With so many fake kohl powders being sold as a pure Ithmid Kohl, it’s very easy to fall a victim to this unscrupulous trade and buy a kohl product on the assumption that it is real and pure ithmid kohl when in reality it is not not only not what you think but potentially toxic and harmful.
In fact, the vast majority (over 90%) of the kohl powders on the market which their sellers claim to be 100% lead free and pure are anything but. A lot of these sellers are themselves unaware of what is in these products but they advertise it as pure and lead free nonetheless just to make sales without asking themselves if their claims are true or not.
However if they did a little bit of homework to ensure that what they are selling is actually pure Ithmid and lead free, many of them would have discontinued selling them.
So what homework can one do to investigate that the product they are buying is genuinely pure Ithmid kohl?
Check it’s not on the black list
The easiest and first thing you can do is to check if the product is not one already reported to be lead laden and potentially toxic by reliable sources.
The biggest brands or makes in the kohl market actually have been discredited by lab tests conducted by the Saudi Food and Drugs Agency. Ecowaste coalition and New South Wales government in Australia also discredited a major kohl brand as being potentially toxic.
Check the list of these brands and images of their widely available kohl products here as a first step of knowing whether your potential purchase (or already bought product) is actually pure kohl. If it’s there, then you just have saved yourself a lot of further checking as well as saving your money and health.
Can the stone be traced and provided if needed
Another indirect way of knowing whether the product is pure Ithmid kohl is to check with the seller if they are able to trace where the kohl came from and can provide you with a stone of the same type if needed.
Ithmid kohl like any other product is passed down a chain of producers, wholesalers, distributors and retailers before reaches you. But any seller who knows their trade well will be able to trace back when the Ithmid stone was crushed into a powder. They will know which of their suppliers did this and they can verify with them that nothing was added and the end product was completely pure Ithmid powder.
Sellers who just bought a nicely packaged black substance advertised as pure Ithmid kohl from a random wholesaler will not be able to do any of these requirements. They have no history of the product, where it came from and how it is made except that which is written by the package or told to them by whoever they bought it off from (who in turn relies on the packaging info or what someone else said to them)
At Realithmidkohl.com we are 100% sure about the purity of our Ithmid kohl powder which is crushed into a stone using an electrical grinder. We know and can trace back the whole journey of our ithmid powders. The stones from which are our pure ithmid kohl powders are made from are available on request.
Does it look like and feel like a crushed stone
Pure ithmid kohl is obtained by crushing ithmid stone into a powder without adding any other ingredients. Imagine yourself doing this for a minute ? What image comes to your mind of the of kind of powder would you end up ? Something dusty with a slightly different shades of color ? Or something that is jet black and glossy without any traces of dust or variation in its color ?
Hopefully, you have picked the first option which is what represents a truly pure ithmid kohl. When you see and feel a pure ithmid kohl you will know feel confident to say that it must have come from a stone. A good pure ithmid kohl powder has this little shiny silverish grains in it (which look white flecks in the photo) and it is colour is more of a dark grey than that of black.
Also pure ithmid kohl has this soft texture to it that it easily compacts on itself under pressure and forms lumps in a similar way to a wet sand.
Does the seller sound knowledgeable
This is an indirect way of ascertaining whether what you are about to buy is actually pure and genuine ithmid kohl. Being knowledgeable about the topic of ithmid kohl is a distinguishing sign that marks good sellers who have done their research and homework and know what they are talking about from the others who due to their lack of expertise and knowledge on the topic do not know much about the products they are selling beyond what is written on the packaging and may be the hadiths on the benefits of ithmid kohl.
Some of the questions that you can ask the seller include :
Where does ithmid kohl come from ? Is pure ithmid kohl only a certain color ( for example black ) ? What other colours does pure ithmid kohl come from ? How many varieties of ithmid kohl exist ? What is the difference between them ? How is ithmid kohl made ? How to apply it ?
Sellers selling genuinely pure and authentic ithmid kohl will most definitely give you convincing answers on these questions as they themselves had gone through the same situation you are in when sourcing their products and through research and personal experience found out the answers.
Hope you found this article useful and it gave you a very important tips that you can use to steer away from fake ithmid kohl products and identify pure ithmid kohl.
If you have any questions or comments please leave a comment under the post ( I will reply to you insha`Allah) or get in touch by email at : contact@realithmidkohl.com
