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James Sloane
There is a common myth that tinctures have a very long shelf life. Actually tinctures are generally not that stable and lose potency rapidly. Studies of various tinctures showed they lost potency within a couple of months.
This is one of the reasons I rarely ever rely on tinctures.
The problem is with oxidation of many active components of herbs due to the presence of water in the tinctures, which promotes oxidation. Most tinctures are made with an alcohol/water mix.
A simple way to understand this concept is if you took a dry red dyed cotton cloth and put some powdered bleach on the cloth there is no reaction. If you add water to the mix though then the cloth immediately gets bleached. This is because most oxidizers require the presence of water to oxidize.
The water in most tinctures allows oxidation of various beneficial compounds within herbs such as some vitamins and alkaloids.
This is the same reason when herbs are picked it helps to dry them as soon as possible as the presence of water within the herbs rapidly degrades many beneficial compounds within the herbs.
Of course it does depend a lot on the component. For example vitamin C is very unstable in the presence of water as are many alkaloids. Terpenes can also be destroyed by oxidation. Polysaccharides, minerals, tannins and glycosides though are pretty stable.
Another issue with tinctures is that not everything is soluble in alcohol or water so some beneficial compounds such as fibers are lost with tincturing.
Personally I prefer herbal powders, which if stored properly (in sealed jars out of light, heat and moisture) generally have very long shelf lives.
And contrary to popular belief powders are significantly more stable than whole or cut herbs or tinctures. The reason is less oxidation due to lack of moisture and decreased exposed surface area. It is commonly taught that powders are more prone to oxidation due to increased surface area. This is highly misleading though. An easy way to understand this is let’s say you take a jar and fill it with pebbles. There would be all sorts of air around the pebbles that if were whole herbs would be a lot of exposed area being subjected to oxidation. Now instead of pebbles let’s say you fill the jar with tiny stones representing cut herbs. Still a lot of pockets of air around the stones. If the jar is filled with very fine sand representing powdered herbs the sand grains sit so close together that this excludes most air and thus has the least amount of oxidation.
Another major advantage of powders is that they are so much easier to make formulas with since there is a known concentration. I base my formulations on weight, not volume since herbs can have vastly different densities. So an ounce of a dense herb such as bladderwrack is vastly different than a low density herb such as raspberry leaf. So measurements are much better if done by weight as opposed to volume. With tinctures though these can have various concentrations based on the alcohol content and certain herbs, such as resins do not stay in solution with lower concentrations of alcohol. Therefore formulating with tinctures is much more difficult.
James Sloane
The topic of extracts, including powdered extracts and tinctures has come up several times in the comments so I am reposting my response in a new thread to make it more visible and easier to find:
"Depends on the extract. There are concentrated extracts and standardized extracts. The concentrated extracts will after the herb says something like 4:1, 10:1, 20:1, etc. What this means is the first number is the number of pounds of herb to make a pound of extract. So, a 4:1 concentrate uses 4 pounds of herb to make 1 pound of extract. The fiber is removed in these extracts an d depending in the solvent used there may some other active components lost. A standardized extract is where they take what they think is the active component and the herb extracts is concentrated to a certain percentage of that compound. I am not very fond of these extracts as there are often more than one active component and they often work synergistically. For example, when they first started standardizing St. Johns wort they first standardized it for hypericum. Then, since this was already patented the next company standardized the herb for hyperforin, then the next company for hypericins. The fact is that all are active components and isolating a single compound from and herb can lose potency and even change the properties of an herb. One of the reasons I generally got with straight powders, which has everything intact, or as an alternative the concentrated extract in some cases. Extracts can also be liquid, which again poses problems. Tinctures tend to have very short shelf lives due to the water content in most tinctures, which promotes rapid oxidation. Studies have shown that various tinctures completely lose potency in as little as 2 months to 2 years. In addition alcohol can react with certain active compounds in herbs altering their chemistry completely, and in some cases, neutralizes the effect of the herb completely Teas (tisanes) also tend to lose potency rapidly as both the water and the heat speed up oxidation. The heat can also lead to loss of active volatile compounds such as essential oils. In addition, not everything is soluble in alcohol or water, so active compounds can be lost with tinctures and teas. This is why I rarely use tinctures and teas for medicinal purposes. There are exceptions, such as using tinctures for a rapid action to stop an asthma attack, or boiling marshmallow or slippery elm to make mucilages."