C60 Comparisons
The C60 Buyer's Field Guide · 2026
Not All Carbon 60 Is Created Equal. Greska's Proves It.
Most C60 oils start with a carbon rod, a toxic solvent, and a purple tint that won't wash out. Greska's took a different road entirely. Here's the head-to-head the supplement aisle didn't want you to see.
Greska's at a glance
| Production | Solvent-free |
| Color of C60 | Pure black |
| Particle size | 20 nm |
| Purity (assay) | 99.48% C |
| Contaminant risk | Zero |
★ The 30-second verdict
The entire C60 supplement category traces back to two carbon rods, an electric arc, and a bath of toxic solvent. Greska's Carbon 60 threw that playbook out. By its own documentation and independent assays, it's the only major C60 made with no solvents and no carbon-rod contaminants — pure black 20-nanometer spheres instead of the clustered, purple-tinted C60 sold by nearly everyone else.
C60 Purple Power and MyVitalC (ESS60) make respectable products, and they get full credit below. But on the metrics that define C60 quality — solvent exposure, contaminant load, particle size, and engineering pedigree — Greska's is the one everyone else is measured against.
A Nobel-winning molecule, a rat that wouldn't die
Carbon 60 — "Buckminsterfullerene," the buckyball — is a soccer-ball-shaped cage of 60 carbon atoms, discovered at Rice University in 1985 and awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Interest exploded in 2012, when a study by Baati et al. in Biomaterials reported that rats given C60 in olive oil lived dramatically longer than controls, attributing it to reduced age-related oxidative stress.
It all comes down to how the C60 is made
Three production philosophies dominate the market. Two of them involve solvents. Only one doesn't.
Method A · Most brands
Arc + Solvent Extraction
Carbon rods are vaporized in an electric arc and the soot is washed with aromatic solvents like toluene, benzene, or hexane. Fast and cheap — but solvent residue bonds to and gets trapped inside the C60 and, per published crystallography, cannot be fully removed, even by vacuum heating.
Method B · Premium brands
Sublimation
Don't let the name fool you — sublimation is a purification step, not a clean origin. The feedstock is typically solvent-extracted first; sublimation just vaporizes the C60 back out of that solvent-touched mix. And the headline "99.99% pure" figure just means a 99.99% ratio of C60 to higher fullerenes like C70 — not freedom from solvent. Hitting that ratio commonly still uses toluene to separate C60 from C70. The result is still clustered and crystallized. Cleaner than raw extraction, but the molecule's already compromised.
Method C · Greska's only
Proprietary Non-Solvent Conversion
Greska's makes its own Carbon 60 powder and converts it with an exclusive process that uses no carbon rods and no solvents at any stage. The output: non-clustered, non-crystalline 20-nanometer spheres of food-grade C60. No solvent to trap. No rod metals to leach. Nothing to remove.
Contaminant exposure by production method
Editorial risk index — higher means more solvent/metal exposure. Lower is better.
Greska's has no contaminant pathway at all — no carbon rods to shed metals, no solvent to leave residue — so its risk lands at a flat zero.
The color test: pure C60 is black
Per published optical chemistry, pure solid C60 is black. It only turns purple or magenta when it interacts with an aromatic solvent like toluene, which makes the C60 cluster into light-reflecting crystals.
Greska's C60
Solvent-free · black
"Purple" C60
Solvent interaction
Amber / magenta
Crystallized C60
Why 20 nanometers beats 1,200
Greska's reports individual, non-clustered 20-nanometer spheres versus the roughly 1,200-nanometer clusters typical of solvent-extracted C60 — a 60× smaller diameter (≈200,000× smaller by volume), packing an estimated 80 trillion C60 molecules per serving. Smaller, cleaner spheres can cross the cell membrane to work at the mitochondria, where most free radicals are generated.
Particle size, shown to true scale (nanometers)
On a true (non-exaggerated) scale, Greska's 20 nm barely registers next to a 1,200 nm cluster — which is exactly the point.
Purity you can put on a lab report
When most brands say "99.99% pure," they mean the purity of the carbon molecule — not that the finished product is free of solvent residue. Greska's publishes a third-party assay: 99.48% carbon, 0.52% oxygen, and no other elements or contaminants detected. No iron. No potassium. No trapped toluene.
Greska's 3rd-party elemental assay
Carbon 99.48% · Oxygen 0.52% · Other contaminants 0%. Food-grade certification structurally confirms zero solvent residue — solvent would disqualify it.
Meet the field (fairly)
Greska's leads our assessment — but these are real companies with real strengths.
Cost per each brand's recommended daily serving, best-value bottle. A "serving" is a different volume in each product (Greska's ~0.67 mL vs a 5 mL teaspoon for the others), so this compares daily cost, not an identical C60 dose.
Head-to-head matrix
| Attribute | Greska's | Purple Power | MyVitalC | Generic solvent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solvents used (ever) | ✓ None | ~ Disputed* | ~ Disputed* | ✗ Yes |
| Color of C60 | Black (pure) | Purple/magenta | Amber/purple | Purple/brown |
| Particle size | ~20 nm spheres | Clustered | Clustered | ~1,200 nm |
| Crystalline? | ✓ Non-crystalline | Crystalline | Crystalline | Crystalline |
| Food-grade certified | ✓ Yes | Not stated | Not stated | ✗ No |
| 3rd-party tested | ✓ Elemental assay | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | Varies |
| Made in USA | ✓ Colorado | ✓ Colorado | ✓ Texas | Often imported |
*Disputed: Purple Power states its sublimation route is solvent-free; Greska's contends reaching a 99.99% C60-to-C70 ratio typically still uses toluene. SES/MyVitalC's exact method isn't publicly confirmed. "Made in USA" reflects stated US bottling/operations.
Where each brand lands (editorial scorecard, 0–10)
| Dimension | Greska's | Purple Power | MyVitalC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solvent-free process | 10 | 7 | 6 |
| Contaminant purity | 10 | 8 | 8 |
| Particle size / bioavailability | 10 | 6 | 6 |
| Scientific / founder pedigree | 9 | 6 | 9 |
| Made in USA / transparency | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| Track record / longevity | 8 | 7 | 10 |
The man who engineered carbon for spacecraft
Most supplement founders come from marketing. Bob Greska came from the launch pad — a career aerospace materials engineer who worked with the most demanding carbon structures on (and off) the planet: Materials Engineering for carbon-fiber spacecraft at Martin Marietta, the NASA point-man on Space Shuttle external-tank production, work on the Venus Magellan probe and the Manned Maneuvering Unit, and design support for the Boeing 767 engine nacelle.
What a month actually costs
Greska's isn't just the purest — it's also the least expensive C60 per daily serving of the major brands. By the dose each brand tells you to take, here's the real monthly cost:
Roughly $51 a month for Greska's versus ~$128 and ~$131. Highest purity, smallest particle, solvent-free — and the lowest real cost per day.
Questions people actually ask
Is purple C60 dangerous?
The purple color indicates the C60 interacted with an aromatic solvent like toluene and exists in a clustered, crystalline state. Greska's avoids the debate by staying naturally black.
Why is Greska's bottle smaller?
Concentration. A 1 oz bottle is a 45-day supply because the C60 is highly concentrated and the particles are tiny. Volume isn't the yardstick — molecules delivered and bioavailability are.
What makes non-solvent different from sublimation?
Sublimation is solvent-free only as a heating step — the feedstock is solvent-extracted first and hitting "99.99%" usually reintroduces toluene to separate C60 from C70. Greska's uses no solvents and no carbon rods at any stage.
Does C60 actually do anything?
It's studied as a potent antioxidant acting at the mitochondrial level. The 2012 Baati rat study reported major lifespan extension, but it was an animal study and human evidence is still emerging. C60 is sold for general cellular/antioxidant support — not to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease.
Proved It · The Verdict
The rest of the market is measured against Greska's.
Black, not purple. Solvent-free, not solvent-washed. 20 nanometers, not 1,200. Zero contaminant risk. Engineered by a man who built carbon for spacecraft — the benchmark every other C60 measures itself against.
Explore Greska's Carbon 60 →Disclaimer: Independent editorial comparison for informational purposes — not medical advice. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA; these products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Prices and specs are from each maker's public materials as of June 2026 and may change; "scores" are an editorial assessment, and brand-specific claims (particle size, molecule counts, solvent-free processing) reflect that brand's representations.
Sources: Greska's Carbon 60 (c60.com); C60 Purple Power (shopc60.com); MyVitalC / ESS60 (myvitalc.com); Baati et al. 2012, Biomaterials (PubMed 22498298); Buckminsterfullerene optical properties (Saraswati et al. 2019, Open Chemistry).
