Seven checks. They take two minutes, they work on any Ayurvedic product from any brand, and they work on ours — which is partly why we wrote this.
India's Ayurvedic market is full of properly made licensed medicines and also full of unregulated "herbal" products, repackaged bulk powder and outright counterfeits. Almost nothing on a listing page tells you which you are looking at. These checks do.
1. Is there a licence number on the pack?
A genuine Ayurvedic medicine is manufactured under a drug licence issued by a state Drugs Control Administration. The number belongs on the label.
No licence number is the single biggest warning sign. A product sold as a "herbal supplement" with no licence has not been through any manufacturing approval at all.
Ours: Manufacturing Licence 10/25D/2018 for the Aswini range; Loan Licence 11/25E/2024 for our own Samhara and Thrupthan.
2. Is the manufacturer named, with a full address?
"Marketed by" a company with a PO box is not the same thing as "Manufactured by" a named unit at a street address you could find on a map.
Many online Ayurvedic brands are resellers. There is nothing wrong with reselling — we do it for five of our seven products — but a seller who will not tell you who actually made the medicine is hiding something you are entitled to know.
Ours: Aswini Ayurvedic Pharmacy, Door No. SB 13/1A, Chethalayam P.O., Sulthan Bathery, Wayanad 673592.
3. Is there a GMP certificate?
Good Manufacturing Practice for Ayurvedic, Siddha and Unani medicines is set out in Schedule T of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules — premises and layout, equipment, water quality, raw-material testing, batch records, qualified technical staff on site.
A GMP certificate is issued after a state inspection and lasts five years. It cannot be self-awarded, which is exactly why it is worth asking for. Note the difference between this and an ISO mark, which is a general quality-management standard and says nothing specific about medicine manufacture.
Ours: GMP Certificate No. 976, Schedule T, valid to 24 July 2028.
4. Is the composition disclosed, with quantities?
A good formulation names its herbs. A better one tells you how much of each, per 100 g or 100 ml.
"Proprietary herbal blend" tells you nothing, and is often used to hide how little of the expensive ingredient is actually present. If a product leads with an impressive herb but will not say what proportion it makes up, assume it is a trace.
Ours: Diacare lists all six herbs with quantities per 100 g, on the pack and on its product page.
5. Are the herbs named botanically?
Look for Eclipta alba, not "herbal extract". Botanical names mean somebody in the process knows precisely which plant went in — which matters, because several Ayurvedic herbs have common names shared by more than one species, and the substitution is not always benign.
6. Does it promise a cure?
This is the check that rules out the most products, fastest.
The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 prohibits advertising a drug as a treatment for a schedule of named conditions — including diabetes, infertility, sexual impotence, baldness and piles, among others. A responsible manufacturer does not make those claims, because it is not permitted and because the claims are not honest.
So be sceptical of any Ayurvedic product that:
- names a disease it will "cure", "manage" or "treat"
- promises guaranteed or permanent results
- claims "no side effects" — no honest maker can promise that of anything with an active effect
- says "100% results" or "results in 7 days"
"100% natural" describing the ingredients is fine. "No side effects" describing the safety is not the same thing, and the two often sit side by side on the same label.
7. Is there a real contact, and does the price make sense?
A working phone number and an email on the company's own domain, not free webmail. A registered address. Someone who answers.
On price: properly prepared classical formulations use real quantities of real herbs, and some of those herbs are expensive. A product dramatically cheaper than everything comparable is telling you something about what is inside it.
The quick version
| Check | Good sign | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Licence number | Printed on the pack | Absent |
| Manufacturer | Named, full address | "Marketed by", PO box |
| GMP | Certificate number given | Only a vague "GMP" badge, or only ISO |
| Composition | Herbs plus quantities | "Proprietary blend" |
| Herb names | Botanical names | "Herbal extract" |
| Claims | Traditional use, cautions given | Cures, guarantees, "no side effects" |
| Contact | Own-domain email, phone, address | Webmail only, no address |
Run it on us
We publish both our licence numbers, the manufacturing address, the GMP certificate number and its expiry, the approved product codes for our own two formulations, and the names and registration numbers of the practitioners supervising manufacture. It is all on our Licences & Manufacturing page.
You will not find the word "cure" anywhere on this site. Several of our product pages tell you when to see a doctor instead of buying from us.
If you find something on our site that fails one of these seven checks, email info@thathasthu.in and tell us. We would rather fix it.