Frequently Asked Questions

A tincture is an alcohol extract of a herb, resulting in a liquid format that is taken orally. Tinctures have been used by herbalists as a traditional and perhaps the purest form of using herbs and is considered to one of the most effective ways of getting a herbal extract into the body.

Alcohol is used as an extraction agent because it is able to extract both water and fat-soluble substances, which covers most of the extractable elements within plants. This means that we are confident of achieving a balance that reflects the make-up of the original plant.

When a herb is fresh it offers its fullest potency and has not yet lost any of its qualities. As herbs dry out they decay and lose potency. This is most vividly understood by comparing fresh parsley with the dried version. No matter how recent your parsley has been dried, it will never achieve the fresh taste and piquancy of the original herb, bursting with nutrients and taste.

GMP is the abbreviation for Good Manufacturing Practice. This is a standard of quality control used to manufacture medicines in many countries. This standard is inspected by the regulatory authorities within each country and means that our factories operate to the highest possible standards, with a team of specially trained staff ensuring that every stage of the production process is carried out according to strict regulations to deliver goods of consistent quality, safety and efficacy.

Holistic Standardisation is the process by which we ensure that every batch of A.Vogel herbs is as potent and effective as it should be. By use of tightly controlled standards in cultivation, from seed to harvest, and by use of detailed Quality Control testing we ensure and confirm in each batch of herbs the presence of a range of key components to help achieve batch-to-batch consistency.

This process differs from Chemical Standardisation, whereby one component of the plant is selected as being responsible for the action of the plant, and only the levels of that one component are measured.

A.Vogel believes that often many elements within a plant contribute to the overall effect, creating a synergy that cannot be obtained by a single constituent alone. This is why we use holistic standardisation.