Remedy bottles give you 4 basic pieces of information.

1.       The Latin name (Phosphorus on the bottle pictured)

Note that sometimes this gets confusing with plants.  A lot of plants we use in homeopathy have new Latin names, but homeopaths use the old Latin name (it seems we, as a profession, struggle to stay up to date in this way! Haha).

2.       The number of times the remedy has been diluted (30 in the bottle pictured)

3.       The amount of dilution (C in the red circle in the bottle pictured)

This is denoted with a Roman numeral.  C in Roman numerals is 100, so it means the remedy has been diluted by 1:100.  Meaning 1 drop of the original substance was put in 100 drops of water or alcohol, and then 1 drop of that solution is moved to another 100 drops and so on. 

4.       The method of dilution used

If the method used was the one developed by Hahnemann, then often there is no extra letter (as in this Phosphorus example).  Hahnemann’s method is instead implied.  So the complete name of this remedy would be Phosphorus 30CH.  The H stands for Hahnemann.  You will sometimes see K or F.  (e.g. Phosphorus 30CK or Phosphorus 30CF).  These mean “made according to the Korsakoff/Fincke method” (respectively). 

The most common potencies:

The most common “potencies” are 6C, 12C, 30C, 200C, 1M, 10, 50M.  30C is the most common potency in health food stores, but you can now and then get a 200C or 12C. 

The “M’s” are where is gets a little confusing.  1M actually means a 1,000C, and 50M means a 50,000C.  These are very dilute potencies!