Melanotan I

Most people who search for melanotan I want color without the sun. For women who burn in minutes, who've watched a dermatologist freeze something off their shoulder, or who simply stopped lying out years ago, a tan that doesn't cost a sunburn is the whole appeal.

The reason people pick melanotan I over its better-known sibling is focus. Melanotan II acts on skin, appetite and desire all at once, and many of the people asking about melanotan I have read about the nausea, flushing and libido effects that come along with it and want something that sticks closer to skin. That's the difference people describe, and it matches how the two compounds are built.

A smaller group comes to it through the approved drug. Afamelanotide, the same molecule, is prescribed as Scenesse to adults with erythropoietic protoporphyria, a rare inherited condition where light on the skin causes severe pain. That approval is why melanotan I has a more complete safety record than most compounds sold for research.

The skin studies add one more reason people are curious. In fair-skinned volunteers, the color melanotan I produced came with fewer sunburned cells after a measured dose of UV light, and less of the DNA damage UV causes in the skin's deepest layer. That's a lab measurement after a controlled exposure, not proof it prevents sunburn on a beach, and it's the reason the label still says to keep up sun protection.

Your skin has pigment cells that make melanin, the dark pigment behind a tan. The body tells them to get to work with a hormone called alpha-MSH, which it releases more of after sun exposure. Melanotan I is a lab-made copy of that hormone with two small swaps that stop the body from breaking it down in minutes, so the signal lasts.

Think of melanotan II as a master key that opens several doors at once, skin, appetite and desire. Melanotan I is closer to a key cut mainly for the skin's door. It still reaches other receptors, but it works mostly on the pigment cells, and that's the reason its side effects are a shorter list.

The human studies back up the skin part. In a small study at the University of Arizona, ten daily injections over two weeks darkened the face, neck and forearms, and skin samples showed the dark kind of melanin had roughly doubled in the forearm a week after the last dose. In a larger Australian study of fair-skinned volunteers, melanin rose in everyone who got it, the biggest change came in people who started out palest, and their skin showed fewer sunburn cells after measured UV light.

Melanotan I is an injection under the skin. Research vendors sell it as freeze-dried powder, almost always in 10 mg vials, with a few 12 mg listings. You mix it with bacteriostatic water (sterile water with a preservative, so one vial can be drawn from more than once), and once it's mixed, a vial keeps for 28 days in the fridge.

The approved product works differently. Scenesse is a 16 mg implant, a small rod about two-thirds of an inch long, that a trained clinician places under the skin above the hip once every 2 months, per its FDA label. It releases the drug slowly, so nobody injects anything day to day, and the label tells clinicians to watch the patient for 30 minutes after it goes in.

We don't have a melanotan I dosage page yet, and no vendor convention for research vials is sourced well enough to print here. The skin studies scaled the amount to each person's body weight, which works out to about 10.9 mg a day for someone who weighs 150 pounds, given for 10 days at a time. That's far more than a 10 mg vial holds and nothing like the implant. Those study amounts are a record of what was tested, not a pattern anyone has set for research vials.

If you're comparing vials, compare the cost per milligram rather than the sticker price, since the 10 mg and 12 mg listings make the sticker misleading. We track 25 vendors with a live melanotan I listing.

Melanotan I has an unusually good paper trail for a research compound, because its molecule went through the trials needed for approval. In the three Scenesse trials, the most common side effects were reactions where the implant went in, such as bruising, redness or swelling, followed by nausea, sore throat, cough, tiredness, dizziness and darker skin.

The one the label singles out is moles. Scenesse can darken existing moles and freckles, and the label recommends a full-body skin check twice a year to watch old and new spots. That's a sensible habit for anyone using melanotan I, since a darker mole is harder to judge by eye.

Two more points need care. The label tells patients to keep up sun protection during treatment, so a melanotan tan isn't a reason to skip sunscreen. And the trial safety data comes from patients using the approved implant under a clinician's care, which isn't the same as daily injections from a research vial. A vendor that publishes independent lab results for each batch is the one to look for, because the vial itself is part of the question.

The label also says there are no data on whether afamelanotide passes into breast milk, and it hasn't been studied in children.

There are two melanotans, and people mix them up all the time. Melanotan II is shorter, folded into a ring, and stronger, and it reaches more of the body's receptors, which is why it brings appetite, libido and nausea along with the tan. Melanotan I keeps the straight shape of the body's own hormone and stays closer to skin.

Amounts don't carry over between the two, so a melanotan II dose isn't a melanotan I dose. Melanotan II also has a descendant of its own, PT-141, approved as Vyleesi for women's low sexual desire.

The molecule is FDA approved as Scenesse, first approved in 2019, to increase pain-free light exposure in adults who've had painful reactions from erythropoietic protoporphyria. It's a prescription implant placed by a trained clinician, and it isn't approved for cosmetic tanning.

Research vials of melanotan I are a different product. In the US they're sold by research vendors labeled for research use, and they aren't the approved drug even though the molecule matches. Whatever a listing calls it, MT-1, Melanotan 1 or Melanotan I, the certificate of analysis for your batch should name the compound plainly. If it names afamelanotide, that's the same molecule under its drug name, not a different product.

We haven't written a head-to-head page for melanotan I yet. The compound people weigh it against is melanotan II, the stronger and less selective tanning peptide. If desire rather than color is the goal, PT-141 is the approved option that targets it directly.

Scenesse has a label and a clinician behind it, and the melanotan I vials sold online are sold for research. Neither one is cleared for cosmetic tanning.