Storage, Heat And The Date On The Bottle

What the date means

A supplement expiry or best-before date is the manufacturer’s statement that the product will still contain what the label says until then, stored properly. It is not a safety cliff. What degrades after it is potency, not safety, and it degrades gradually.

It also assumes proper storage. A bottle kept on a sunny windowsill can be past its useful life well before the printed date.

The three things that degrade botanicals

• Moisture. The biggest one. Capsule shells absorb water from the air, which makes them soft, sticky or brittle, and moisture speeds up the breakdown of plant compounds.
• Heat. Chemical reactions roughly double in speed for every ten degrees Celsius. A cupboard above the hob is a slow oven.
• Light. Ultraviolet light breaks down many plant compounds, which is why supplement bottles are usually opaque.

Why not the bathroom

Because a shower is a humidity event. Every time someone showers, the room fills with warm water vapour that gets into everything, including a bottle whose lid is not quite tight. Heat and moisture together are the worst combination there is, and the bathroom cabinet delivers both twice a day.

The desiccant sachet

That little packet is not packaging. It is there to hold moisture off the capsules and it should stay in the bottle until the bottle is empty. Throwing it out on day one is a common and entirely avoidable mistake.

Where to actually keep it

A kitchen cupboard away from the hob and the kettle, or a bedroom drawer. Cool, dry, dark and closed properly. If you have bought six months at once, keep the bottles you are not using in the coolest, darkest spot you have and bring them out one at a time.

A note on buying in bulk

Check the date on arrival. A six bottle order should carry a date comfortably beyond six months from the day it lands, because you will still be taking the last bottle half a year from now.