Bhallataka Extract (Semecarpus anacardium)

Bhallataka is the fruit of Semecarpus anacardium L.f., family Anacardiaceae — the marking nut or dhobi nut tree, a close relative of the cashew, named in English for the indelible black mark its tarry pericarp oil leaves on cloth. The drupe sits on a fleshy hypocarp (godambi) and it is the dried mature drupe, not the hypocarp, that classical Ayurvedic and Siddha practice uses. Thovek supplies extract prepared only from shodhita material — fruit that has been through classical purification before it ever reaches an extractor. Raw unpurified nut is not offered at any tonnage or price, because the untreated article is not a nutraceutical raw material but a vesicant, and handling it as though it were the former is how people get hurt. The pericarp oil is the reason the material is treated the way it is. Its major constituents are anacardic acid (2-hydroxy-6-pentadecylbenzoic acid, C22H36O3, MW 348.5) and bhilawanol, a mixture of 3-n-pentadec(en)yl catechols. Bhilawanol A and B are urushiols — the same class of vesicant catechol found in poison ivy — and contact with the unpurified oil produces blistering contact dermatitis; case reports published in Ayu document urushiol-induced dermatitis in workers carrying out shodhana without protection. Purification is therefore load-bearing rather than ceremonial, and it is measurable: work in the Journal of Complementary and Integrative Medicine quantified anacardic acid at 5.62% in the raw nut and found it reduced below detectable limits by classical Siddha purification procedures. Thovek assays residual anacardic acid and total alkyl-catechol phenolics on every lot, states the figure and the method on the certificate of analysis, and does not ship material that fails the limit. Buyers who intend to re-process or re-extract downstream should take the residual figure as a starting point for their own validation, not as a released specification for their finished article. This is a restricted article and Thovek sells it as one. It is supplied to licensed Ayurvedic and Siddha manufacturers for classical and proprietary formulations, against confirmed regulatory eligibility in the destination market. It is not a general food or dietary-supplement ingredient, it has no established authorised food use in the EU, and eligibility has to be settled before contracting rather than after the container sails. Classical texts group Bhallataka among the rasayana dravyas; Thovek makes no health, nutrient or disease claim of any kind for the material, and responsibility for the claims on a finished pack rests entirely with the brand owner. The allergen position is the sharp end for a contract manufacturer. Semecarpus anacardium is an Anacardiaceae species, botanically alongside cashew, pistachio and mango, and cross-reactivity in tree-nut-sensitive individuals must be assumed rather than argued about. The material is plant-derived, vegan and vegetarian, and free of milk, egg, soy, fish, crustacean, mollusc, gluten, sesame, mustard, celery and lupin — but it must be declared as tree-nut-family material, segregated from nut-free lines, and it is not suitable for any product carrying a nut-free claim.