What is the Difference in CBD Products?

CBD is the new kid on the block in natural health care, and it’s everywhere! Does that mean that you should grab any product with CBD for your needs? NO! Unfortunately, we’re still in a bit of a Wild West period with CBD products.

Even if you have a genuine product, there are so many kinds that it’s hard to know which is best for you. Let’s look at the differences in CBD products and figure out how you can choose the best products for your needs.

Spot The CBD Fakes with a Lab Test

Before you buy any CBD product, ask for the company’s latest lab tests. Excellent companies test their products for CBD content and share those results online. For the record, here is our list of lab reports.

If they cannot provide a report showing their products contain CBD (or cannabidiol), do not buy it! You can also use these reports to prove they’re not sneaking in marijuana oil. This also contains CBD, but it will also have THC which will make you high. Yes, some companies mislabel!

One common trick is to use hemp seed oil and then say the product contains CBD. Unfortunately, there is no CBD in hempseed oil. It may be great on a salad, but it’s not so good if you’re seeking treatment with CBD.

How Was The CBD Extracted?

Getting the CBD oil out of a hemp plant isn’t just a matter of squeezing. There are several processes to draw the oils out, and some are more healthy than others.

The best, and the kind we use, is carbon dioxide extraction. If you cool carbon dioxide into a liquid and run it over raw cannabis under pressure, it destroys the parts of the plant that hold in oils and draws it out. These parts are called trichomes.

Once the oil is out, the carbon dioxide is warmed up and released, leaving the oil behind. This is the same process used to draw essential oils from plants. It’s also used to decaffeinate coffee.

The other major extraction process uses butane. Yes, the same stuff in a lighter! It works to draw out hemp oil, but it’s very easy to leave a butane residue behind. If you’re looking for the most natural form of CBD, avoid anything with butane hash oil (BHO)!

CBD Product Types

What you’re left with is concentrated oil. This is the CBD product that gets added to all the others. Here are some different types:

Tinctures – This is CBD oil mixed with a carrier for use under the tongue. You can find this kind of CBD in our Organic CBD Broad-Spectrum Tincture. We use organic extra-virgin olive oil as our carrier oil. The benefit of a tincture is that it’s the fastest way to get CBD into your bloodstream.

Topicals – Anything that you apply to the outside of your skin is a topical, like our CBD Sports Cream.  We can absorb CBD through the skin and it’s easier to apply when it’s mix it with a thicker oil, like coconut oil. Plus the oil makes your skin feel moisturized.

Edibles – Edibles is a catch-all term for any form of CBD you take by eating or drinking. From crystallized CBD to melt in butter for cooking, to swallowing oil pills like our CBD Soft Gel Caps with Curcumin for brain and joint health, this is a popular way to take it. It’s the slowest method from dose to effect, but the effects last longer.

Why Not Vape The Oil?

Yes, another way to consume CBD is through vaping, and there are several different vapable CBD products out there. Like with other CBD products, there are fakes out there, so be sure to do your lab research before you buy.

Does CBD work through vaping? Yes, it does. If you are ill and need very high doses of CBD, vaping is one of the best ways to deliver a high dose. However, vaping has some serious drawbacks.

First, there’re the dangers of vaping. While vape enthusiasts believe vaping is far safer than smoking, the science is still unclear about the safety of vaping in the long-term. If our tincture and pills aren’t potent enough for your needs, please speak with a doctor to see if a vape-delivered form of CBD may be suitable for you.

What About Smoking Hemp?

We don’t recommend smoking hemp to get a dose of CBD, for reasons both practical and legal. One of the huge reasons vaping took off in the cannabis community was because they could get more cannabinoids through vaping than smoking.

The heat needed to smoke cannabis is so great that a lot of the effects go, well, up in smoke. You have to smoke more to get the same dose. Also, because of the nature of fire, it’s really difficult to dose CBD with smoking.

There are also legal reasons. Hemp grown for CBD content and marijuana grown for THC can’t be told apart without documentation. If you live in a state where recreational marijuana is illegal, smoking your high-CBD strain could get you in trouble.

Also, because you’re working with a raw plant, each plant will have a distinct combination of cannabinoids. With extraction, you can run tests on the samples and get a proper concentration. This means there’s a bit of a gamble on how well your smoked dose will work.

This was a quick whirlwind tour through the different types of CBD products and how you can spot a fake product from a real one. We hope that, through further research, scientists will identify even more benefits to this miracle of Mother Nature and create ways to help us take our medicine.