Comment · Wed, June 11, 2025 · ND Owner
Which saffron supplement is better
What they were answering
Rsorey · 1 points
saffr-activ® the detection method used seems to be different from yours, saffr-activ® the content of Crocins in saffron is already very high (far higher than other products on the market), because saffr-activ® is saffron “Sargol” from Iran, so it contains higher levels of Crocins. I previously checked your COA and found that your actual Crocins content exceeds 10% (HPLC). According to my investigation, there are also raw material suppliers providing 7.5% Crocins(HPLC) /3.5% Safranal (UV) saffron (Monteloeder S.L). It seems that you are actually the best active saffron on the market at present.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
SAFFR’ACTIV uses HPLC to assay the bioactives, I believe. We used to use HPLC as well, but have moved most everything to our four Waters UPLCs. They are more accurate, provide better separation, better sensitivity, have faster runs, and create a lot less solvent waste than HPLCs do. In theory, if the HPLC methods are being done right, the numbers should be the same as UPLC. However, that can change if there is coelution happening with the active peaks. With the extra separation abilities of our UPLCs, we sometimes find that what the HPLC thinks is one big peak are actually two peaks that coelute together. That's how sometimes we discover things that everyone else is missing. It's how we discovered all the turkesterone on the market was fake. Everyone using HPLCs wouldn't even know, unless they used special columns and worked on the chromatography more. However, they wouldn't know to do that without knowing there was an issue with coelution.
According to my investigation, there are also raw material suppliers providing 7.5% Crocins(HPLC) /3.5% Safranal (UV) saffron (Monteloeder S.L).
It depends on what they mean by UV. When you see UV on its own, it usually means UV-VIS. That's going to significantly overstate the concentration of actives in a sample. If they mean HPLC-UV, then usually they would state that. However, I think they do mean UV-VIS. That means those numbers are going to be lower in the real world on a UPLC method like ours.
Actually, I think I found on their site where they confirm that.
https://www.monteloeder.com/product/saffron-safranal/
They reference ISO 3632-2 as the test. That you can find here.
https://cdn.standards.iteh.ai/samples/44526/8a4f3f6bd8bd4e828a896ee838285e8f/ISO-3632-2-2010.pdf
Determination of the main characteristics using a UV-vis spectrometric method
So it looks like they are just using UV-VIS for the testing, which is an outdated and inaccurate method.
It seems that you are actually the best active saffron on the market at present.
That we are!