What exactly is a herbal extract?

When you read a herbal-product description, the plant name is only part of the picture. You might also see words such as root, extract or tincture. Each tells you something different about the preparation.

Let’s start with extract.

A herbal extract is made using a liquid to separate soluble compounds from plant material. That liquid is called a solvent—water and alcohol are examples. Some compounds dissolve into it, while insoluble material is separated out. [1]

The word describes a process. To understand the resulting preparation, a few other details help.

Which plant, which part, which preparation?

These three descriptions answer different questions:

• Botanical name: Which plant is it?
• Plant part: What material was used—the root, leaf or another part?
• Preparation: What form was produced through processing?

Herbal preparation is a broad term. It includes powdered plant material, tinctures, extracts and other processed forms. A powder and an extract can therefore come from the same plant without being the same preparation. [2]

Knowing the plant’s name is a useful beginning. The part used and the way it was prepared add to that description.

Does an extract always come in a bottle?

An extract can be liquid, semi-solid or solid.

A liquid extract remains fluid. A soft extract is semi-solid after some or all of its solvent has been evaporated. A dry extract is solid following solvent removal and drying.

These terms describe physical form. [1]

And what is a tincture?

A tincture is generally a liquid herbal extract made using alcohol or an alcohol-and-water mixture. The word generally matters here: it describes the usual preparation, rather than setting a universal rule for every product labelled “tincture”. [1]

There is also a distinction between the solvent used to make an extract and the finished product.

An extraction solvent is a manufacturing input. Its stated concentration alone does not establish the finished product’s alcohol content. This is an inference from the distinction between the manufacturing solvent and the resulting preparation; we have not assessed the alcohol content of any individual product for this article. [2]

What the plant name doesn’t tell you

The botanical name, plant part, processing method, extraction solvent and physical form all help identify a herbal preparation. Together, they tell us more than the plant name alone. [3]

Same plant doesn’t automatically mean the same preparation.

Understanding these terms makes a product description easier to read. They explain what the preparation is. They do not establish whether it is suitable for a particular person.

Carefully chosen. Honestly explained.

Sources

[1] World Health Organization. WHO guidelines on good herbal processing practices for herbal medicines. Technical Report Series 1010, Annex 1 (2018). Section 3.2, printed p. 104; section 3.2.3 and subsections, printed pp. 108–109.
WHO source

[2] SAHPRA. Complementary Medicines: Registration Application ZA-CTD—Quality. Version 2 (June 2020). Section 4, terminology, printed pp. 43–44.
SAHPRA source

[3] European Medicines Agency. Guideline on declaration of herbal substances and herbal preparations in herbal medicinal products/traditional herbal medicinal products. Revision 1 (2010). Introduction and sections 5–6.
EMA source