It isn’t easy to decipher the information on product labels. Often the things you can make out from the extremely tiny printing are confusing and is far too technical for the average person to grasp. Add to that the list of ingredients that contains words you can’t pronounce of things you couldn’t identify if you had to. However, the best way to fully appreciate the products you own is by reading the labels. That’s kind of a strange situation, isn’t it? 

With CBD labels there are a few things to be aware of that may tip you off on products that could be something other than what you thought you had purchased. Here are a few signs to watch for the next time you purchase any kind of CBD product.

 

 

Consider this a red flag signaling that you are probably looking at a fake CBD product. A label that says very little about anything is a label that screams “run away from here” loud and clear. What should be noted is where the CBD oil was produced. You are looking for the name of a city and a state. Something like “on the sands of the Mojave Desert” is still on the vague side. 

 

 

This may appear to be far too obvious but before you lay out some cash for a bottle of CBD oil, you will want to be sure it is CBD oil and not a bottle of generic carrier oil that costs you too much. Don’t be confused by the words used to describe what the bottle contains. You want to see one of two different words and only them: CBD or cannabidiol. Just for the record, cannabidiol is the name of the cannabinoid we all call CBD. If the label says it contains hemp seeds, cannabis sativa or hemp seed oil, walk away. Sure, CBD comes from the hemp plant but if the label does not clearly state that it contains CBD, it isn’t CBD. Hemp seeds are not CBD.

 

A legit CBD label is going to have some numbers on it. First, it should indicate the amount of CBD contained in the bottle. As an example, your average CBD oil bottle will hold 30-milliliters of CBD product. The label should note the size of the bottle (in our example) as 30ml. A really good CBD label will go a bit further than that and will give you a suggested serving size and the number of servings to expect at that serving size from that specific size bottle. Additionally, you will want to know the strength of the CBD and that will be noted in milligrams. You may see numbers like 250mg, 500mg, and 1,000mg. The 1,000mg strength is the highest.

 

 

A Certificate of Analysis (COA) is another important piece of the puzzle in understanding CBD labels. The COA is a document issued by an accredited lab that breaks down the quantity of each cannabinoid in the CBD product. The important part about the COA you should be concerned about is if the label says it contains 1,000mg (milligrams) of CBD along with trace amounts of other compounds, the COA should list CBD at 1,000mg. In other words, the COA tells you that a third party facility tested the batch and can verify that the bottle that says it has 1,000mg of CBD in it does. The COA, which will be very small and hard to read, may be on the label or there could be a barcode on the label you can scan with your smartphone. The barcode would send you to a web page outlining the COA. Or, the complete COA will be posted on the product’s website.

 

 

There are two main sources for CBD oil. Either it came from cannabis plants or industrial hemp. The higher-end products will also list one of these three terms on the label: full spectrum, broad spectrum or CBD isolate. A CBD product label with any of this on it will be legitimate. 

 

What is Full Spectrum, Broad Spectrum, and Isolate?

 

Here is a quick breakdown of all three of these types of CBD products to help you understand what you are getting in that bottle.

 

Full Spectrum CBD – This will contain all the compounds that are naturally available in the cannabis plant. That is going to include THC. The difference here is that if the full spectrum CBD is hemp-derived, the THC amount will not exceed 0.3 percent.

 

Broad Spectrum CBD – This tells you that the CBD product will contain all the naturally available compounds from the cannabis plant except THC.

 

CBD Isolate – This happens to be the purest form of CBD which has been isolated from all the other compounds in the cannabis plant. There should be no THC in this form of CBD.

 

As if it isn’t complicated enough already, but different states have different requirements for what should appear on the labels of CBD products. The best thing to do is a bit of homework on what the labels should say/look like in your home state. This is important for you to get yourself familiarized with because if you end up purchasing CBD products from out-of-state, you will want to ensure that the packaging and label details still meet the requirements of where you live.

 

 

Until there is a standardized set of label and packaging guidelines put in place for CBD products as there is for all other food and medicinal products, you have to be on top of what is considered legitimate in your state. Add to this the issue of trying to identify fake CBD products to the mix and it doesn’t take long to realize that you have to know your stuff just to purchase a bottle of CBD oil. But as the old saying goes, it is better to be safe than sorry.