Reply To: Herbal Therapeutics

[Benna Keoghoe | Registered Herbal Therapist]

Hi Jill,

This is a great question as it is important to understand ratios for proper dosing.
While you do not have to adjust al of these tinctures to be 1:3, you can be aware that a 1:4 tincture is not as strong as a 1:3 tincture and adjust the dose to account for that or just be aware that the dose is less.
Let’s do an example:
Say you were going to use 20 ml of hawthorn berry tincture at a 1:3 ratio but you only have the 1:4 tincture. This means that for every gram of hawthorn berry there is 4 ml of alcohol/water (menstruum) instead of for every gram of hawthorn there is 3 ml of menstruum.
The way I find it the most simple to do the math is to divide your dose by 3 (in this case) to get your 1:1 dose, so 20 mL/3 = 6.67 mL. Since you have a 1:4 you would then multiply this 1:1 dose by 4. 6.67 mL x 4 = 26.68 mL or 27 mL

I hope this can help you work out the doses you need to create a dose appropriate formula with your hawthorn, motherwort and ginger tinctures. It’s very important practice and a useful thing to learn in herbal medicine.

Warmly,
Benna