Hydrogel under-eye patches with peptides, from Natura Siberica's Dyal line. Fifteen to twenty minutes.
What a peptide is
A short chain of amino acids — the same building blocks that make up proteins, just far fewer of them strung together. Collagen and elastin are proteins; peptides are fragments of that scale.
The theory behind putting them on skin is neat: certain short peptide sequences are the fragments the body produces when collagen breaks down, and applying them may act as a signal that repair is needed. Some specific peptides have reasonable published evidence behind them; the category as a whole is uneven, and "peptides" on a label tells you no more than "herbs" on a menu.
What twenty minutes can realistically do
Here is the honest position. Any ingredient acting on collagen production works over weeks and months of consistent use, not over twenty minutes — and a patch you use occasionally is not a course of treatment.
What a patch delivers reliably is something else, and it is genuinely worth having. A hydrogel patch is mostly water held in a gel matrix, and on the skin it both delivers water and seals the area so the water cannot evaporate. That combination — occlusion — pushes far more hydration into the top layers of skin in twenty minutes than a cream can, because a cream is competing with the air the whole time.
Hydrated skin is temporarily plumper, and plumper skin creases less. The effect is real, visible and short: hours rather than days. Which makes these excellent before an event and no substitute for a daily eye cream if long-term change is what you are after.
Getting the most from them
Chill them — cold does more for morning puffiness than anything in the serum. Fifteen to twenty minutes, not longer. Do not rinse — tap the remaining serum in and follow with your eye cream.
Note
Single use. External use only — avoid direct contact with the eye. Patch test first if your skin is reactive.