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MelanoBronze: What It Is, and Why Almost Nobody Else Uses It

MelanoBronze: What It Is, and Why Almost Nobody Else Uses It - Delux Tanners
The hero ingredient

MelanoBronze.
What it is, and why almost nobody else uses it.

Every Next-Gen cream, and Lumière, carries an ingredient you will struggle to find on any other UK tanning shelf. It is made by one laboratory in Switzerland, it is among the most expensive actives in this industry, and it is the reason the Next-Gen range performs the way it does. This is what it is, what the maker's research shows, why most brands will never put it in a tube, and why we did without touching the price.

1maker in the world: a Swiss biochemistry lab
2006the year it won the industry's innovation prize
4Delux formulas carry it: three Next-Gen creams and Lumière
£0added to the price when we put it in
1What it is2How it works3The research4Why so rare5The price6The name7FAQ
MelanoBronze is a monk's pepper berry extract combined with acetyl tyrosine, developed by a Swiss lab and made nowhere else.
It works with UV. It supports the signal that switches melanin production on, and supplies the building block. We only ever claim it with light.
It is expensive, and it has to be used at a proper level to matter. Which is why it is missing from most tubes.
We added it and kept the price the same. It came out of our margin, not your pocket.

Part one

What it is

MelanoBronze is a cosmetic active developed by a biochemistry laboratory in Buchs, Switzerland, now part of the Solabia group. It combines an extract of monk's pepper berries, Vitex agnus-castus, a Mediterranean shrub, with acetyl tyrosine, the stable form of the amino acid your skin converts into melanin. It appears on our labels under its INCI declaration, Vitex agnus-castus extract with acetyl tyrosine, and we use the MelanoBronze name under licence from its maker. It was awarded the industry's innovation prize the year it launched, and it has been in serious sun-care formulation ever since, mostly in products that cost a great deal more than ours.

Part two

How it works

When UV reaches your skin, a hormone signal tells melanocytes to start producing pigment. The monk's pepper extract in MelanoBronze contains compounds that behave like a second messenger in that same family, so the melanocytes are primed to respond sooner and more fully to the session you are having. The acetyl tyrosine alongside it supplies the raw material the converting enzyme needs, so the signal has something to work with. Signal and substrate, in one ingredient. That is why it sits at the centre of the Next-Gen stack, with copper for the enzyme, a peptide to reinforce the signal, and niacinamide to move the finished pigment to the surface. The full stack is walked through here.

Most accelerators give your skin the building block. MelanoBronze gives it the building block and the instruction to use it.

Part three

What the research shows, and whose research it is

We would rather tell you who did the work than say "backed by research" and hope. The studies are the maker's. In their laboratory work on cultured human melanocytes, the monk's pepper extract raised melanin production in a dose-dependent way, by close to half at the level tested, with no effect on cell viability, which is how you show that an ingredient is stimulating pigment rather than stressing the cell. In their placebo-controlled studies on volunteers, applying MelanoBronze alongside UV exposure increased skin tanning compared with placebo, again in a dose-dependent way. Their material also reports an effect without UV. We do not make that claim on any Delux product and we never will: every Delux formula is sold to be used with a sunbed or the sun, and the results we describe are results with light.

Two honest caveats. Supplier studies are supplier studies, and we say so. And a strong active is only as good as the level it is used at: we include MelanoBronze within the range its maker recommends, and never below it. The exact level is stated on the product page of every formula that carries it, and its position on the label, above the emulsifiers, tells you the same thing: it is not a trace.

Part four

Why almost nobody else uses it

One source. It is made by one laboratory, in Switzerland, and nowhere else. There is no generic, no cheaper copy, and no getting it from the same catalogue as the rest of a formula.
The cost. It is one of the most expensive actives available to a tanning brand, by a distance. At a proper use level it can cost more than everything else in the tube combined.
It cannot be fairy-dusted. A brand could add a trace to get the name on the box. The maker's own recommended range makes clear that a trace does nothing, which is why we use it properly or not at all.
The paperwork. Using the name requires a licence from its maker and the ingredient has to be bought through proper channels. That rules out the way a lot of tanning products are put together.

Put those together and you have an ingredient that most brands will never include, not because they doubt it, but because it is easier to list tyrosine at the bottom, put a bronzer at the top, and spend the difference on adverts.

Part five

The price, and what we did not do

When MelanoBronze went into the Next-Gen formula, the cost of making each tube went up by a margin we noticed. We had two options. Raise the price, with a good story about a premium Swiss active to justify it, or keep the price where it was and absorb it. We kept it where it was. Island Coconut, Electric Melon and Bubblegum Mania cost the same today as the creams they replaced, and Lumière launched at a price that does not carry a MelanoBronze surcharge. We give up a fair amount of profit on every tube to do that. We are telling you because it is the clearest example we have of what "the best product we can make, for everyone" means in practice: the ingredient went in, and the price did not.

We could have used it as the reason for a price rise. We used it as the reason to keep the price.

Part six

About the name

MelanoBronze is the maker's name for their ingredient, and we use it on our packaging and in our marketing under a written licence from them. We do not own the name and we would not pretend to. What the licence means for you is simple: when a Delux tube says MelanoBronze, it contains the ingredient, from the source, at the level stated on the product page. If you see the word on another tube, ask the same three questions.

Quick answers

Frequently asked

What is MelanoBronze?
A cosmetic active from a Swiss biochemistry lab: an extract of monk's pepper berries combined with acetyl tyrosine. It supports the signal that switches melanin production on and supplies the building block. Delux uses the name under licence from the maker.
Does MelanoBronze tan you without the sun?
We do not claim that on any product. Every Delux formula is for use with a sunbed or the sun, and the results we describe are with UV.
Which Delux products contain MelanoBronze?
Island Coconut, Electric Melon, Bubblegum Mania and Lumière. Sun Sauce and Go Dark do not, and their guides say so.
How much MelanoBronze is in a Delux cream?
The level is stated on the product page of every formula that carries it, and it sits within the maker's recommended range.
Why is MelanoBronze so rare in tanning products?
One maker in the world, one of the highest ingredient costs in the category, and it has to be used at a proper level to do anything. Most brands spend the money elsewhere.
Did Delux raise prices when MelanoBronze was added?
No. The Next-Gen creams cost the same as the creams they replaced. The extra cost came out of our margin.

The ingredient most brands skip. In every Next-Gen tube.

Same price as before it went in. That is the whole point.

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