Melanotan I (Afamelanotide / Scenesse)

When to stay put vs. adjust

Get a baseline full-body skin check from a dermatologist before any use. This applies to every melanocortin agonist that increases pigmentation. Photograph any concerning moles or lesions. Without baseline, you can't detect "new or changing" later, and pigmentation-shift detection is the single most important safety surveillance for this drug class.

Stay put at 250 mcg daily for the first 3–5 days to assess tolerance. The first doses are when nausea, facial flushing, and any unusual reactions are most likely. The Scenesse Phase 3 program reported these effects as common but typically transient and dose-dependent — starting low lets you confirm tolerance before scaling up.

Step to 500 mcg daily after the first week if 250 mcg was tolerated, then optionally 1000 mcg once tan begins to develop and you want a faster build. Pigmentation builds gradually over 2–6 weeks. Resist the urge to escalate just because results aren't visible immediately — that's the most common pattern that pushes users into unnecessary side effects.

Inject in the evening after a full meal. Nausea is the most-reported acute side effect across the melanocortin-agonist class, and empty-stomach injection makes it worse. Evening timing also lets you sleep through the worst of any first-dose response.

Move to maintenance at 4–6 weeks of loading. Once your target pigmentation is reached, switch to 500–1000 mcg 1–2× weekly to maintain. Continuing daily loading past the point pigmentation has plateaued doesn't add benefit and increases cumulative exposure.

Don't go above 1000 mcg per dose. Side effects scale faster than benefit at higher doses. The Scenesse 16 mg implant releases over ~60 days, which works out to roughly 270 mcg/day equivalent — community research-peptide doses well above 1 mg/day are pushing exposure beyond what the approved depot represents, without supporting evidence that the higher dose helps.

Watch for: any new or changing mole or pigmented lesion (stop and see a dermatologist), persistent severe nausea, facial flushing that doesn't settle within hours, or unusual fatigue. Most acute effects are mild and transient; persistence beyond the first week or two warrants a pause.

Hard contraindications: personal or strong family history of melanoma, history of significant skin cancers, any current pigmented lesion you haven't shown a dermatologist, pregnancy or trying to conceive, severe liver or kidney disease. EPP patients should be on Scenesse via the certified specialty channel, not on research-peptide MT-1.

The honest read. MT-1 sits in an unusual position on this site: the molecule is FDA-approved (as Scenesse for EPP), but the form most users are interacting with (lyophilized research-peptide vial for off-label cosmetic use) operates outside that approval. The clinical trial data for the molecule is real and the safety profile is meaningfully better-characterized than Melanotan II. But the research-peptide supply chain doesn't have the manufacturing oversight the approved product does, and the off-label cosmetic use isn't the indication the trials validated. If you have EPP, get Scenesse through a certified specialty center — the implant is the validated delivery and the supply chain is regulated. If you're using research-peptide MT-1 cosmetically, you're using a chemical relative of an approved drug obtained outside that approval channel; the molecule's safety record is favorable but the supply quality is not the same as the approved product.