I Started Keeping Placenta in the Fridge
How a strange little ampoule became part of my routine
I didn't set out to become someone who keeps boxes of placenta in the house.
At some point, though, I realised I had started buying Laennec regularly, keeping Melsmon around, and thinking about placental extracts often enough that they had quietly become part of my routine. It wasn't some grand decision. I was curious, I tried something, I liked it, and then I started wondering what I was actually using.
That last part is usually where things get dangerous for me. One question becomes a paper, the paper leads to another paper, and eventually I'm comparing pharmaceutical manufacturing processes at one in the morning and wondering why nobody thought to make the terminology easier to understand.
Somewhere along the way, there were more boxes in the cupboard.
How I got here
My first interest in placenta wasn't really about the idea of injecting placenta. It was about the products themselves.
Laennec and Melsmon kept appearing in conversations around skin, recovery, inflammation, women's health and ageing. They had a slightly strange reputation because they seemed to sit somewhere between conventional medicine and the world of aesthetic treatments.
The more I looked, the more complicated the story became.
These aren't simply cosmetic products with a fashionable ingredient added to the label. Laennec and Melsmon are pharmaceutical preparations made from human placental tissue, with long histories of medical use in Japan.
Laennec has an established indication relating to hepatic function in chronic liver disease, while Melsmon has a different medical history, particularly around menopausal disorders and insufficient milk secretion.
That didn't tell me whether they were useful for the things I was interested in, but it did make me want to understand them properly.
I don't think placenta is magic
The more I researched these products, the less interested I became in the miracle claims surrounding them.
There is legitimate biology here. Placental extracts contain complex mixtures of peptides, amino acids and other compounds, and the final composition depends on how the original tissue is processed. Researchers have investigated effects involving inflammation, oxidative stress, fibroblasts, extracellular-matrix proteins and a range of other biological pathways.
There are human studies as well, although the evidence varies considerably depending on the preparation and the question being studied.
None of that adds up to placenta fixes everything.
There is a considerable distance between finding a biological effect in a laboratory and demonstrating a meaningful clinical outcome in a person. The more I have read, the more comfortable I have become with that distinction. I don't need every interesting mechanism to turn into a miracle treatment for the research to be worth following.
What I actually like about Laennec
Part of the appeal for me is the history.
Laennec wasn't created as an Instagram beauty treatment. It has been used as a pharmaceutical preparation in Japan for decades, with an established medical indication relating to liver function.
Laennec: official product information
That gives the modern aesthetic story a different context.
Something with a long medical history has gradually found its way into conversations about skin, ageing, recovery and general wellbeing. The questions being asked about it have changed depending on the setting, but the product's medical history came first.
I'm not sure that means every modern claim deserves to be taken seriously. It does mean there is a much longer story underneath the aesthetic packaging.
Then there is Melsmon
Melsmon has its own history and its own place in Japanese medicine. Its approved indications are associated with menopausal disorders and insufficient milk secretion, which makes its modern reputation as a skin treatment only part of the story.
That difference between Laennec and Melsmon eventually became one of the things I wanted to understand better. If they are both made from human placenta, why are they used differently? Are they actually different? Does the manufacturing process change what is in the finished preparation? And when people talk about “placenta” as though it were one thing, what are they actually talking about?
Those questions eventually became their own rabbit hole.
The emotional support stash
There is also the completely irrational part of this.
I like having a stash.
There is something reassuring about opening the cupboard and seeing several boxes sitting there. I don't need to use them immediately. I just like knowing they're available, and when I have several boxes on hand I don't have to think about replacing anything straight away.
My current inventory is three boxes of Laennec, two boxes of Melsmon and one and a half boxes of Melamin. By any normal standard, this is probably more than enough.
Still, I've noticed that my brain has developed its own inventory system. Three boxes feels comfortable, two boxes gets my attention, and one box means I start thinking about the next order.
There is no rational reason for this. I am not preparing for a placenta shortage, and nobody is going to wake me up in the middle of the night because the household Laennec supply has fallen below acceptable levels.
Apparently my brain has simply decided that Laennec inventory is a measure of household security.
If you're wondering how this became a full-blown inventory situation, I eventually became curious enough about what happens to these products after they enter the body to give that question its own special study: The Pharmacokinetics of My Emotional Support Stash.
I even have a theory about the Significant Other
My personal Laennec philosophy can be reduced to a very simple equation: Laennec → health → work harder → money → winning.
I have presented this theory to my husband. I consider it a sound investment thesis, although he remains unconvinced.
I stand by it.
And this is where the science matters
The reason I wanted to research all of this properly wasn't to prove that my stash was justified. It was almost the opposite. I wanted to understand what I was actually talking about when I said I liked placenta.
What is in it? How is it made? Why are Laennec and Melsmon different? What evidence exists around skin, menopause, liver function, inflammation and recovery? And, perhaps most importantly, where does the evidence stop?
That last question has become increasingly important as I have gone further into regenerative medicine more generally.
There is a big difference between a placental extract, a preparation made from processed placental tissue, and an actual cell-based therapy involving viable cells such as mesenchymal stromal cells. Placental extracts can sit in the same conversations as placental or umbilical MSCs, secretomes and extracellular vesicles, but that doesn't make them the same thing.
The material, the manufacturing process and the biology all matter.
The more I read, the more I find myself wanting to separate the material itself from the story being told about it. A laboratory experiment can show that a preparation changes fibroblast behaviour. A clinical study can show an improvement in a particular outcome. An animal study can suggest a mechanism that might be worth investigating in humans.
None of those automatically proves that an injectable will produce a particular aesthetic or regenerative result.
I've become much more comfortable with that distinction. I can look at a study showing changes in extracellular-matrix behaviour and think the biology deserves further investigation without turning it into proof that an injectable reverses skin ageing. I can find a promising clinical result without pretending it is definitive, and I can look at an animal study and think the mechanism is worth following while still waiting to see what happens in humans.
And I can still like the product.
Those things can exist at the same time.
I think that is what I was actually looking for
I wasn't looking for proof that placenta is amazing, or a reason to believe every aesthetic claim attached to it. I certainly wasn't looking for permission to call it a miracle.
I wanted to understand why this strange little ampoule has survived for so long.
Why doctors studied it. Why Japanese pharmaceutical companies continued producing it. Why women have continued using placenta preparations. Why researchers are still investigating them. And why, decades later, people are still curious about what a complex biological extract might actually be capable of doing.
There are still enormous gaps in the evidence. We don't know which components are responsible for which effects, how much of the laboratory biology translates into meaningful human outcomes, or whether some of the aesthetic applications will eventually prove to be as useful as people hope.
But there is enough there to keep looking.
So yes, I still love Laennec
After all of this research, I haven't become convinced that Laennec is magic. I've become more interested in what it actually is.
When I look at those little amber ampoules now, I don't just see an aesthetic injectable. I see decades of Japanese medical history, a complicated biological preparation, a surprisingly strange research trail and a collection of questions that haven't been completely answered.
I also see my emotional support stash.
Three boxes of Laennec, two Melsmon and one and a half Melamin. Which, frankly, feels about right.
And if anyone asks why I need another box, I have spent seven posts researching this.
I have evidence.
C·🌷
Research notes
Laennec Japan Bio Products Official product information, composition, indication and safety information. Manufacturer information
Human placental extracts Biological effects of human placental extracts: variations in manufacturing methods and compositions. Full review
Human placental extract and skin biology Chang et al., 2022 Human placental extract activates a wide array of gene expressions related to skin functions. Full study
Placental extract and menopause Efficacy and Safety of Placental Extract on Menopausal Symptoms: A Systematic Review. Systematic review
Melsmon and stress-induced inflammation Oka et al., 2026 Human placental extract, melsmon, suppresses stress-induced neuroinflammation and peripheral inflammation in a mouse model of depression. Full study