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Extracts of various things are very common on skin care product labels. When it’s a plant, it seems obvious–I assume the plant is immersed in water, alcohol, oil, or some other solvent, and you get plant juices and oils dissolved into that, maybe with some refinement afterwards. However, I’m confused by extracts like “honey extract” where the ingredient is already a solution and extracting doesn’t seem to make any sense or “propolis extract” where propolis is just this solid waxy substance that doesn’t seem like it would yield an extract at all. What is being done in cases like this to make an “extract” of these kind of things? (I’m a beekeeper, so these have really been bothering me, lol.) And is there any kind of regulation that governs how concentrated these substances have to be at the end? Is my “propolis extract” actually just water that’s been swished around a block of propolis?
Great question!
The reality is that extracts are mostly marketing ingredients. There are no regulations around what constitutes an extract but often they are 1% plant material and 99% propylene glycol or glycerin or some other solvent.
So something like “honey extract” is just taking a drop of honey and blending it with water, glycerin, preserved with phenoxyethanol. (see this https://www.makingcosmetics.com/Honey-Extract_p_502.html)
Yes, your “propolis extract” could just be water swished around on a block of propolis.
This is the big problem with natural extracts and natural ingredients in general. There are no official standards and it’s difficult to do chemical analyses to determine the differences between plants.
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