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Herbal Extracts Removing Color
Looking for a way to remove the dark color during/after extraction of the herbal powders. Must be a water/glycerin extraction method as alcohol extraction cannot be used. Is there a natural additive that can be used to make the herbals go colorless/lighter color without effecting the effectiveness of the herb being extracted. please email us at gougoupet@gmail.com as we are on a time sensitive project.
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15 Replies
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As it is unlikely the extract is doing anything other than ‘claim’, just dilute it until you achieve the desired outcome.
Good Luck.
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It not true, not fake claim, must have effectiveness.
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Can someone help us as soon as possible?
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You could try distilling it…or filtering through a finer media.
I would enjoy reading the scientific, peer review material on the extract. Please link if you can.
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Is there an additive that we can add in to change the color ?There are 8 Chinese herbs in it,I can’t share the formulation with you.
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I wanted to post here, as I am the formulator that is working on this product for the OP and we discussed posting a question in this forum. The product is a watery spray using high percentages of herbal extracts. Unlike one of the comments, the client wants the herbal extracts at efficacious levels. I have been making the herbal extracts myself with powdered herbs, doing a steep and then a fine straining but with the specific herbs in use, it makes the product very dark. In my experience, there is a tradeoff for color vs efficacy… There isn’t really a simple way to get a clear product that is going to have all of the properties of the herbs at full levels…
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As I have already mentioned…and industry has demonstrated….it is all about filtering. You just need to select the media. DE has been used for eons.
How to Remove Dark Color from Ethanol Extracts - extraktLAB
But I am sure you are already familiar with these basic concepts.
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Thank you for your advice.
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Despite what you may believe, it’s unlikely the herbal extracts are efficacious.
But even if they are, from a formulation standpoint it is a better strategy to figure out what component in the extract provides the benefit, then add that ingredient and add the extract in the formula at claims levels. That ensures you get the benefit desired, the marketing benefit of talking about the extract AND you can clean up the extract in any, non-coloring method you want.
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You can probably remove the colour. But from a herbalist point of view, the colour will be from the actives extracted from the plant - Anthocyanins are red/blue, tannins tend to be red/brown (think tannins from tea), catechins from green tea - brownish. Curcumins - yellow
Remove the colour and you will just be left with water & glycerol (or whatever these extracts are extracted in).
As for whether they are active/functional - highly improbable since they will be so highly diluted any bioactives will be far below any therapeutic levels to do anything anyway.
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For reference, there are 8 herbs in the formula and most are between 1% and 2%…
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What is the 1 or 2% indicative of? Is that a percentage of the formula or is that the percentage of the solids in the extract?
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That is the percentage of the formula.
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It also matters what the % solids of the extract is. I was once formulating with Aloe Vera Gel. We put it in our formula at 1%. In truth, the raw material was 90% water and only 10% “solids”. So, that 1% in the formula was really 0.1%. Unless your extracts are powders, they are in the formula at considerably less than 1 or 2%.
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What is the cosmetic effect of these extracts? Do you have an in vitro assay?
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