Melanotan II Wikipedia PDF) Increasing illegal use of Melanotan: The Barbie drug hype Background Your body already makes a hormone that tells your skin to tan. Melanotan 2 is a synthetic peptide engineered to mimic that hormone but in a version that's more potent and longer lasting than Liv injected melanotan 2 for two months. It gave her headaches but she felt it was worth it until she found a strange mole. Soon she was diagnosed with stage one melanoma