Matrixyl 3000: what is actually in it, and why it is not Matrixyl

What Matrixyl 3000 is

The trade name belongs to Sederma. The material behind it is two synthetic peptides, each with a 16-carbon palmitic acid chain attached to the N-terminus, supplied together in a dilute carrier:

• Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1 — palmitoyl-Gly-His-Lys, or pal-GHK. Three residues, lipidated.
• Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7 — palmitoyl-Gly-Gln-Pro-Arg, or pal-GQPR. Four residues, lipidated.

Neither of those is Matrixyl. The original Matrixyl, launched years earlier and still the source of nearly everything written about the family, is Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 — palmitoyl-Lys-Thr-Thr-Lys-Ser, pal-KTTKS. Different sequence, different CAS number, different molecular weight, and not present in Matrixyl 3000. When a page cites “the Matrixyl study”, it is almost always citing a pal-KTTKS study, and that study says nothing about the blend named after it.

The palmitoyl chain is the reason both molecules exist in this form. The underlying peptides are small, water-loving fragments; attaching a fatty acid makes them amphiphilic, which is the standard chemical strategy for giving a peptide any chance of partitioning into the stratum corneum. It also changes the formulation problem completely — a lipidated peptide is not simply “a peptide, in the water phase.”

A note on the naming

Ingredient lists sometimes label the blend “Palmitoyl Tripeptide-5”, which is a third, unrelated INCI name belonging to a different trade ingredient. If you see that on a supplier document for Matrixyl 3000, the document is wrong. The two INCI names in this blend are Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1 and Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7.

Reference data

Verified against the public chemical record; the deposited structure for each CID was checked against the stated sequence. There is no single molecular weight for “Matrixyl 3000” because it is not a single substance — which is itself the most important line in this table.

For comparison, and because it is the molecule most of the literature is actually about:

Trade material is supplied as a dilute solution rather than as neat peptide. We have not found an independently published statement of the exact carrier composition or the peptide content of the trade blend, so we do not state one. Material bought as lyophilised powder is the peptide itself, which is a different thing at the same nominal percentage.

Which evidence belongs to which peptide

This is the part worth reading carefully, because the literature is routinely misattributed.

Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 (pal-KTTKS) — not in this blend

Robinson et al. (2005, Int J Cosmet Sci) ran the study everyone quotes: 93 Caucasian women aged 35–55, a 12-week double-blind, placebo-controlled, split-face design comparing a moisturiser against the same moisturiser containing 3 ppm pal-KTTKS, with significant improvement reported for wrinkles and fine lines by image analysis and expert grading. Two things about it matter. First, the concentration: 3 ppm is 0.0003%, which is a useful reality check against the assumption that these actives work at percent levels. Second, the funding: every author was at The Procter & Gamble Company, which developed and sold the product. It is a well-designed study with a real sample size, and it is a manufacturer’s study.

Aruan et al. (2023) later compared a Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 cream against an Acetyl Hexapeptide-3 cream and placebo in 21 Indonesian women over eight weeks — about seven per arm — and reported that the palmitoyl pentapeptide appeared to perform better. The authors described it as an initial study needing a larger sample.

Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1 and Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7 — what is in this blend

Searching the indexed literature for both INCI names and for the trade name returns no clinical trial of the blend and no standalone trial of either constituent that we could find. The most relevant published mention is Mortazavi and Moghimi’s 2022 permeability review, which lists GQPR among the anti-wrinkle peptides whose skin permeability has been studied, and concludes at class level that most such peptides are not good candidates for skin permeation without an enhancement strategy — that cellular efficacy without permeation is, in their words, useless.

So the position is: the constituent peptides of Matrixyl 3000 have far less published human evidence than the peptide whose name they inherited. The blend’s reputation is largely borrowed. That is not an argument against using it — plenty of good ingredients are supported by supplier work — but a label claim built on “the Matrixyl studies” is built on a peptide that is not in the bottle.

Formulation and stability constraints

• Not simply water-phase. Both constituents are amphiphilic by design — a C16 tail on a short polar peptide. In practice that means solubility behaviour closer to a surfactant than to a plain peptide, and it is why the trade material is sold pre-solubilised in a carrier rather than as powder.
• Protease exposure is measurable and has been measured — for the other peptide. Errante et al. (2021) built an LC-MS/MS dermal-stability assay in skin homogenates using pal-KTTKS as the reference substrate, precisely because dermal protease stability is a real variable for this class. No equivalent published figure for pal-GHK or pal-GQPR was found.
• Do not borrow the copper-peptide rules. Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1 contains the GHK motif, and GHK famously binds copper(II). But this molecule is the acylated peptide without copper, and its formulation behaviour follows from the palmitoyl chain, not from copper coordination. Treating it as a copper peptide is a category error.
• No published pH or stability window. We have not found a peer-reviewed pH-stability curve, accelerated-ageing dataset or preservative-compatibility study for either constituent or for the blend. If a supplier holds one, it is not in the indexed literature.

Raw material as powder is stored as any lipidated peptide would be: dry, cold, dark, sealed, and not repeatedly warmed and re-chilled. See how to store peptides.

Verifying identity and purity

A blend is harder to verify than a molecule, and that is a practical argument for buying the constituents. For a single lipidated peptide, mass spectrometry confirms identity against a defined expected mass — 578.8 for Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1, 694.9 for Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7 — and HPLC reports purity as a percentage. For a trade blend there is no single expected mass, so an identity check can only confirm the named peptide constituents, and only if the certificate names them individually.

See how to read a COA and how to verify peptide purity; batches we ship can be looked up on verify.

What is not established

• That any published clinical trial of the Matrixyl 3000 blend exists in the indexed literature.
• That the pal-KTTKS results transfer to pal-GHK or pal-GQPR. They are different molecules; no bridging study was found.
• An independently published use concentration for the blend, or a Cosmetic Ingredient Review safety assessment for either constituent that we could locate.
• That either constituent permeates skin sufficiently at typical use levels. The class-level review concludes that most anti-wrinkle peptides do not, absent an enhancement strategy.

Sourcing and related ingredients

Supplied as raw material with a per-batch Certificate of Analysis reporting HPLC purity and mass-spectrometric identity confirmation. Not supplied as a finished cosmetic; the certificate is not a cosmetic safety assessment.

Related pages: GHK-Cu covers the copper complex of the underlying tripeptide and the very different literature attached to it; Acetyl Tetrapeptide-3 is another GHK-containing cosmetic peptide, this one acetylated rather than lipidated. The full ingredient list with live availability is on the cosmetic ingredient hub.

Frequently asked questions

Literature cited

1. Robinson LR, Fitzgerald NC, Doughty DG, Dawes NC, Berge CA, Bissett DL. “Topical palmitoyl pentapeptide provides improvement in photoaged human facial skin.” Int J Cosmet Sci. 2005;27(3):155–160. PMID 18492182. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18492182. (n = 93; 3 ppm pal-KTTKS; all authors at The Procter & Gamble Company.)
2. Aruan RR, Hutabarat H, Widodo AA, et al. “Double-blind, Randomized Trial on the Effectiveness of Acetylhexapeptide-3 Cream and Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 Cream for Crow’s Feet.” J Clin Aesthet Dermatol. 2023;16(2):37–43. PMID 36909866. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36909866. (n = 21 across three arms.)
3. Errante F, Menicatti M, Pallecchi M, et al. “Susceptibility of cosmeceutical peptides to proteases activity: Development of dermal stability test by LC-MS/MS analysis.” J Pharm Biomed Anal. 2021;194:113775. PMID 33281001. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33281001. (pal-KTTKS as the reference substrate.)
4. Mortazavi SM, Moghimi HR. “Skin permeability, a dismissed necessity for anti-wrinkle peptide performance.” Int J Cosmet Sci. 2022;44(2):232–248. PMID 35302659. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35302659. (Lists GQPR and KTTKS among studied anti-wrinkle peptides.)
5. National Center for Biotechnology Information. “PubChem Compound Summary for CID 10231864, Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1.” pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/10231864 (sequence, formula, mass, CAS).
6. National Center for Biotechnology Information. “PubChem Compound Summary for CID 10078408, Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7.” pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/10078408 (sequence, formula, mass, CAS).
7. National Center for Biotechnology Information. “PubChem Compound Summary for CID 9897237, Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4.” pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/9897237 (the original Matrixyl, for comparison).