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AliBaba conundrum
I bought about 2kg of Niacinamide powder from AliBaba about 7 months ago, or so I think I did. I asked for their COA for the product I ordered at at first they sent me the file which said ‘Product name: Niacinamide’ but then below, under ‘Analysis’ it said: ‘Vitamin D3’. I know that vitamin D3 is not really soluble in water and that niacinamide is. I tested the purchased batch at home and it was readily soluble in water; so I know it’s not vitamin D3 unless they’ve altered it somehow. I informed the supplier about this and they apologised in addition to telling me that they send me the wrong COA, so they sent me a new one which fixed that little naming error. The conundrum for me is that:
1. How can a COA have the name of a chemical in the title but under analysis, another(?)
2. All other specifications under ‘analysis’ seem to be identical in both COAs.The above is one of the reasons I avoid AliBaba. Is there a way for me to test if the batch I have at homem is really niacinamide outside of testing solubility?
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5 Replies
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In truth, you need to audit the supplier from AliBaba first
They can send you anything and you won’t be able to verify it
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Some pharmacies here around have an FT-IR spectrometer and might be willing to test the product’s identity for you.Another version are physico-chemical tests as for example elaborated in pharmacopoeias. I’m a nerd, I admit but I’m not a filthy rich nerd and rather lazy tonight. This said, I don’t have a pharmacopoeia at home and hence can’t look it up for you but you could ask your local pharmacy for a printout of niacinamide.It’s rather unlikely that they sent you vitamin D because it’s quite expensive. -
@LuisJavier, China products are well known poor quality. For ingredients for facial cream, I suggest that you must be careful.
Even very cheap I do not want to buy from china. -
sounds like they meant vitamin B3. You can find ways to test physical characteristics like pH and send out to labs for heavy metals etc, but like others are saying its good practice to evaluate a supplier’s quality overall.
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Thank you all for your comments. I did have in mind to test some of the physical properties of the powder so as to make somewhat sure that it is in fact niacinamide.
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