Homemade topical GHK-Cu — someone check my concentration math
50 posts
Making my own 2% serum and I keep getting tangled up on ppm vs mg/mL vs percent. Want to double check before I waste a vial.
Starting material: 50mg lyophilized GHK-Cu vial. I want to make 30mL of 2% serum.
2% by mass in a water-based vehicle ≈ 20mg/mL ≈ 20,000 ppm. So 30mL * 20mg/mL = 600mg needed. That's way more than one 50mg vial. Which means one vial at 30mL is closer to 1.67mg/mL = 0.167%.
Questions:
- Is 'percent' in cosmetic chem w/v (mass per volume) or w/w (mass per mass)? I've been assuming w/v.
- For a legitimate 2% serum I'd need 600mg per 30mL bottle, which is a lot of peptide. The commercial stuff can't actually be 2% GHK-Cu at their price points — am I misreading labels?
- What's a realistic DIY concentration that's worth the trouble? I'm seeing 0.05–0.2% in published topical studies, so maybe I'm overshooting.
Vehicle plan: preserved hydrosol base with a little glycerin, pH buffered to ~5.5. Skipping anything that'll reduce the copper.
12 Replies
58 posts
The published topical literature is mostly in the 0.05–0.2% range. You don't need 2% and there's decent evidence returns are flat or declining above ~0.5%. One 50mg vial in 30mL gives you 0.17%, which is right in the sweet spot.
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205 posts
Your math is right. Cosmetic percent is almost always w/w, but for dilute aqueous serums w/v and w/w are within rounding error. The real issue is what you identified — commercial '2% GHK-Cu' serums almost certainly aren't. Read the INCI list: if GHK-Cu isn't in the top 5 ingredients, it's not 2% of anything.
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For DIY I run 0.1% and it's been fine on my skin for 6 months. One 100mg vial makes 100mL at that strength which lasts forever. 2% is marketing math, not working math.
46 posts
Good post — this is the kind of 'check my work' we want more of. Tagging for any cosmetic chem folks lurking.
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32 posts
If 0.1–0.2% is the real working range, the commercial serums charging $90 for 30mL of '2%' are either lying or using way less peptide than labeled. Is there any independent testing?
50 posts
@bac_water_noob good catch — I was going to use citric. What's a better option?
22 posts
pH 5.5 buffered how? Citric? That'll chelate the copper off the peptide.
205 posts
Lactic acid works, or a phosphate buffer. Avoid anything with strong chelation properties (citric, EDTA, ascorbic). The copper is the whole point.
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Saving this thread. Been meaning to DIY and the chelation issue is exactly the kind of thing I would have missed.
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12 posts
Worth stating out loud: 'percent' in bodybuilding peptide talk and 'percent' in cosmetic chem mean different things. Posting this math helps new people not assume the higher number is the effective one.
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