What did @morepepsmorereps actually say?
The creator recommended GHK-Cu, a copper-binding peptide, as their "number one pick" for skin quality and eye bags, citing a study on 71 women using a GHK-Cu facial cream and a separate 12-week eye cream trial in 41 women. They also flagged growth hormone secretagogues as a secondary option for collagen turnover. Crucially, they noted that eye bags are "multi factorial" and may not respond to any peptide at all.
They discussed both subcutaneous injection and topical application as delivery routes, and they stopped short of recommending specific doses or protocols. The disclaimer framing, research subject language, was thin cover for what amounts to practical usage advice aimed at a human audience. That tension between the legal disclaimer and the actual content of the video is worth naming directly.
Does the science back this up?
Partially, yes. The GHK-Cu topical data is real and reasonably solid for what it is. Two Pickart-era studies, along with more recent independent work, do support improvements in skin density, fine line reduction, and collagen synthesis with topical GHK-Cu. But the evidence base has meaningful limitations the creator glossed over.
Pickart and Margolina (2018, Cosmetics) reviewed GHK-Cu's wound-healing and skin-remodeling mechanisms, showing it activates collagen, elastin, and glycosaminoglycan synthesis. The 71-woman facial cream study the creator references matches Leyden et al. work on copper peptide cosmetics, though the journal pedigree on some of these trials is cosmetic dermatology, not high-impact randomized controlled trial territory. Effect sizes tend to be modest. The 12-week periorbital cream trial showing improvement over placebo and vitamin K cream is a real finding, but "performed better than placebo" in a cosmetics trial is a low bar. On growth hormone secretagogues improving skin, there is supportive mechanistic logic, but direct RCT evidence for skin outcomes specifically is thin.
What did they get wrong (or right)?
They got the multi-factorial nuance right. Saying eye bags "could be from various things" including sleep, hydration, and genetics before recommending GHK-Cu is exactly the caveat most peptide creators skip. That earns genuine credit.
What they got wrong, or at least incomplete: they presented the topical study results as if they cleanly transfer to subcutaneous GHK-Cu for periorbital use. The mechanisms overlap but are not identical. Systemic GHK-Cu from subcutaneous injection distributes differently than a cream applied directly to periorbital tissue. Conflating the two delivery routes as producing "the same regards" of benefit is an overreach not supported by head-to-head data.
They also described growth hormone secretagogues as filling in wrinkles, which is a stretch. GH-axis peptides like CJC-1295 and ipamorelin may improve skin thickness over time through IGF-1 mediated collagen synthesis (Rudman et al., 1990, NEJM, though that was exogenous GH), but "filling in wrinkles" overstates the cosmetic literature on secretagogues specifically.
What should you actually know?
GHK-Cu is one of the better-studied peptides in cosmetic dermatology, which is a lower bar than it sounds. The topical evidence is real but comes largely from industry-adjacent research with modest sample sizes. If you are looking at this purely from a topical skincare angle, the risk profile is low and the data is at least directionally positive.
Subcutaneous GHK-Cu for skin outcomes is a different question with far less direct evidence. The safety profile in humans is not well characterized through large-scale clinical trials. Compounded peptides sourced outside licensed pharmacy channels carry additional quality and sterility risks that no amount of "research subject" framing eliminates.
- GHK-Cu topical: some real evidence, modest effect sizes, reasonable safety profile for cosmetic use
- Subcutaneous GHK-Cu for skin: extrapolated from topical and in vitro data, not directly RCT-proven for periorbital improvement
- Growth hormone secretagogues for skin: mechanistically plausible, clinically thin for cosmetic endpoints specifically
- Eye bags: the creator is correct that they are multi-factorial. Peptides are unlikely to fix eye bags caused by fat herniation, genetics, or chronic sleep deprivation