5 min read
Telling a supplier from a reseller
Most shops in this market buy the same material from the same few places. What separates them is what they can tell you about it.
Very few of the websites selling research peptides make anything. The material is synthesised by a smaller number of manufacturers and moves through a chain of hands before it reaches a vial with a brand on it. That is not a scandal — it is how most specialised chemistry is distributed — but it does determine what a seller can honestly tell you.
What position in the chain changes
Somebody who buys finished, labelled vials cannot tell you which batch they came from, cannot produce the chromatogram, and cannot answer a question about the synthesis. Somebody who buys bulk material and has it tested can do all three. The second costs more and takes longer, which is exactly why the first is common.
You can usually tell them apart with three questions, and you do not need any chemistry to ask them.
Three questions
| Ask | What the answer tells you |
|---|---|
| Can I see the certificate for this batch before I order? | A seller who has it will send it. A seller who does not will offer a different batch’s certificate, or ask you to order first. |
| Which laboratory did the analysis? | A name can be checked. "Third-party tested" without one is a claim about itself. |
| Can I see the chromatogram, not just the percentage? | The trace is the evidence behind the number. A seller who only ever has the number is passing on what they were told. |
Things that look like signals but are not
- A laboratory photo on the homepage. Stock photography is cheap.
- "Pharmaceutical grade." The phrase has no agreed meaning in this market, and the compounds are not pharmaceuticals.
- A purity number in the product title. Without the certificate behind it, it is a design element.
- Reviews about how a compound felt. Those tell you nothing about what was in the vial, and they describe a use the material is not supplied for.
What we do, so you can hold us to it
We buy bulk material, have it independently analysed, and issue a certificate per batch. Every vial carries its batch number, and you can look that batch up before you open it — or before you order it. If a certificate we publish does not match the vial in your hand, we want to hear about it, because that is a failure of the one thing we are claiming to be good at.