What are peptides?

Today, we are talking about my favorite ingredient, Peptides!

Peptides are a chain of amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of our cells. We have two types of amino acids:

• Non-essential amino acids, which our body and skin cells make.
• Essential amino acids that our body and skin cannot make but are required to stay healthy.

When you eat protein or apply a peptide on your skin, that supplies your cells with essential amino acids your body and skin need to stay healthy. You may be thinking, “If I eat protein I’m good, right?” Nutrients we get from food don’t always get to the skin. Our skin is an external organ, and putting a peptide on the skin topically is important.

Peptides are serums

Peptides are part of your serum step, serums go in the middle of your skincare routine. First, wash your face, next put your serum on, and lastly moisturize. 

When shopping for peptides, not all peptides are created equal. When you read a label and it says the word “peptide”, you don’t know what’s in that peptide. The interesting thing about formulating products is manufacturers will take a drop of amino acid, about 1%. Because that amino acid is in the formulation, they can write “peptide” on the label.

This particular serum is not going to help your skin, you’re basically using an expensive moisturizer. You need to be conscious of labels when shopping.

Peptides and Scrabble

A good way to understand how they formulate amino acids into peptides is like playing Scrabble. I love analogies to help you understand the skin!

• Before you start to play, you dump out all the letters. It’s just a bunch of random letters. Amino acids by themselves are random amino acids.
• Then take 7 letters to make a word. That’s putting amino acids together to make a peptide, now it has a purpose.
• You put your word on the board, it makes sense to you and the other players, plus you can play off of that word. Applying your peptide on the skin signals your cells to read that message and tells your skin how to heal itself.

Basically, when you put a peptide on your skin, you’re teaching your skin how to fix itself. 

Applying peptides is different than applying your typical serum. You want to wait 1-2 minutes before applying the next peptide. One peptide alone is not going to help your skin, these peptides work together as a system. Each peptide helps with specific functions in the skin. Peptides treat acne, aging, dark spots, dry skin, skin redness, or inflammation.

How to add peptides to your skincare routine

I do my peptides in the morning. After my shower, here’s an example of how I do my peptides:

• I apply the first peptide, put in my contacts
• I apply the second peptide, put body lotion on
• I apply the third peptide, change into my clothes
• I apply the fourth peptide, brush my teeth
• I apply the fifth peptide, grab my morning coffee

I created a reel for my Instagram page that shows how I do my peptides. Click here to watch the video

This may seem like a LOT for a morning routine, but you’re already in your bathroom getting ready. What I’m doing is adding peptides in between each step of my morning routine. Then it’s not overwhelming and totally doable.

If you have questions about peptides, please write them in the comment section below.

Check out this week’s Peptide video on YouTube

See you next week

XO
Samantha