A PDRN cream is the most common way to buy PDRN, the salmon-derived DNA fragment sold as a skin booster, and also the format whose evidence is thinnest. Our PDRN serum census read 41 serum labels. This page does the same for creams and then asks the question that is specific to the format: does putting PDRN in a rich, occlusive base change anything?
What we read
On 2 October 2026 we searched INCIDecoder, a public database of transcribed ingredient lists, for "PDRN cream" and read every face cream it returned with a full list: 45 products, uploaded between March 2024 and August 2026. We left out eye creams, a tinted BB cream and entries without a full list. Several brands appear more than once, usually as different products in a line, and in two cases as the same product uploaded under slightly different names; we counted every list as uploaded. INCIDecoder lists are typed in by users from packaging. We did not check each against a physical pack, formulas change, and a brand's own site is the authority for its current list.
Finding 1: the DNA sits mid-list
Of the 45 creams, 43 declare a DNA ingredient, and all 43 call it Sodium DNA. Two creams with PDRN in their names declare no DNA ingredient under any name; that may be a transcription gap rather than a fact about the product, so we do not name them.
Across the 43, the median position of Sodium DNA is 22nd, in a median list of 45 ingredients:
| Where Sodium DNA falls | Creams |
|---|---|
| First third of the list | 10 |
| Middle third | 18 |
| Last third | 15 |
That is later than in serums. In our serum census, the median was 14th of 37. Creams have longer lists, because emulsions need emulsifiers, thickeners and oils, and the DNA moves down accordingly. Below 1%, US labelling rules allow ingredients in any order, so position is a rough guide to amount, not a measurement.
Finding 2: a 20,000-fold range in stated amounts
12 of the 43 declarations state an amount next to Sodium DNA. They run as follows:
| Stated amount | As a percentage | Creams |
|---|---|---|
| 5,000 ppm | 0.5% | 2 |
| 1,000 ppm | 0.1% | 1 |
| 100 ppm | 0.01% | 1 |
| 1 ppm | 0.0001% | 1 |
| 0.5 ppm | 0.00005% | 4 |
| 250 ppb | 0.000025% | 1 |
Two further figures are garbled in transcription ("1 200 ppm" and "10 Oppm") and are left out of the table. Of the ten readable figures, the highest is 20,000 times the lowest. Three of the four 0.5 ppm declarations are on creams with the number 100 in the product name (two products, one uploaded twice); the ingredient list does not say what that number refers to, and it is not the amount of Sodium DNA on the list. A cream named after PDRN can contain less than a millionth of its weight as DNA, and the label is the only place a buyer can see that.
For scale: the topical PDRN trial this site has found, discussed below, used 0.1%, which is 1,000 ppm.
Finding 3: no label names the source
None of the 43 declarations names the organism the DNA came from. Product names and marketing say "salmon", and some say "salmon DNA" in the description, but the ingredient list says Sodium DNA in every case. The same was true of the serums. The source matters to readers with fish allergies or dietary rules, and on these labels it is a marketing statement, not a declared one.
Finding 4: half are also peptide creams
23 of the 43 creams declaring Sodium DNA also declare at least one peptide. PDRN is a DNA fragment, not a peptide, as our PDRN guide sets out, but the two are sold together. A cream that works, if it does, could be working through its peptides, its niacinamide, its moisturisers, or its DNA, and no label-level evidence separates them.
What a cream base can change
This is the format question. 41 of the 45 creams contain at least one oil, butter, silicone, fatty alcohol or similar ingredient — shea butter, squalane, dimethicone, cetearyl alcohol and the like — that slows water loss from the skin's surface. A serum is usually watery and dries down; a cream sits on the skin longer and partly seals it.
The research on occlusion supports a modest claim. A 2001 review by Zhai and Maibach found that occluding skin "often, but not always, increases percutaneous absorption of applied chemicals", by hydrating the outer layer and changing its lipids (PMID 11174085). A companion review noted occlusion also compromises the barrier's normal function (PMID 12005114). So a cream can plausibly hold an ingredient against the skin for longer and in a more hydrated layer than a serum does.
What occlusion does not change is the size of the molecule. Trial-grade PDRN starts at about 50,000 daltons and runs to 1,500,000, against a rough 500-dalton rule of thumb for crossing intact skin, figures set out on our PDRN page. The occlusion literature is about small chemicals; we found no study that measured whether occlusion moves DNA fragments of this size into living skin.
The human evidence for PDRN in a cream
A PubMed search on 2 October 2026 for PDRN, polydeoxyribonucleotide or Sodium DNA with cream, ointment or emulsion returned 7 records, 3 indexed as human studies. (The same search for retinol returned 66 human records.) Read one by one:
- Ye et al., 2026 (PLoS One, PMID 42430369): a 0.1% medium-length PDRN eye cream against a 0.1% retinol eye cream in 31 women over 28 days, split-face. The PDRN side improved more, but there was no PDRN-free version of the same cream, so the trial cannot show what the PDRN contributed. It is the only record of a PDRN cream on intact skin.
- Valdatta et al., 2004 (PMID 15025849): a PDRN ointment on skin-graft donor sites, 20 patients against 20 controls, re-epithelialisation in 12.5 against 24.45 days. Donor sites are open wounds with no barrier, which is the opposite of the question a face cream raises.
- Belmontesi et al., 2020 (PMID 32892437): a single case of a surgical scar treated with PDRN injections plus nucleotide creams and supplements, so the cream's share cannot be separated.
PubMed's retracted-publication filter returned 2 PDRN records, neither of them among these three.
The eye-area version of this census, with 12 labels and the two topical eye studies, is on our PDRN eye cream page.
Reading a PDRN cream label
- Find Sodium DNA. If it is not on the list, the product does not declare a DNA ingredient, whatever the name on the jar.
- Look for a number beside it. If there is one, convert it: 10,000 ppm is 1%, 1,000 ppm is 0.1%, 1 ppm is 0.0001%.
- Do not read the product name as a dose. Numbers in names were not the declared amounts in the creams we read.
- Note what else is doing the work. Moisturisers, niacinamide and peptides each have their own evidence; the skin boosters guide separates the categories.
For the clinic version of PDRN, injected rather than applied, and the regulatory record behind it, see our polynucleotides guide. Questions about a skin condition belong with a dermatologist.
Sources
- INCIDecoder product pages for 45 PDRN face creams found by the search "PDRN cream", read 2026-10-02 (lists uploaded 2024-03-23 to 2026-08-19).
- Zhai H, Maibach HI. Effects of skin occlusion on percutaneous absorption: an overview. Skin Pharmacol Appl Skin Physiol 2001 (PMID 11174085); Occlusion vs. skin barrier function. Skin Res Technol 2002 (PMID 12005114).
- Ye R et al., PLoS One 2026 (PMID 42430369); Valdatta L et al., Curr Med Res Opin 2004 (PMID 15025849); Belmontesi M et al., J Cosmet Dermatol 2020 (PMID 32892437).
- PubMed E-utilities searches as described in the text, run 2026-10-02, with a retinol control and the
Retracted Publication[pt]filter.