With so many products available, choosing which CBD oil to buy can be a little confusing. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, looking at the label could make it worse. Product volumes, dosages, and other important information are rarely listed in a way that’s easy to understand. Whether you’re just starting out with CBD oil or have been a consumer for a while, it’s time to learn about labels.

Here at LoFi, we believe it’s important to know what you’re putting in your body. Product and company transparency is important to us, which is why we want to do what we can to help clear up any questions consumers might be having about labelling practices. After all, understanding a label will help you determine value and ensure you’re buying something you’ll be happy with. In order to do this, we’ve broken down and explained the main things you’ll find on a label of CBD oil.

While we’re specifically discussing CBD oil, a lot of these things can apply to other products as well.

1. Ingredients

This is where you’ll find the list of all the ingredients inside the oil. Often, labels will only list cannabis extract + carrier oil. Unfortunately, this isn’t very helpful if you’re trying to assess what kind of CBD extract was used (Full Spectrum, Distillate, or Isolate).

According to s. 101.3 of the regulations under the federal Cannabis Act, a bottle of CBD oil can only contain a short list of ingredients. This is something we’ve spoken more about here, if you want to learn more.

2. Warnings

According to the Cannabis Act, products that contain THC must come with the proper warning labels and notices. Despite the big THC stop signs, however, CBD doesn’t always contain high amounts of THC. In fact, Health Canada regulations require the THC stop sign and warning labels on CBD products regardless of their THC content.

3. Product Volume

Quite often, product labels will state the amount of CBD in a gram, but won’t necessarily specify the amount of CBD in the entire bottle. This is important in order to compare product quantities and prices. There’s a big difference between a 1000mg bottle of CBD oil and a 1500mg one, especially if the 1000mg bottle happens to cost more.

Since a standard bottle of CBD oil has 30ml, calculating the total volume just takes a little math. For a quick estimate of how much CBD is in a bottle of CBD oil, take the CBD content per mg or ml, multiply it by three, and add a zero. For example, we’ll use our 1500mg CBD oil:

50mg x 3 = 150. Add a zero = 1500mg.

4. Calculating Dosage

Measuring dosage can be a challenge, especially if the product packaging specifies the CBD amount per gram and not millilitre, which is how we typically measure out a dose. Converting grams to millilitres is based on the weight of what’s being measured and not on a standardized math equation. This can make precise conversions difficult. For example, when trying to convert the measurements of water, 1g is basically the equivalent of 1ml. Olive oil, however, is a little denser, so 1g is the equivalent of 1.09mg.

Understandably, this gets confusing. This is why, here at LoFi, we’ve made it a point to be clear in our labeling in order to make dosage calculations as easy as possible. On our label, we even include how many mg of CBD per drop.

5. Packaging Date

The packaging date is exactly what it sounds like: the date in which the product was packaged up and made ready for sale. This day doesn’t specify when the plants were harvested, when extraction took place, or how long the oil sat on the shelf before packaging.

6. Licensing and Lot Information

While it may be easy to overlook licensing information, paying attention to the lot number provided on the packaging can provide some valuable information. Sometimes, companies will provide publicly accessible Certificate of Analysis (COA) available for each lot they produce. These COAs, when conducted by reputable, third-party testers, will provide an in-depth analysis into the contents and makeup of the product in question. COAs cover everything from cannabinoid analysis, terpene profiles, as well as microbial, mycotoxin, heavy metal, and residual solvent analysis. This is important for you to know in order to make sure the product you’re buying and consuming are both coming from a reputable source, and free of contaminants.

Because reading a COA is a more complicated topic, we covered them more here.

TL;DR

It’s important to know how to read a label correctly in order to make sure you know what you’re buying. While labels can sometimes seem complicated, considering them one section at a time can make them a little more manageable. Nevertheless, not all labels are created equal, and sometimes information we think is important is left out. This is why we worked hard to make our labels easier to understand while putting all the stuff we couldn’t fit on the label up on our website.