i would like to see SNS products with healthy capsule sheel , not titanium dioxide , magnesium stearate, and silica , , i just recived 1 bottle of glycerpump and1 reduce xt and the sheel looks very chimic , i am a first time buyer of sns profucts , but this substances make me think more before i will buy next time
I'm sorry you feel that way. I would like to encourage you to do a little more research on things before jumping to conclusions. Let me explain further:
FDA labeling law is very clear on how you are supposed to legally list the 'Other Ingredients' on your label. Unfortunately, a lot of companies don't seem to care and don't follow those guidelines. We have very strict quality controls that include procedures for accurate labeling by FDA law and also only use FDA registered contract manufacturers that follow GMP guidelines.
Types of Capsules/Capsule Shell:
- Basically, you have Gelatin capsules and Vegetable capsules.
- Some people prefer vegetable capsules but people that eat meat generally don't care.
- We use some Gelatin capsules and some Vegetable capsules. As time goes by and we run out of labels, when we do the next label runs, we change products over to Vegetable capsules.
Titanium Dioxide:
- Literally any capsule that you ever swallow that is a white capsule - gelatin or vegetable capsule- has titanium dioxide in it. That's because Titanium Dioxide is what makes the white part of the capsule white.
- It is FDA approved, the amount used in capsules is trivial.
- It is in many toothpastes, including natural ones.
- So if you take a white capsule and don't see Titanium Dioxide on the 'Other Ingredients' then that's on the company providing it, but we follow label guidelines and label it correctly.
Other Ingredients:
- These ingredients are not added for the heck of it.
- When a company does large scale production runs, other ingredients are commonly added as 'flow materials' or 'flow agents' to keep the product from attracting moisture, sticking to equipment, and to help it flow more smoothly on the equipment. It is also important to keep the ingredients from sticking to each other which is important to make sure the ingredients mix uniformly when being blended.
- Common flow materials we use include Rice Flour, DiCalcium Phosphate, Magnesium Stearate, and Silica.
- The best 'flow materials' or 'flow agents' for a project depend on the active ingredient(s) used.
- You mentioned Magnesium Stearate and Silica specifically, so lets examine those.
- Magnesium Stearate is FDA approved as an additive to use in supplement, OTC, and pharmaceutical ingredients. It is considered a 'flow agent'/'flow material' and helps prevent individual ingredients in a capsule from sticking to each other and the machinery that blends the ingredients or the machinery that encapsulates the ingredients. This helps improve the consistency and quality control and to ensure that the ingredient(s) are properly blended for uniform dosages.
- Silica is literally one of the most popular ingredients in the women's health market and is commonly used in hair, skin, and nails products at a dosage of grams per day. The amount of it used as an 'other ingredient' for flow material purposes is in mg. amounts.
- Summary - these materials help ensure proper mixability for a consistently blended and consistently dosed finished product.
- So again, unfortunately a lot of companies don't label their products correctly and list their 'other ingredients' but we follow FDA label guidelines and list all of the other ingredients in the product.
Let's take this one step further and talk capsule size:
- The 2 most common size capsules on the market are size 0 capsules and size 00 capsules.
- A size 0 capsule can hold a max volume of approximately 500 to 550 mg. (or less depending on material density)
- A size 00 capsule can hold a max volume of approximately 750 to 800 mg. (or less depending on material density; or slightly more depending on material density)
- So if you buy a product that claims to have 200 mg. of active ingredient in a size 0 capsule, if the company didn't add flow materials, the capsule wouldn't even be 1/2 full. So if the company doesn't list other ingredients in a case like that, well, they're just not being truthful.
- One more note on this - in addition to flow materials helping ensure proper mixability and consistently blended and dosed finished products, having the capsules proper filled also helps ensure that the capsules don't come open in the bottles. That is much more likely to happen with underfilled capsules.
I hope that you and others reading found this educational and informative. In your initial post, you said that using other ingredients made you think before buying them next time - this is one of those sad examples of where companies that don't even try to do things the wrong way and don't follow label guidelines get rewarded and where companies that follow the guidelines and and truthful and honest get viewed negatively by a customer for being so.
