Epimedium/Icariin - hard to find sources that aren't crap

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Originally Posted by 5 alpha victim

Dam
They charge enough for their products so we'd expect them to work. Does not fill me with much confidence seeing that three of my seven products that im cycling are from them.

I got lab work done last week anyway before I started cycling my herbs (turned out to have total T readings in the high 200's.. Just terrible)

After a a few weeks I'll retest to see if this works. This way I can take as much guessing out of the equation as possible.

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The tka I have is almost black and the trib doesn't look much like the liftmode stuff I bought on recommendation of other members. Strangely the icarin looks similar to the yellow stuff fpr posted but I notice no pde5 style effects like stuffy nose etc and if anything I found that particular sup to kinda suck. I have all three of their things too though haha. Great minds

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Originally Posted by entropy

The tka I have is almost black and the trib doesn't look much like the liftmode stuff I bought on recommendation of other members. Strangely the icarin looks similar to the yellow stuff fpr posted but I notice no pde5 style effects like stuffy nose etc and if anything I found that particular sup to kinda suck. I have all three of their things too though haha. Great minds

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Have you started taking the liftmode Trib yet?

I'm going to give the worldabs stuff a fair shot. Worst case in a few weeks I find out my blood work does not look any better in which case I'll get the liftmode trib and the SMH tka and give that a shot.

Have to say so far with my limited experience in cycling natty Tboosters the D aspartic acid from wicked (not even the stronger kind that comes in the ultimate stack) and the Mucuna Pruriens from SMH seems to give me the strongest effects in regards to feeling a increase In T.

Worst case we need to ditch the world abs stuff and get the more powerful recommend herbs.

Good Tongkat Ali should be golden, almost yellowish. The stuff from Supermanherbs is. And yes, I feel the hell out of it. It's some of the most legit stuff I've ever taken.

Also, if your TKA is not THE most bitter product you've ever tried, then it isn't real.

Real Horny Goat Weed - Epimedium Extract

New Icarrin from SMH

Has anyone ordered it

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Originally Posted by 5 alpha victim

Real Horny Goat Weed - Epimedium Extract

New Icarrin from SMH

Has anyone ordered it

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This product is where I am going to respectfully disagree with SMH.

1-3% icariin won't do diddly. I know that Logan believes that there is wisdom in using the whole plant and not a concentrated extract of actives, but if you aren't getting enough actives from the plant, taking it is next to worthless.

He told me himself in an e-mail that they are an herb company and not a drug company and they didn't believe in isolating only a part of the plant. While I appreciate that line of thinking, sometimes things like that need to occur for someone to find use in them -- just like they've done with pine pollen tincture. The people who want the hormonal effects to be pronounced produced a demand for the tincture.

Most experienced users will tell you that in order to get any real effects from HGW, you need at least a 40% icariin concentration. I hate to dog a product before I've tried it, but I'm guessing it won't be very effective.

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Originally Posted by Freepressright

This product is where I am going to respectfully disagree with SMH.

1-3% icariin won't do diddly. I know that Logan believes that there is wisdom in using the whole plant and not a concentrated extract of actives, but if you aren't getting enough actives from the plant, taking it is next to worthless.

He told me himself in an e-mail that they are an herb company and not a drug company and they didn't believe in isolating only a part of the plant. While I appreciate that line of thinking, sometimes things like that need to occur for someone to find use in them -- just like they've done with pine pollen tincture. The people who want the hormonal effects to be pronounced produced a demand for the tincture.

Most experienced users will tell you that in order to get any real effects from HGW, you need at least a 40% icariin concentration. I hate to dog a product before I've tried it, but I'm guessing it won't be very effective.

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This is some great info. I suspected that full plant extracts are more effective for the desired effect. I mean, in the past these plants became popular by taking them straight or in teas, there was very little to no processing of the plants.
SuperManHerbs has Horney Goat Weed on sale now - I plan to buy some from them here soon. I would take a look at theirs 5-alpha if you are still interested.

Based on what FPR said about how the icariin is the substance that's causing the desired effects in HGW that's enough for me to not order it. Like he said using the whole plant in this instance in exchange for only including small amounts of the substance we want does not sound like it will be effective.

It prob will not work any better than the HGW I have now from world abs.

I think I'm going to eventually get the HGW from Swansons

If you end up trying SMH's HGW with good results I'll Deff order it.

I'm going to go ahead and bump this thread. I've only dabbled with Icariin in proprietary blend way back, but I feel fairly certain this was the ingredient that was working. Very few products have high percentage Icariin. Curious if anyone's given Liftmode's 98% a go. Not really into powders, but that's the highest I've found that I feel trustworthy about.

if you guys want some awesome powders, please let me know...we'll get them on socal and alphapowders (if the demand is there)

I just ordered some 98% Icariin from Liftmode. I'll let you know if it's worth pursuing, especially if it's quality. I want to see if 98% Icariin lives up to my expectations, that is assuming it's legit 98%. I'll try to get a pic posted up of powder color. Too bad the molecular weight is like 600+, I'd love to dump some in some salvo.