Best Peptide Serums UK 2026: The Ordinary, Medik8 and Norva
·10 min read
Verdict: For most people on a budget, The Ordinary Multi-Peptide + HA Serum is the sensible buy: five peptide technologies for under £16. If you want the broadest peptide blend in a fragrance-free formula and price is no object, Medik8 Liquid Peptides is the strongest of the three on paper at £59. Our Peptide Anti-Ageing Serum sits between them at £30 and is the pick if you want one named peptide at a printed 2%, in a richer base for normal to dry skin, and a subscription that brings it to £27. It is not the automatic winner, and we say where it loses.
Feature
The Ordinary Multi-Peptide + HA Serum
Norva Peptide Anti-Ageing Serum
Price for 30 ml (checked 29 September 2026)
£15.90, on offer at £14.31
£30, or £27 a month on subscription
Peptides listed
SYN-AKE, Matrixyl synthe'6, Matrixyl 3000, Argirelox, acetylarginyltryptophyl diphenylglycine (no percentages)
2% hexapeptide-11 (printed on the label)
Hydrators
Hyaluronic acid complex
Hyaluronic acid (two forms)
Fragrance
Not listed among ingredients; stated alcohol-free
Fragranced: delicate floral with soft amber notes
Skin type
Most skin types
Normal, dry and dehydrated skin
Made in
Not stated on the product page
We sell a peptide serum, so a "best peptide serums UK" page written by us needs a health warning at the top. Here it is: we have a horse in this race. What we have tried to do is compare facts we checked today, quote only what each brand says on its own UK product page, and give a verdict that we would give a friend, even where it sends them somewhere else.
Which is the best peptide serum in the UK right now?
There is no single best peptide serum, because the three products below are built for three different buyers. If you want the most peptide technology for the least money, buy The Ordinary Multi-Peptide + HA Serum. If you want the biggest fragrance-free blend and can spend £59, buy Medik8 Liquid Peptides. If you want a single named peptide at a stated percentage in a richer base for normal to dry skin, at a mid price, ours is the fit. That is the short answer. The rest of this page is the reasoning.
How we picked these three
We chose products that are widely available in the UK, that publish their ingredient lists in full, and that between them cover the price range most people are actually choosing from. We fetched each competitor's UK product page on 29 September 2026 and recorded the price and the peptides as listed there. We have not repeated any claim we could not see on the page. If you are reading this months later, prices will have moved, so treat the numbers as a snapshot.
Price checked 29 September 2026: £15.90 for 30 ml, on offer at £14.31 on the day we looked. A 60 ml size is also listed.
Peptides, as stated by The Ordinary: five peptide technologies, named as SYN-AKE, Matrixyl synthe'6, Matrixyl 3000, ARGIRELOX and acetylarginyltryptophyl diphenylglycine. The INCI list includes acetyl hexapeptide-8, pentapeptide-18, palmitoyl tripeptide-1, palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7 and palmitoyl tripeptide-38. No percentage is given for any individual peptide. The page states the formula is alcohol-free.
This page is for general information and does not constitute medical advice. Cold water immersion is not a medical treatment. Consult a professional if you have cardiovascular conditions. Competitor prices and policies were checked at the date shown above and may have changed since.
Our take. This is the value pick, and it is not close. Five peptide technologies for under £16 is remarkable, and the formula is a light water gel that suits most skin types. What you give up is transparency on dose: you know which peptides are in there, but not how much of each. That is standard for multi-peptide blends, so we are not criticising The Ordinary for it, just noting it. If you have never used a peptide serum and want to see whether the category does anything for you, this is the cheapest sensible way to find out.
Medik8 Liquid Peptides
Price checked 29 September 2026: £59 for 30 ml. An 8 ml travel size is also listed.
Peptides, as stated by Medik8: a "30% Complex Multi-Peptide blend containing 10 peptides". The page names Matrixyl 3000, a drone-targeted copper peptide, an expression line peptide and carnosine, and the INCI list includes palmitoyl tripeptide-5, acetyl hexapeptide-8, tetrapeptide-21, pentapeptide-18, palmitoyl tripeptide-1, palmitoyl tripeptide-38, palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7, copper palmitoyl heptapeptide-14 and heptapeptide-15 palmitate. The page states the product is fragrance free.
Our take. On paper this is the most ambitious formula of the three: ten peptides, a copper peptide included, and no fragrance. Medik8 makes several efficacy claims on the page, including visible smoothing of fine lines in seven days and a consumer-perception figure that 98% agreed it was instantly hydrating. We have not seen the underlying studies, so we are reporting those as Medik8's claims rather than as established results. If you want to know how to read claims like those, our guide to reading small skincare trials explains what to ask.
One thing worth understanding about the "30%" figure: in cosmetic formulation a percentage like that almost always refers to the pre-mixed peptide solution, which includes its water and solvent, not to 30% pure peptide. That is not a criticism of Medik8; it is how every brand, including us, has to talk about supplier blends. It does mean "30%" and our "2% hexapeptide-11" are not measuring the same thing, and you should not compare them as if they were.
At £59, this is nearly four times The Ordinary and twice ours. Whether that premium is worth it depends on how much you value breadth and the fragrance-free formula.
Norva Peptide Anti-Ageing Serum
Price: £30 for 30 ml. On a subscription, £27 every 30 days for one bottle (10% off), £51 every 60 days for two (15% off), or £72 every 90 days for three (20% off).
Peptides: one, hexapeptide-11, at 2%, printed on the label. Alongside it: hyaluronic acid in two forms (hydrolysed hyaluronic acid and sodium hyaluronate), 1% ginkgo biloba extract, and blueberry and strawberry seed oils. The base includes aloe leaf juice and jojoba oil. It is made in the EU for normal, dry and dehydrated skin.
Fragrance: yes. Delicate floral with soft amber notes. The ingredient list includes parfum along with linalool, geraniol and citronellol from natural essential oils.
Our take, trying to be fair. The case for our serum is simplicity and disclosure. One peptide, one number, and a base with enough oil in it that drier skin does not need to layer a heavy cream on top. Hexapeptide-11 has a published study showing it improved measured skin elasticity in human skin deformation tests and switched on cell-protective genes in skin fibroblasts (Sklirou and colleagues, 2015). That is more published mechanism than most single peptides can point to.
The case against is just as clear. We have one peptide where the others have five or ten. We are fragranced where Medik8 is fragrance-free and The Ordinary lists no fragrance. And at £30 we are double The Ordinary's price. If any of those three things is your deciding factor, we are not your serum.
| | The Ordinary Multi-Peptide + HA | Medik8 Liquid Peptides | Norva Peptide Anti-Ageing Serum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price, 30 ml (29 Sep 2026) | £15.90 (offer £14.31) | £59 | £30 (£27 on monthly plan) |
| Peptides listed | 5 peptide technologies | 10 peptides in a 30% complex | 1 peptide, hexapeptide-11 at 2% |
| Percentage disclosed | No | Blend percentage only | Yes, for the peptide |
| Fragrance | None listed | Fragrance free (stated) | Fragranced, floral and amber |
| Base | Light water gel | Light serum | Richer, with jojoba and seed oils |
| Skin type | Most | Not stated on page | Normal, dry, dehydrated |
| Subscription | Not on page | Not on page | 10% to 20% off |
| Made in | Not stated | Not stated | EU |
What "more peptides" does and does not buy you
It is tempting to rank these by peptide count. Ten beats five beats one. But the research on topical peptides does not support that arithmetic. A review of controlled studies on cosmetic peptides in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science grouped them into signal, carrier, enzyme-inhibitor and neurotransmitter-inhibitor peptides, and the honest summary is that each peptide has its own small evidence base and there is very little research on what happens when you combine them (Gorouhi and Maibach, 2009). Ten peptides at trace doses may do less than one at a working dose, or more. Nobody has run that trial.
What we can say is that the immediate feel of any of these serums comes mostly from the hyaluronic acid and the base, not the peptide. All three contain hyaluronic acid. That is why they all feel like they are "working" in week one, and why you should wait until week six or eight before judging the peptides themselves.
What all three need to work
Whichever you buy, the same two things matter more than the choice between them.
Consistency. Twice a day, every day, for at least eight weeks. A £59 serum used three times a week will lose to a £15 serum used every morning and night.
Sunscreen. In a 4.5-year randomised trial of 903 adults, daily sunscreen users showed 24% less measured skin ageing than people who used sunscreen when they felt like it (Hughes and colleagues, 2013). No peptide serum has evidence anywhere near that. If you are choosing between a premium peptide serum and a good daily SPF, buy the SPF. Our Tinted Mineral Sunscreen SPF30 is £26 if you want one from us; any broad-spectrum SPF you will actually wear is fine.
Who should buy which
Buy The Ordinary if: you are new to peptides, on a budget, have oily or combination skin, or want to test the category before spending more.
Buy Medik8 if: you want the widest blend, you react to fragrance, and £59 for 30 ml is comfortable. It is the only one of the three that is both fragrance-free and multi-peptide.
Buy ours if: your skin runs normal to dry, you like knowing exactly which peptide you are using and at what percentage, you are happy with a light floral scent, and you want the subscription price of £27. Bundled with the matching cream and eye cream as The Peptide Routine, the three come to £73, which is £13 less than separately.
Buy none of them if: you are not yet using sunscreen daily, or you have a diagnosed skin condition and have not asked your GP or dermatologist about adding actives. Peptide serums are cosmetics for how skin looks. They are not treatments.
How we checked, and what we could not check
For each competitor we opened the brand's own UK product page on 29 September 2026 and wrote down the price shown, the sizes offered, the peptides named in the marketing copy, the peptides in the INCI list and any statement about fragrance or alcohol. We did not use third-party retailers, because their prices and stock move independently of the brand, and we did not use review sites, because we cannot verify what they were looking at.
What we could not check is anything behind the claims. Neither The Ordinary nor Medik8 publishes the percentage of each individual peptide, so "five technologies" and "ten peptides" are counts, not doses. Medik8's seven-day and four-week results are described on its page as clinically proven, but the study design, participant numbers and controls are not shown there, so we have reported them as the brand's claims. The same limitation applies to us in reverse: we publish 2% for our peptide, but we have not run a trial on the finished serum, and the study we cite is on the ingredient, not our bottle.
If you want to go further than we can, the ingredient list is public on all three products, and the peptide names in it can be searched on Europe PMC or PubMed. Ten minutes of that will tell you more than any "best of" page, including this one.
Who this page is not for
If you react to fragrance, skip ours entirely and look at The Ordinary or Medik8; we would rather say so than have you find out. If you want a copper peptide specifically, none of these three is built around one (Medik8 includes copper peptides in its blend but is not a copper peptide serum in the usual sense), and we do not sell one. And if you want a definitive ranking backed by head-to-head trials, that page does not exist anywhere, because those trials have not been run.
The bottom line
Best value: The Ordinary Multi-Peptide + HA Serum, £15.90. Best on breadth and fragrance-free: Medik8 Liquid Peptides, £59. Best if you want one disclosed peptide in a richer base at a mid price: our Peptide Anti-Ageing Serum, £30 or £27 on a plan. Prices and peptide lists checked on the brands' UK pages on 29 September 2026. Patch test any new serum on the inner arm for 24 hours before first use.
