Fake shilajit: how to tell if it's real

“Fake shilajit” covers several different problems, and the one that matters most for your health isn’t the one most home tests try to catch. A product can be genuine shilajit and still be unsafe because it carries too much lead or arsenic. Equally, a product can pass every kitchen test and be mostly something else.

We searched the medical literature and found no published study measuring how much shilajit on sale is fake or diluted, so nobody can tell you how common it is. What the research does show is that contamination is a real problem in some samples, and that only laboratory testing can detect it.

What counts as fake shilajit?

There are four main ways a shilajit product can let you down:

1. Not shilajit at all, or a different substance passed off as shilajit.
2. Bulked out with fillers, so you get less shilajit than you think.
3. Genuine but contaminated, with heavy metals, microbes or other impurities.
4. Mislabelled, with a dose, purity or fulvic acid figure that the product doesn’t match.

UK food law treats several of these as serious. The Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit lists adulteration (adding an undeclared substance to cut costs or fake quality), substitution (replacing an ingredient with an inferior one), misrepresentation, and document fraud, which includes making or using false documents to sell a substandard product. A forged lab certificate would fall into that last group.

How common is contaminated shilajit?

It varies a great deal between samples. A 2022 analysis of shilajit from India and Pakistan found lead, arsenic and mercury, among other elements, at levels above permissible limits (Aldakheel et al., 2022). A 2024 review found most reported metal levels were within World Health Organization and US limits, apart from a few studies where they were exceeded (Hussain and Saeed, 2024). A 2026 analysis of 12 samples from different regions found toxic metals below established thresholds (Kamgar et al., 2026).

Commercial products aren’t automatically cleaner. Researchers who measured thallium, a toxic metal, found up to 0.5 micrograms per gram in supplements, and some supplements contained more than the crude shilajit tested (Kamgar et al., 2025). In a wider study of Ayurvedic products bought online, 20.7% contained detectable lead, mercury or arsenic, and 75% of those claimed to follow good manufacturing practice (Saper et al., 2008). A claim on a website is not a test result.

Do burn, water and stretch tests work?

No. These tests check for behaviour that genuine shilajit shares with many other substances, and none of them can detect heavy metals, microbes or most fillers.

These ideas aren’t new. Traditional Ayurvedic practice judged purified shilajit by water and fire tests, called jalapariksha and agnipariksha, based on its solubility, form and smoke (Sharma et al., 2003). They may help confirm you have something resin-like. They were never designed to measure lead.

Which lab tests show shilajit is genuine?

Identity is checked by chemical fingerprinting, which looks for compounds that are characteristic of shilajit. Researchers have used several techniques:

• Chromatography (HPLC, HPTLC and LC-MS) to identify and measure marker compounds such as fulvic acid, hippuric acid and urolithin A (Kohli et al., 2026).
• Gravimetric analysis to measure total fulvic acid content (Kohli et al., 2026).
• Gas chromatography with mass spectrometry, which has identified fulvic acid and dibenzo-alpha-pyrones in Himalayan shilajit (Basavaraja et al., 2025).
• ICP-MS to measure minerals and toxic metals (Kohli et al., 2026; Kamgar et al., 2026).

A useful certificate combines identity markers with safety tests for the same batch. Our guide to reading a certificate of analysis walks through each line.

What are the red flags when buying shilajit?

Watch for these warning signs:

• No certificate, or one you can’t match to the batch number on your jar.
• “Lab tested” or “third-party tested” with no report to back it up.
• Results given only as “pass”, with no numbers or units.
• A price well below other sellers. The FSA warns businesses to beware of counterfeit supplements, particularly online and when the price is cheaper than other suppliers.
• Claims to treat or cure disease. No food may claim to prevent, treat or cure a human disease, and that applies to advertising as well as labels (Regulation 1169/2011, Article 7).
• A label that doesn’t say “food supplement”. In England, supplements must be sold under that name, with the recommended daily dose and a warning not to exceed it (Food Supplements (England) Regulations 2003).
• No business name and address, which leaves you nobody to complain to.
• Grades and mineral counts such as “Grade A” or “85 minerals” offered instead of lab results. They tell you nothing a certificate wouldn’t.

What should I do if I think my shilajit is fake?

Stop taking it and keep the packaging, the batch number and your receipt. Then:

1. Ask the seller for the certificate of analysis for that batch. A genuine seller should be able to send it.
2. Report misleading or missing label information to Trading Standards in England and Wales, or your local food safety team in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
3. Report suspected fraud, such as adulteration or forged documents, to the National Food Crime Unit. Reports can be made anonymously.
4. See a doctor if you feel unwell, and take the product with you.

For the legal background, see is shilajit legal in the UK?. For why purified products are the safer starting point, see raw vs purified shilajit, and for the full checklist, the buying guide.