The "tan, skinny, horny" peptide. It's a synthetic version of the hormone that tells your skin to make melanin, so you build a deep tan with far less sun, and it dials down appetite and turns up libido at the same time.
Your starting dose
5units
250 mcg
2× a week, then continue as needed to keep the tan
Your insulin syringe is marked 0 to 100. That whole line is 1 mL. Draw to the 5 mark.
01
The protocolHow to mix it, how much to draw, and how long a vial lasts.
The numbers
Vial10 mg
Mix with2 mL BAC water → makes 50 mcg = 1 unit
Dose5 units (250 mcg), start LOW, it's potent
Frequency2× a week, then continue as needed to keep the tan
WhenPM, under the skin (belly), the night before sun / before bed
CycleAs needed, no fixed on/off; run it to build then maintain
Units made simple: your insulin syringe is marked 0 to 100. That whole line = 1 mL. Just draw to the 5 mark, that's your 250 mcg dose. Start here and don't rush it; nausea and blood-pressure effects climb with the dose.
How long one bottle lasts
Per dose 5u250 mcg, one 10 mg vial holds 40 of these doses
At 2×/week~20 weeks (about 5 months)
MaintenanceOnce tan, most drop to 1×/week → a bottle stretches even longer
One 10 mg vial = 200 units total. At 5 units a shot that's 40 doses, so a single bottle covers a full summer and then some.
02
What it doesWhat you get, how it does it, and what to know before you run it.
What it actually does
Tan with far less sunThe flagship. It tells your skin to make melanin directly (via the MC1R receptor), so you build deep, lasting color without frying yourself in UV. Especially useful if you burn easily or tan poorly.
Appetite suppressionThe "skinny", it activates MC4 in the brain, and users naturally eat less.
LibidoThe "horny", the same MC4 signal drives arousal, in men and women. It's real enough that a sister molecule (bremelanotide) is FDA-approved for female libido.
The metabolic angleBecause it's non-selective, it also touches the melanocortin system's role in energy balance, research shows α-MSH can raise energy expenditure and switch on brown fat (your calorie-burning fat). This is why it's a melanocortin hack, not just a tanning shot.
How it works
It's a synthetic copy of α-MSH, the hormone that switches on your tanning system. It binds MC1R to drive melanin (the tan), and because it's non-selective it also hits the MC3/MC4/MC5 receptors spread across your nervous, metabolic, and cardiovascular systems, which is why the same shot also lowers appetite, raises libido, and touches metabolism (brown fat / calorie-burning). It's lipophilic, so it crosses the blood-brain barrier, that's how a belly shot produces those central appetite and arousal effects. The reframe: you're not sunburning your way to color; you're telling your skin to make pigment directly, and telling a master-regulator system to do what it already does.
What to know before you run it
It was built to fight skin cancer. Melanotan was developed in the 1980s at the University of Arizona, the goal was to give people (including melanoma-risk patients) a protective tan without the UV that causes skin cancer. The internet later turned it into "the Barbie drug," but its origin is a cancer-research lab.
It's a whole-system hack, not a vanity toy. One shot touches pigment, appetite, libido, and metabolism because it works on the melanocortin system, a genuine master regulator, not a single on/off switch.
The pigment outlasts the peptide. The compound clears your body in about an hour, but the tan it builds sticks around for weeks, which is why you dose to build, then coast on maintenance.
There's a gentler cousin. Melanotan 1 tans you only, slower to build, but far easier on your moles, with none of the appetite/libido hit. Worth knowing if you're mole-cautious.
Start LOW and go slow, it's potent, and the nausea/blood-pressure effects scale straight up with the dose. There's no prize for rushing the tan.
The 30-minute sun window is the whole game: dose, get brief UV, done. Skip the sun and the pigment piles onto your moles instead of your whole body.
Want the tan without the appetite/libido effects? Melanotan 1 is skin-only, slower, but far gentler on your moles.
Ginger AM and MT2 later is the single best nausea fix. Astaxanthin and vitamin C keep the skin healthy while you build color.
03
How to run itMixing, injecting, what to eat, and what to take alongside it.
Mixing and injecting
Mix: add the 2 mL of BAC water slowly down the side of the vial. Swirl gently, never shake.
Store: in the fridge after mixing.
Inject: into belly fat, ~2 inches from your belly button. Pinch, go straight in, push slow. Rotate the spot, fresh pin every time.