Everything a report covers.Explained plainly.
A certificate of analysis is dense, inconsistent between labs, and written for a quality team rather than a shopper. This is a guide to what those pages actually contain, and how each kind of result should be read.
What gets tested, and why it is on the list.
Not every product needs every panel. A milled whole food powder has no solvents to look for; a botanical extract has both solvents and pesticides worth checking. Pick a category to see what it covers.
Heavy metals
Lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury occur naturally in soil and water, so they turn up in trace amounts in almost any plant or marine ingredient. The question is never whether they are present. It is how much, and how that compares to the limit on the report.
These elements build up in the body over time rather than clearing quickly, which is why limits are usually written per serving rather than per batch.
Values are typically small fractions of the limit. A result at 7 percent of the limit is a wide margin, not a near miss.
Context is the whole job.
Drag the reading and watch the same number change meaning as it moves toward the limit.
This reading uses 7 percent of the limit on the report.
A number on its own says nothing.
Half a microgram of arsenic sounds alarming until you know the limit is ten. The figure only becomes information once it sits next to the threshold it is being measured against.
That is why every value in the panel is drawn against the limit printed on that report, with the distance between them visible. Limits can come from the lab, the brand specification, a category standard, or a regulatory reference, and the panel shows which one it used.
Five phrases, and what each one means.
The panel uses a small, fixed set of statuses so a shopper learns them once. Each is a statement about what the report said, never a judgement we have added on top.
The value the lab measured sits below the limit shown on that report. The panel draws the distance so the margin is visible rather than implied.
The substance was below the level the lab equipment can reliably measure. It means nothing was found, not that the amount is exactly zero.
The measured amount of an active ingredient meets the amount the label declares. This is a claim check rather than a safety limit.
The panel was run and its results were reported. Used for screens where the meaningful outcome is that nothing was found across many compounds.
The value exceeds the limit on the report. The panel shows these plainly rather than hiding them, because a record that only ever agrees is not a record.
What LabTested is not.
Being useful here depends on being clear about the limits of the role. The panel is a display of documents a merchant provided, presented so they can be read and checked.
The testing is done by the laboratory your brand chooses. We read the certificate they issue and present it.
Limits come from the report itself, the brand specification, a category standard, or a regulatory reference. We show which was used.
Nothing here is an approval, an endorsement, or a seal. A result applies to the sample, batch, and date on the document.
Every value stays linked to the certificate it came from, so anything shown can be checked against the original.