Bamboo Silica Extract

Bamboo silica extract is a botanical concentrate drawn from the shoots, culms and leaves of Bambusa vulgaris and Bambusa bambos (syn. Bambusa arundinacea), giant grasses of the family Poaceae. Bamboo is the richest known plant source of silica, and the reference commercial grade assays gravimetrically at not less than 70% silica expressed as SiO2 — roughly ten times the level carried by horsetail, which runs at about 5-7%. Because silicon accounts for 46.7% of silicon dioxide by mass, a 70% grade works out at approximately 32-33% elemental silicon on a dry basis. The same siliceous character underlies tabashir or banslochan, the bamboo exudate collected from culm nodes in Ayurvedic and Unani practice. What Thovek ships is an extract, not an ash. Aqueous or hydro-alcoholic extraction followed by low-temperature drying keeps the silica in its amorphous plant form; prolonged high-temperature calcination is a separate process that drives biomass silica towards crystalline polymorphs and produces a different article of commerce, which is not what is offered here. The powder is off-white to pale beige and free-flowing, and it is only partly water-dispersible — the silica fraction will not give a clear solution, so beverage and liquid formats need a suspending system or a suitably fine mesh. It blends cleanly into dry sachets, tablets and two-piece capsules, and micronised 200 mesh material is available where dispersion or mouthfeel is critical. The extract is wholly plant-derived: vegan and vegetarian, with no milk, egg, soy, fish, crustacean, mollusc, gluten or tree-nut input at any stage, and no animal-derived processing aid. Organic-certified (NPOP / NOP) lots run alongside conventional. Every consignment ships with a certificate of analysis covering assay, loss on drying, heavy metals, pesticide residues and microbiology, plus allergen, GMO, TSE/BSE and country-of-origin declarations for the buyer's own dossier. Brands conventionally place the ingredient in hair, skin and nail ranges and in bone and connective-tissue powders; Thovek supplies the material and its data, and the claim wording carried on the finished pack remains the brand's responsibility in its market of sale.