Ingredients · I-Care Eye Drops

Nineteen, and here they all are.

This page is the full composition of I-Care Eye Drops: five ingredients carried directly, fourteen more that the water base is extracted from. Every product we make gets a page like this one. Most brands in the category print four names on the website and leave the rest on the box.

Directly
Five
In the extract
Fourteen
Base
Aqueous, not oil

This page covers

How to read this list

Two kinds of ingredient.

In short

I-Care Eye Drops is a nineteen-ingredient Ayurvedic proprietary medicine in an aqueous base. Five ingredients are carried directly — honey, rock salt, purified alum, purified borax and camphor. The other fourteen are plants the water base is extracted from, among them tulsi, both sandalwoods, the three fruits of Triphala, punarnava, bhringraj, neem, rose and turmeric.

What does “aqueous extract” mean?

It means the fourteen plants below are not powdered and stirred into the bottle. They are extracted into the water that the preparation is built on, and the five direct ingredients are carried in that.

The practical consequence is the one people ask about turmeric: a water-based drop cannot simply hold turmeric powder, and the extract is what allows haridra to be in the formulation at all.

Where are the percentages?

On the carton, where the regulator requires them and where you can read them the moment the parcel arrives.

On the site we argue from naming everything rather than from numbers. Nothing here is hidden by omission — the composition table is printed in full on the box that comes with the bottle.

The list

All nineteen, in order.

Sanskrit name first, then the botanical or common name, then what it is. Nothing below says what an ingredient does to a person — that is the carton's job, and the carton says four things.

Carried directly

Five

  1. Madhu

    Mel · honey

    Honey, used in classical Ayurvedic eye preparations for a very long time. Here it is at a controlled strength inside a licensed formulation, which is not the same thing as honey from a jar.

  2. Saindhava lavan

    Sodii chloridum · rock salt

    Rock salt. Mineral salts are what let a water-based preparation sit comfortably against the surface of the eye rather than against it.

  3. Sphatika shudh

    Alumen · purified alum

    Purified alum, a classical mineral ingredient prepared by the traditional shodhana process before it goes anywhere near a formulation.

  4. Tankan shudh

    Sodii biboras · purified borax

    Purified borax, prepared the same way. Both minerals are long-standing components of Ayurvedic ophthalmic preparations.

  5. Karpuram

    Camphora officinarum · camphor

    Camphor. This is the cooling note you feel in the first few seconds after the drop lands, and it is the reason the carton says “for cooling”.

Processed into the aqueous extract

Fourteen

  1. Tulsi patra

    Ocimum sanctum · holy basil leaf

    Holy basil leaf, the most domestically familiar plant on this list — grown in courtyards across India and used in household preparations long before anyone wrote it on a carton.

  2. Swet chandan

    Santalum album · white sandalwood

    White sandalwood. Cooling in the classical sense, and one half of the sandalwood pairing this formulation is built around.

  3. Rakt chandan

    Pterocarpus santalinus · red sandalwood

    Red sandalwood, the other half. Both are used together rather than interchangeably, which is the traditional arrangement.

  4. Haritaki

    Terminalia chebula

    The first of the three fruits of Triphala. Ayurveda has used the three together in eye preparations for centuries.

  5. Bahera

    Terminalia bellirica

    The second fruit of Triphala.

  6. Punarnava

    Boerhaavia diffusa

    The name means “renewing itself” — the plant dies back through the dry months and returns with the first rains. One of the largest botanical presences in the bottle.

  7. Bhringraj

    Eclipta alba

    A marsh plant, better known in hair preparations, and a long-standing component of classical eye formulations too.

  8. Sobhanjan

    Moringa oleifera · drumstick

    Moringa. Ordinary enough to be dinner in half of India, and old enough in Ayurvedic practice to need no introduction there either.

  9. Nimba

    Azadirachta indica · neem

    Neem. Present in a great many Ayurvedic preparations, and used here as part of the aqueous extract rather than as an oil.

  10. Rose

    Rosa damascena

    Rose. The other cooling element alongside camphor and the two sandalwoods, and the one most people recognise by smell.

  11. Lodhra

    Symplocos racemosa

    Bark of the lodhra tree, a classical astringent used in traditional eye and skin preparations.

  12. Yamani

    Trachyspermum ammi · ajwain

    Ajwain seed, carried into the extract. Another kitchen plant that has been in the pharmacopoeia far longer than it has been in the spice rack.

  13. Haridra

    Curcuma longa · turmeric

    Turmeric, which most people stop reading at. It is part of the aqueous extract rather than a powder stirred in — that is what lets a water-based drop carry it at all.

  14. Dhatriphal

    Emblica officinalis · amla

    Amla, the third fruit of Triphala. Haritaki, bahera and dhatriphal together are the classical triad, and all three are here.

Traditional Ayurvedic preparation. External use only. Not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Consult a qualified practitioner before use, particularly if pregnant, nursing, or taking medication. If you have a diagnosed eye condition, wear contact lenses, or use prescribed eye medication, speak to your ophthalmologist first — and take this list with you.

Next

How to actually use it.

Two drops, twice a day — and a handful of things about the dropper and the bottle that matter more than most people expect.

Read the ritualShop I-Care Eye Drops