CBD is everywhere. Your boutique coffee shop will add it to your breakfast smoothie for an extra couple bucks, your grocery store has it in a special case by the register and of course, every dispensary from here to there has CBD products. Then there’s the multitude of ways you can buy CBD. There’s CBD tinctures, gummies, drinks, topical solutions, assorted foods and so on.
With CBD now readily available and in so many forms, more and more people are turning to CBD for things like anxiety, epilepsy, pain management and even cancer. But how do you know how to buy CBD and what is the proper way to take it to get the most benefit? Let’s take a look at some basic CBD buying tips to help you be a better consumer of CBD products.
Look for a Certificate of Analysis (COA)
Never buy CBD without a third party test result proving what is inside the bottle. If you don’t know what you’re taking, you have no idea how it is going to make an impact on you. Most people take CBD to provide a health benefit of some sort. Without knowing exactly how much CBD you’re taking and more importantly, what else is in the product you’re consuming, you have no metric to know the impact the product is providing you with.
Stay safe and protect yourself by only buying CBD products that offer you easy access to a COA on the specific product you’re buying. There are some sites that offer COAs on just their ingredients, however, you still need the COA on the product itself so that you can see exactly what’s in the product you’re about to consume.
Skip the flavors
Be wary of tinctures that have flavoring added as it’s usually to cover up the poor tasting of unrefined starting materials or poorly refined active ingredients. Ask yourself a simple question, why does my CBD need flavoring? Simple answer, it doesn’t. Properly refined CBD along with high quality MCT oil will not taste bad. In fact it has little to no flavor at all.
Like most things you put in your body, you want as few ingredients as possible and ones you can spell! Most flavors additives do not fall into this category and cause the product to taste poorly versus their intended purpose.
Broad Spectrum vs Full Spectrum
This is a very common question that’s perfectly okay to ask! Let’s give you the basic definitions of the two for your reference.
Types of CBD
Broad Spectrum: A CBD tincture that is made with Broad Spectrum CBD contains multiple cannabinoids that are naturally found in the cannabis plant, however it does not contain THC. If you work in a position that still does drug tests, this is the option you want to select when searching for your CBD.
Full Spectrum: A CBD tincture that is made with Full Spectrum CBD contains all of the cannabinoids that are naturally found in the cannabis plant. This includes THC, so there is a chance that you could fail a drug test by taking a Full Spectrum CBD product.
Check the Dosage
One of the more confusing, but critical parts to look for when buying CBD oil is the dosage per serving size. Without this information, you have no idea how much to take and how it’s affecting you.
Most products offer the total amount of CBD contained in it right on the front of the bottle. This is generally pretty easy to spot and typically determines how expensive your CBD is. However, that means little to you when determining how many servings that equates to and more importantly, how much CBD is in each serving.
The majority of CBD tinctures on the market are sold in 1 ounce/30ml bottles, however the amount of CBD in each bottle can vary dramatically. From 100 milligrams (mg) to 3,000 mg and beyond. The first thing to do is check the bottle to determine what an actual serving size is. This can usually be found on the bottle itself somewhere and should mention the markings on the dropper inside the bottle. Most dropper bottles will at least have a marking for the 1 ml mark which will generally be a serving size, however it is up to you to read the bottle to confirm.
Once you know what a serving size is, you need to know how many servings are in a bottle to determine how much CBD is in each bottle. To do so, simply divide the total amount of CBD contained in the tincture by the number of servings. Here’s a breakdown of one of our products as an example.
Example CBD Tincture Dosage:
Product: Timberline CBD Sweet Dreams Night-Time Formula
How much CBD per bottle? 1,500 mg of a CBD/CBN blend
How big is the bottle? 30 ml
What is a serving size? 1 ml
How much CBD is contained in one serving? 50 mg per 1 ml
Numbers don’t lie and it’s easy to get confused by fancy labels and misleading claims. The most important thing for you as the consumer is to know how much CBD is right for you. Once you know this and have read through our CBD buying tips, you will be much more likely to purchase a product that is going to give you the results you’re looking for.
As we at Timberline CBD continue to research and provide you with the most up-to-date CBD buying tips we can find on the ingredients we offer in our products. We encourage you to check with your own doctor before adding any medication or supplement to your regimen.