is the longest anyone has been watched using it
• Whether it does anything in men: the one published human study enrolled women only, and the older one never reported whether its 24 volunteers were men or women
• How often it stings, reddens or breaks people out in ordinary use, since complaints are recorded against brand names and never against ingredients
• Whether it is safe during pregnancy or for fertility — the 2014 review found no studies of either
• Whether the wound healing seen in diabetic mice, with the peptide bonded into an injected gel alongside stem cells, means anything for a cream on unbroken skin
• Which of the two contradictory sentences in the 2014 safety review about collagen production in the dish is the correct one

Is Matrixyl 3000 the same thing as this peptide?

No. Matrixyl 3000 is a raw material that holds two peptides sold together: this one and palmitoyl tripeptide-1. Almost every claim you will read about this ingredient comes from a test of that pair, not of this peptide on its own.

Source [01]

Has anyone ever tested this peptide on its own in people?

No. Every human study puts it in a mixture. There is also no trial of it registered anywhere. A search of the United States clinical trials register for palmitoyl tetrapeptide, and a second search for Matrixyl, each return zero studies.

Source [07]Source [12]Source [13]

Does it actually get through the skin to where collagen is made?

Nobody has published a measurement of that for this peptide. A 2022 review of how well anti-wrinkle peptides cross the skin concluded that most of them are poor candidates for getting through it. It found that some kind of help is needed: attaching a water-repelling tail, using tiny needles, or packing the peptide into carriers. The fatty tail on this molecule is that kind of help. Whether it is enough has not been shown.

Source [14]

Did any regulator approve it?

No, and none was asked to. Cosmetic ingredients are not approved before sale in either Europe or the United States. The US regulator states that neither the law nor its own rules require any specific test to show a product or an ingredient is safe, and that the company selling it carries that responsibility. What did happen is that an expert panel in the United States reviewed the safety paperwork in 2014 and concluded the ingredient is safe at the amounts used, which it put at under 10 parts per million. Most of that paperwork was unpublished data handed to the panel by the cosmetics industry's own trade body and by one man who held the files on this raw material. That is a judgement about safety, not about whether it works.

Source [01]Source [11]

If a cream is allowed to say the ingredient reduces wrinkles, doesn't that mean it was proven?

It means somebody holds a file they consider adequate. European law says a cosmetic claim must be supported by adequate and verifiable evidence. Where studies are used as that evidence, they must be relevant to the benefit claimed and follow well-designed, well-conducted methods. The same law says a claim about a particular ingredient must not imply the finished product has the same properties when it does not. For this peptide, the file behind the claim is largely unpublished paperwork from the company that sells it.

Source [01]Source [15]

Do the big reviews of anti-ageing peptides say anything about it?

They cannot, because it has never been in a trial they could include. A 2026 pooled analysis of 19 randomised trials in 1,341 people found only 2 skin-applied studies among them, covering 105 people between them. Those two tested different peptides: acetyl hexapeptide-3, and a pair of peptides copied from the skin's own defences. This peptide is named nowhere in the analysis. Across everything it did pool, the improvement in wrinkles was small, and the trials disagreed with each other almost completely.

Source [02]

Each letter represents one amino acid.

1. [01]CIR: Safety Assessment of Tripeptide-1, Hexapeptide-12, their Metal Salts and Fatty Acyl Derivatives, and Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7 as Used in Cosmetics (Final Report, 30 juni 2014) (2014)
2. [02]Nukaly HY m.fl. Oral and topical peptides for skin aging: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Front Med 2026;13:1618306 (2026)
3. [03]Commission Regulation (EU) No 655/2013 on common criteria for claims made about cosmetic products (EUR-Lex, CELEX 32013R0655) (2013)
4. [04]WADA: World Anti-Doping Code International Standard – Prohibited List 2026 (i kraft 1 januari 2026) (2026)
5. [05]Yang F et al. Comprehensive evaluation of the efficacy and safety of a new multi-component anti-aging topical eye cream. Skin Res Technol 2024;30(7):e13790 (2024)
6. [06]Xing C et al. Injectable polypeptide/chitosan hydrogel with loaded stem cells and rapid gelation promoting angiogenesis for diabetic wound healing. Int J Biol Macromol 2025;306(Pt 2):141578 (2025)
7. [07]Resende DISP et al. Usage of Synthetic Peptides in Cosmetics for Sensitive Skin. Pharmaceuticals (Basel) 2021;14(8):702 (2021)
8. [08]Mondon P et al. Evaluation of dermal extracellular matrix and epidermal-dermal junction modifications … effect of age and peptide applications. J Cosmet Dermatol 2015;14(2):152-60 (five of the nine authors work for SEDERMA) (2015)
9. [09]openFDA, CFSAN Adverse Event Reporting System (CAERS) — cosmetics reports, brand-name query for Matrixyl (1 report)
10. [10]openFDA, CFSAN Adverse Event Reporting System (CAERS) — count of reports filed against cosmetics (52,219; data last updated 7 July 2026)
11. [11]US Food and Drug Administration, Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022 (MoCRA) — serious adverse events must be reported by the responsible person within 15 business days (2022)
12. [12]ClinicalTrials.gov API v2, query for "palmitoyl tetrapeptide" — zero studies returned
13. [13]ClinicalTrials.gov API v2, query for "matrixyl" — zero studies returned
14. [14]Mortazavi SM, Moghimi HR. Skin permeability, a dismissed necessity for anti-wrinkle peptide performance. Int J Cosmet Sci 2022;44(2):232-248 (2022)
15. [15]Commission Regulation (EU) No 655/2013 laying down common criteria for the justification of claims used in relation to cosmetic products (EUR-Lex, CELEX 32013R0655) (2013)