THE PROCESS OF EXTRACTION

The term herbal or plant extract is used a lot in articles, books and catalogues but what is an extract? Is it the same as the original herb or plant? Or is it something different?

Extraction is like the art of making tea.

A solvent is used to extract elements or compounds from the plant or herb but which the extractor may call the drug. Each herb or plant contains lots of different chemicals such as vitamins, minerals or other components. These are called the actives i.e. the molecules that do the work for which the herb is renowned such as pain killing or reducing inflammation.

It follows then that the type of solvent determines the nature of the extract. Different chemicals in the herb or plant engage with different solvents. There are for example water soluble components, oil soluble components etc.  A variety of solvents may be used each of which has its own advantage or disadvantage and each of which is poor or better at extracting a certain component.

Some solvents have secondary effects e.g. alcohol or propylene glycol which have preservative properties.  Solvents are not necessarily interchangeable.

The solvent has a maximum carrying ability.  Once saturated the solvent cannot take up any more of the chemistry of the plant. This is the best sort of extract. Using the example of tea again you can make weak tea or strong tea so not all extracts are the same value and this is sometimes reflected in the price of a product. Weak tea goes further! Many times extracts are not added for efficacy but rather to make a product look as though it contains lots of useful items.

As noted above, an extract can be made whereby the solvent is not saturated but rather the solvent (relatively cheap) is in effect “tainted” by a plant rather than being “full” of plant.  This is a cheap way of making extracts whereby only a small or insubstantial volume of plant material is used.  Alternatively, old material is used or re-used.

These cheap extracts should not be compared with a standardised extract.  Such an extract is where a key component is certain to be present at a given level.  A common or average is found and the extract adjusted to comply.  A common means of measuring the key molecule or component present is by UV spectroscopy.

This component or tracer can be further concentrated or filtrated to a reproducible or measurable componency (also referred to as a standard extract but more correctly concentrated standard extract).  Purified extracts refer to the highest levels of certain molecules.  Perhaps other synergistic molecules are maintained to increase the activity of the plant drug.

Herbal specification data mostly mentions the quantity of plant used such as organic or other status and the dry residue as a point of reference and therefore standardisation of quality.  The quality of an extract is solely linked to its concentration or containment of active principles.  These can only be measured through proper analysis.

So not all extracts are the same in value. Seeing a herbal name on the back of a pack (the INCI list) tells you little about the real quality or value of an extract, the good, the bad and the ugly all have the same name. Price becomes some guide as does the brand name which builds trust with its promotional material. Read the core values of a brand and its claims which may even tell you the value of the extracts used.

Not another one?!

OMG another iPhone and no doubt followed shortly by another Samsung. Are you an Appeleite or an Android fan? I have spent quite a bit of time around San Francisco and have seen the wonder firms of so called Silicon Valley in the south of the Bay area. All the buzz sounds wildly exciting and talking to friends and people in the high tech industries utopia is just around the corner. Offices and factories ooze casualness, bright ideas, change. Life appears relaxed, cool, laid back. What is frightening is that there are literally thousands of these small to huge companies all seemingly trying to save the planet, change the world, decide culture, create new ethics and socially engineer the future of the world.

Artificial intelligence is the current theme. Robots with speech and artificial skin to perform everything from sex to collecting the kids and driving back in a robot car seems the future. I wonder where humans fit into this scenery. Predictions are made by computer modelling and the state of security is being transferred to automatic responses. Real robot wars are just around the corner.

Now all of this is very clever but not as clever to me as a snail. So far, we can only make artificial things not real live things. A snail has a built in sat nav and is responsive to light and magnetism or electric fields. Now magnetism is funny stuff and when sent down wires is called electricity. All the techno stuff in Silicon Valley is about electro fields and electricity. It’s the nearest they can get to what we and the snail have in common – life and it isn’t artificial, it’s real! So, our humble snail is because it is so simple capable of a great deal more than a robot that copies or is programmed. A snail can be irrational!

I wonder then if all these clever and riches seeking people have missed the point of the 1981 Police hit We Are Spirits in a Material World. The answer is that they probably were not born so have not thought it through yet! It is not a Luddite view to question with all the smog of radio and magnetic waves around us whether nature has an objection. Could our snail be set of course by electric smog, could our body be changed by our new hidden climate unknown to our ancestors. Can our minds our chemistry be changed in subtle ways. Certainly, we have by media become conditioned into accepting virtually anything goes. Crimes are downgraded and in a time when nature is available by virtual reality our soils have been denuded and the fertility lost.

Radiation from computer screens certainly add to tiredness. Most users know this. Blue light has come to the fore as Blue light has a very short wavelength, and so produces a higher amount of energy and it is this light which glares at us from our phones and other devices. Hence poorer sleep and declining eye health.

At Fragrant Earth, we have always suggested that nature has the answer to most things. One of nature’s most enigmatic materials is amber with its well-known electrical properties. Russian science has always seen this natural gemstone as an antidote to radiation. So, it is hardly surprising that our ReviSun Amber range is recommended for all computer users. A variety of efficient day and night creams are available featuring the anti-oxidant and anti-radiation properties of natural best quality Baltic Amber. All computer and cell phone users should at the very try the protective Antiwrinkle DayCream which also combines collagen stimulating sea foods.

Nature does a lot more than Silicon Valley ever will. Most advances are copies of Nature or an understanding of how Nature works. However, mystery is beyond the grasp of AI and the unique properties of traditional amber also remain somewhat of a mystery but great for skincare!

Organic - The Real Meaning

Organic – The Real Meaning

Buying Organic is fashionable. Organic products are increasingly sold. Organic products are more expensive than other products whether essential oils, cotton clothing or food. But what is so good about Organic and why is it real?

The most often quoted reason is that Organic material is not produced by spraying it with pesticides and herbicides which although regulated still pose threats to human and other wildlife. This is true. Organic products are not grown or processed using harmful chemicals. Whilst Agribusiness argues that all the chemicals they use are safe, year after year, new evidence emerges that this is questionable if not untrue. So new replacement chemicals are found and the round begins again.

An example is glycophosphate (Roundup) weed killer ‘safe’ but now strongly implicated in the decline of honey bees through the chemicals passing through the food chain. The National Academy of Sciences reports that 90% of the chemicals applied to foods have not been tested for long-term health effects before being deemed "safe."

So, a good reason for buying organics is to safeguard health not only of humans but also wildlife and plant diversity especially in the wild.  Organic food is produced using more environmentally friendly and animal friendly farming methods meaning it’s better for people, animals and the planet.

Talking about farming, organic farming methods are less dependent on non-renewable, fossil fuel-based fertilisers and pesticides. Organic farming also stores higher levels of carbon in the soil. The farming methods of production restore the quality of soil by using natural methods, in particular the support of microbes, bacteria and fungi from compost to return nutrients to the soil. Organic farming supports eco-sustenance, or farming in harmony with nature. Preservation of the soil and crop rotation keep farmland healthy, and chemical abstinence preserves the ecosystem. Wildlife, insects, frogs, birds, and soil organisms can play their roles in the full tapestry of ecology.

Organic beauty ingredients are produced without the use of as many artificial fertilisers, pesticides, or other synthetic chemicals as conventional beauty ingredients. By using organic skincare, you make sure that the ingredients have not been treated with the same number of synthetic pesticides or fertilisers. Organic materials are not available for every aspect of formulation so many good Natural brands use organic ingredients where possible plus other quality non-organic materials.

The same principles apply to Organic Beauty finished products which are also produced without the use of many artificial fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. Organic Skincare and Makeup have less or none at all doubtful synthetic chemicals as do conventional beauty products.  At FEI we favour organic beauty products and ingredients. One of the best sources of Organic agriculture in Europe is Poland and many of our brands come from there. Organic standards are sets of requirements that describe what practices can be considered organic. Typically, organic standards address various aspects of organic production, general farm production requirements, crop production requirements and requirements for the collection of wild products, animal welfare requirements and so on. There are strict requirements to obtain a certificate of meeting organic standards. Overall, organic operations must demonstrate that they are protecting natural resources, conserving biodiversity, and using only approved substances.

Fragrant Earth have always offered many organic Essential Oils and Vegetable or Carrier Oils but increasingly their range of Organic Colour Cosmetics or makeup from Lavera are proving popular. 

Type in Organic at the Fragrant Earth website to see a vast array on offer from Tampons to dental care, Skin care to Deodorants.