Why I Keep a Placenta Stash
The slightly irrational comfort of having another box in the cupboard
I started this series because I have an unreasonable number of boxes of placenta in my house.
More specifically, Laennec.
My current situation is actually quite reasonable, by my standards.
Three boxes of Laennec.
Two boxes of Melsmon.
One and a half boxes of Melamin.
This is what I would call a comfortable level of placenta security.
But I have discovered that the moment one box gets finished, my brain immediately starts recalculating the inventory.
Three boxes? Fine.
Two boxes? I notice.
One box? I start thinking about the next order.
Opening the final box is therefore not simply “using the last box”.
It is an administrative event.
There is something deeply irrational about this because I am not actually going to run out of placenta tomorrow. But apparently my brain has decided that having several boxes of amber ampoules quietly sitting in the cupboard is a form of household security.
And yes, I know this is ridiculous.
I also know exactly which box I would reach for first.
I don't think placenta is magic
That might sound like a strange conclusion after writing an entire series about how much I love it. But researching Laennec and Melsmon has actually made me less interested in the miracle claims surrounding them.
There are genuinely interesting things happening in the research. Placental extracts contain complex mixtures of peptides, amino acids and other biological compounds, and different manufacturing processes can produce different preparations. Researchers have investigated effects involving fibroblasts, extracellular-matrix proteins, inflammation, oxidative stress and other biological pathways. There are human studies too, particularly around menopause, liver disease and wound healing.
But none of that adds up to placenta fixes everything.
The evidence is much messier than that, and honestly, I prefer it that way. It gives us something much more interesting to investigate than a simple miracle story.
What I actually like about Laennec
Part of it is probably the history.
Laennec wasn't invented as an Instagram beauty treatment. It has a much older medical life in Japan, where it is a pharmaceutical preparation indicated for improvement of hepatic function in chronic liver disease.
Read the official Laennec information
That makes the modern aesthetic version of the story much more interesting to me. Something that began as a pharmaceutical preparation for a specific medical problem eventually found its way into conversations about skin, recovery, ageing and general wellbeing.
The claims changed as the context changed. The product didn't necessarily become more magical; we simply started asking different questions about what it might do.
Then there is the Japanese factor
I think there is something culturally fascinating about the way placenta exists in Japanese medicine.
Laennec has a formal pharmaceutical history, a specific indication and decades of clinical use. Melsmon has its own long history, particularly around menopausal symptoms. These aren't products that suddenly appeared because the aesthetics industry decided placenta sounded futuristic.
That doesn't mean every claim made about them is true, and it certainly doesn't mean Japanese medicine has somehow proved that placenta is a miracle. It means the story is considerably more complicated than the way placenta injections are sometimes presented online.
For me, that makes the history much more interesting.
The emotional support stash
There is also, admittedly, a completely non-scientific reason I like having a stash.
I like knowing it's there.
If I have several boxes sitting quietly in the cupboard, everything feels under control. When I open one, I know there are more behind it, so I don't have to think about replacing it immediately. But when I get down to two boxes, I start noticing the supply, and when I get down to one, suddenly it feels like we have a situation.
There is something deeply irrational about this because I am not actually going to run out of placenta tomorrow. But apparently my brain has decided that Laennec inventory is a measure of household security.
I also know that I will continue doing it.
If you're wondering how this became a full-blown inventory situation, there is a completely serious study of the phenomenon.
I even have a theory about the Significant Other (Our Partners)
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.
He remains unconvinced, but 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 know 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 for skin, menopause, liver function, inflammation and recovery? And, most importantly, where does the evidence stop?
Because there is a huge difference between something having a plausible biological mechanism and knowing that it produces a meaningful clinical outcome.
I've become much more comfortable with that distinction as I've worked through the research. I can look at a study showing fibroblasts changing their extracellular-matrix behaviour and think, that's fascinating, without turning it into proof that an injectable will reverse skin ageing. I can look at a small clinical study and think, that's promising, but not definitive. I can look at a mouse study and think, interesting mechanism; now let's see what happens in humans.
And I can still open my Laennec box and be ridiculously happy about it.
Those things aren't contradictory.
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 kept developing 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 the aesthetic applications will eventually prove to be as interesting as the biological mechanisms suggest.
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 it.
Because now, when I look at those little amber ampoules, 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 whole collection of unanswered questions.
I also see my emotional support stash.
Three boxes of Laennec.
Two Melsmon.
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.
Read the manufacturer information
Human placental extracts
Biological effects of human placental extracts: variations in manufacturing methods and compositions.
Read the 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.
Read the full study
Placental extract and menopause
Efficacy and Safety of Placental Extract on Menopausal Symptoms: A Systematic Review.
Read the 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.
Read the full study