Why natural products vary between batches

Synthetic ingredients are identical every time. That is their entire appeal to a manufacturer: absolute predictability, batch after batch, year after year.

Plant material is not like that. The amla harvested from one season differs from the next in colour, in aromatic profile and marginally in the concentration of its constituents, because the plant grew in different weather.

So our bottles vary slightly. A shampoo may run a shade deeper this month than last; a lotion may smell fractionally different. We test every batch to confirm the actives are present at the stated percentage, and the efficacy does not move.

It is printed as a caution on the label because that is the honest way to handle it. Read it instead as the most visible evidence that the botanical in the bottle came from an actual plant.