Centella: which derivative to name in the specification
The word centella in a specification does not describe a raw material. One plant yields five different items at different prices and different dose levels, and the choice is made before the cost calculation.
"Centella extract" reads like a clear line item in a specification, yet it describes a whole family of materials with different prices per kilogram and different working doses. Two suppliers can both honestly call their product centella and send you entirely different things.
One plant, five different items
Centella asiatica yields, first, the extract itself, standardised to the sum of the key triterpenes. Second, the isolated compounds on their own: asiaticoside, madecassoside and asiatic acid, usually at around 95% purity.
TECA, the titrated extract, and the item labelled triterpenes 95% stand apart. These are not synonyms: they differ in composition and in what exactly you are paying for.
What TECA means
TECA stands for titrated extract of Centella asiatica. It is built not around a single compound but around a set ratio of three: asiaticoside, asiatic acid and madecassic acid, titrated together to 95%.
That ratio is defined. Sunpure, for instance, standardises its TECA 95% to asiaticoside in the 36–44% range and to total genins, meaning asiatic and madecassic acid, in the 54–66% range. This is what separates TECA from an extract sold as centella in general: it has an internal structure you can verify.
How the choice affects dosing and price
A purified compound costs more per kilogram but goes in at a lower share. An extract is cheaper, yet its active content is lower, and without that content stated the offers cannot be compared at all.
Hence a frequent mistake when comparing suppliers: prices are set side by side per kilogram of material rather than per kilogram of active. Counted that way, the cheaper offer regularly turns out to be the more expensive one in the finished formula.
What to write and what to request
A specification names the exact derivative, the standardisation figure and the method used to determine it. "Centella extract" without those three leaves the supplier free to send whatever it considers centella.
From the producer, request the batch certificate of analysis, results for residual solvents, heavy metals, pesticides and microbiology, and the regulatory dossier number where one has been filed. The number is useful because its existence can be checked independently: at Sunpure, for example, it is USDMF-033156 for centella and USDMF-040257 for madecassoside.