Bodybuilding Peptide Appearance

The image below represents the appearance of a normal peptide vial. You will notice it is not a "powder" consistency but a solid white mass. This is due to freeze-drying (lypholized) and is critical to the quality of peptides. For information about why freeze-dried vials are higher purity than "loose powder" vials please refer to our article about peptide vial production.

The following are variations which may occur to the appearance of "normal" peptides in both mixed and unmixed form:

Peptide Will Not Fully Dissolve
Cloudy/Murky Appearance
Objects in Vial
Differing Amounts of "Powder"

Peptide Will Not Fully Dissolve

If a peptide does not fully dissolve in water within a few minutes, you should try to add another 1-2ml of water (so that there is 2-3ml of water total inside the vial) and then leave the vial for 24 hours in the refrigerator. Most of the time this will allow the remaining "chunks" inside the vial to completely dissolve into the solution. If you do this, always remember to then double or triple your original dosage.

Vials where the contents do not fully dissolve are still safe to use and are not contaminated. Peptide manufacturers indicate that the difference in effectiveness will not be noticeable due to the actual peptide weight which remains caught in the non-dissolved mass being such a small amount.

Non-dissolved fragments are caused by different densities inside the vial during the freeze-drying process. If the density of the vials is not the same everywhere then when water is added the parts with higher density may not dissolve as normal.

It is important to remember that peptides are designed for laboratory and research purposes and if they were being used for that purpose then any non-dissolved particles could be quickly dissolved with use of an ultrasonicator, or the addition of acetic acid to the vial. Unfortunately with peptide vials which are re-sold for human use, this is often not possible.

Cloudy/Murky Appearance

A cloudy or murky appearance of mixed vials indicates the peptide has oxidized slightly during transit. Peptides which have oxidized are still safe to use and will be 100% as effective as peptides with a normal clear appearance. The reason peptides sometimes oxidize is due to the varying temperatures and high pressure of transit by aircraft.

If you have access to acetic acid, adding a small amount this to the vial should help the contents become clear.

Objects in Vial

If there ever appears to be a small object floating inside your peptide vial, this can be one of 4 things:

•Rubber Stopper - whilst inserting the needle a small fragment/s of the rubber stopper have broken off into the vial. The vial is still completely fine to use, and there should be no concern about withdrawing/injecting the fragments of rubber as they cannot fit inside the insulin syringe needle and will therefore always remain inside the vial.
•Crack in Vial - what may appear like small thin/eyelash type contaminants inside the vial are usually hairline cracks on the outside of the glass. These vials are fine to use the damage is cosmetic only and not enough for any external air/contaminants to enter the vial.
•non-dissolved Peptide - any small white mass floating inside the vial is merely non-dissolved freeze-dried mass. There is no risk to continue using the vial and any loss of peptide quantity or effectiveness will not be noticed.
•Foreign Particle - if the object floating inside the mixed solution does not match one of the above then it would be a foreign particle which was pushed into the rubber stopper during a previous attempt to mix/withdraw the peptide solution. It us up to the user decide if they wish to discard the vial or continue using it. Usually the vials are still 100% fine to use as the particle would be too large to fit inside the insulin syringe needle and therefore there is no risk of the user injecting it into their body.

Differing Amounts of "Powder"

It is very important to always remember that the peptide itself is not actually the white mass you see inside the vial; this is just a result from the freeze-drying manufacturing process. The peptide is actually the very tiny crystals you can see scattered throughout the white mass if you look very closely at the vial. 2mg-10mg (the amount inside different vials) of peptide is very small, if you imagine one teaspoon of salt is approximately 5000mg, this puts into perspective how small less than 10mg really is - it can barely be seen by the naked eye. The appearance of the white mass should therefore always be ignored.

To put it further into perspective, a vial filled with water will hold approximately 3.5ml or 3.5g (3500mg). Even if the vials were 1% full, this would equate to 35mg. Vials of GHRP peptides are sometimes 1/4 (25%) full and they do not contain 875mg, but rather still only 5mg of peptide.

The difference in appearance between vials from the same batch can be accounted for by variances in production and transit. Whilst peptides are in the drying phase of their freeze-dry manufacture, different portions of water may evaporate from each vial depending on the density of that part of the chamber. Vials which have more water evaporate than others will end up resulting in peptide vials with a smaller appearing white mass.

Similarly, during the high pressures of aircraft transit and high temperatures of ground transit, the freeze-dried mass inside the vial can "shrink", which results in a smaller appearance inside the vial. It should be noted however that since it is a solid, the peptide itself cannot disintegrate or be evaporated, so regardless of what form/amount the white mass takes, the amount of peptide inside the vial remains the same.