Are you looking for CBD oil or gummies in Australia but need help finding the best products?
Understanding how to do so is crucial. The difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ quality CBD oil or gummies can be enormous.
This guide will teach you what to look for in these items to assess quality.
You’ll learn how to:
- Find the best CBD oil and gummies when shopping in Australia
- Identify products that are safe and pure
- Assess the origin and contents of different CBD extracts
- Understand CBD oil lab testing and labelling
The relevance of this skill is now greater than ever before. Why is this? In Australia, you can now legally purchase CBD oil.
Resultingly, a massive number of new CBD products have flooded the market.
But not all of these items are well-made.
There are widespread issues with:
- Product safety and contamination (e.g. from heavy metals)
- Low-grade CBD extracts diluted with fillers
- Mislabelling of products, causing confusion or incorrect dosing
- High THC content that can pose risks in failing drug tests
- Stores selling expired or rancid CBD oil
Don’t risk buying ineffective, unsafe or fake CBD oil. Learn exactly what to look for in CBD products to prevent these risks.
Our shopper’s guide here will give you the skills to shop smartly and confidently. Let’s jump straight in.
Contents
What to Look for in Quality CBD Oil and Gummies
So you’re seeking top CBD oil or gummies in Australia. But what do you look for in these items? You should clearly understand what ‘good’ products look like.
Many retailers mislabel CBD products. Labels often inflate a tincture’s actual CBD concentration or lack accurate ingredient information.
However, there are some universal signals of quality that you can seek out when shopping to quickly identify the best CBD products.
These signals include:
- Price
- Packaging and labelling
- Third-party lab test availability and results
- Extraction method used to produce the CBD product
- Origin of hemp for the extract
- Customer reviews and buyer feedback
Let’s review why these factors indicate how good a CBD oil or CBD gummy item is.
Price Indicates Quality
When it comes to finding the best CBD oil, price matters. It tends to reflect overall product quality.
A CBD product’s packaging tells you a lot about how much effort went into making it.
Better-quality items are, on average, higher priced. Why is this? It costs more to make high-quality extracts.
More attention and investment is made into:
- Stringent manufacturing quality controls and testing
- Extraction processes that will involve more costly supercritical gas techniques
- Sourcing resin from carefully cultivated hemp plants
- Thoroughly testing CBD extracts throughout their production lifecycle
Undertaking these activities can be very costly to CBD oil manufacturers.
Many providers will incur additional costs and operational overheads to secure certifications like GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice).
As a result, manufacturers must raise their product prices to help recoup higher production costs.
You should be wary of cheap CBD products. Why? They can be dangerous due to:
- Solvent extraction, which leaves toxic impurities in products
- Lack of quality controls, manufacturing standards and certifications
- Absence of purity or third-party lab testing
- Fillers used to dilute the CBD oil to increase the supplier’s profits
There’s a reason that cheap CBD oils are low price. Don’t trust subpar extracts or put them into your body; you’ll risk your health.
Additionally, you should obtain a provider’s lab testing results before you buy. Let’s examine this.
3rd-Party Lab Testing
Price is a valuable indicator of how good CBD oil is. But it’s an imperfect signal.
The best way to find top CBD oils or gummies is to check the item’s third-party lab test results.
Don’t buy or use any CBD products that lack lab tests. Consider this mandatory.
A ‘certificate of analysis’ details lab test results for CBD oil. The certificate includes an itemised list of every compound detected in the oil, each measured in concentrations at nanograms per millilitre (ng/mL).
A certificate of analysis will tell you how much:
- CBD
- THC
- Minor cannabinoids
- Terpenes
- Cannflavins
- Nutrients
- Carrier oils
Plus, any other additives are in your product. The testing is objective and trustworthy, as an independent third-party laboratory provides it.
Why Obtain a Certificate of Analysis for CBD Oil?
Use this analysis to verify the following:
- CBD Potency: lab tests ensure what’s on your CBD oil’s label is accurate and independently assured. This means you can trust that you’re getting what you paid for.
- THC Levels: it’s common to want to avoid THC in your CBD oil or gummies. Why? THC can cause failed drug tests or mental health harm. However, CBD oil products frequently contain higher levels of THC than advertised. Confirming quantities of THC in a product via its lab test reading is a great way to check how much THC is in a given CBD tincture.
- Product Purity: tests on CBD extract batches can identify contaminants like solvents, heavy metals, pesticides, and additives. Most tests use gas chromatography, which is highly sensitive and can detect minute quantities of these substances. Checking for them means you can shop more safely and have peace of mind that you aren’t poisoning yourself.
- Minor Cannabinoids and Terpenes: For broad-spectrum or full-spectrum CBD oil, checking a lab test analysis can provide insight into the item’s quality. The lab report will describe the levels of compounds like terpenes, minor cannabinoids, nutrients, and cannflavins.
Always look for an analysis certificate that independently verifies a CBD oil or gummies product.
Only make your purchase once you’ve seen this analysis. If the certificate is unavailable on a seller’s website, try contacting them to request it.
Check the Labelling and Packaging
When shopping, accurate, transparent product labels are another thing to look for in CBD oil or gummies. Labels are often missing, inaccurate or deceptive in low-grade CBD products.
Labels should comprehensively detail a product’s content, including its cannabinoid content and ingredients.
The best CBD oil will have professional labels that state:
- CBD Strength: in milligrams (mg) for the total bottle and per serving.
- Formulation: CBD oil is formulated as isolated, full-spectrum or broad-spectrum, which describes its type.
- Ingredients: such as flavourings, sweeteners, preservatives, carrier oil and any nutrient additions (e.g. melatonin).
Likewise, the packaging provided with your CBD product is essential to check.
There are a few items you’ll want to look for regarding packaging.
- Recommended Dosages: The packaging or leaflet provided with your CBD oil should clearly describe recommended dosage information. Each product has recommendations tailored to its strength. It should also tell you how often to dose.
- Product Storage Tips: Cannabinoids like CBD can degrade in sunlight or heat. For this reason, most CBD products offer storage advice that recommends keeping them in a dark, cool place away from sunlight. Following this guidance will mean your item lasts much longer and doesn’t expire early.
Finding the best CBD oil or gummies also involves understanding the hemp sources of prospective purchases.
Extraction Method
The hemp plant serves as the source for all CBD products. Producers extract CBD from these plants to create CBD tinctures or gummies.
How this extraction is performed is consequential. It directly affects each product’s quality, purity, and potency. Substandard extraction techniques will inevitably result in undesirable, toxic byproducts remaining in CBD oil or gummies.
Most solvent extraction techniques leverage ethanol as a medium extract CBD. However, ethanol is incredibly toxic to humans. It tends to contaminate CBD oil produced via this extraction approach. Don’t compromise your health to save a bit of money here.
Look for products made with supercritical CO2 gas extraction, which is the industry standard for the highest-quality CBD extracts. You’ll pay more but the peace of mind is well worth it.
What makes it better?
- No Solvent Contamination Risk: Supercritical gas extraction eliminates any risk of residual toxins tainting your CBD oil. It only uses inert gases, heat, and pressure to extract CBD, resulting in high-purity oils. This process eliminates any remnants of bacteria or contaminants.
- Nutrient Preservation: solvents can dissolve and destroy valuable nutrients in the best CBD products. For instance, most terpenes, cannflavins and minor cannabinoids from hemp are delicate. They easily break down in the presence of harsh solvent chemicals. In contrast, CO2-based gas extraction can preserve these compounds to maximise their content in your CBD extract.
- Higher strength: Cannabinoids like CBD are sensitive to solvents that degrade or reduce their concentrations. Supercritical gas extraction maximises the concentration of CBD in extracts made with this technique.
Ensure your CBD oil is produced from supercritical CO2 extraction. These CBD extracts are far purer, stronger, and better for you.
Origin of Hemp
When selecting CBD oil or gummies, consider each product’s hemp origins.
Why does this matter?
Hemp plants are highly absorbent in their environments. If toxins, heavy metals, or pesticides are present in surrounding soils, they will rapidly accumulate in the plants, tainting CBD extracts.
You should know the farming methods and origin of the hemp used to produce your CBD oil.
What should you look for here?
- Country of Origin: different countries will vary in their degree of regulation and quality control over hemp farming operations. Most don’t provide much oversight over farming these plants, which is risky. Opt for products sourced from Australian, EU or US-grown hemp, which will be of higher standard. These regions have more stringent regulatory controls on agricultural practices and end-consumer safety.
- Organic Certification: Obtaining CBD products from organically grown hemp is an excellent method to minimise contaminant risk. This hemp is grown without using pesticides, herbicides, or agricultural chemicals. Contamination likelihood is significantly reduced via these practices.
The best CBD oil or gummies aren’t sourced from low-grade, unregulated hemp that’s farmed without safety controls.
However, it can be tricky to determine your product’s ‘true’ hemp origins. Third-party lab tests are the best way to verify this. These tests remove the need for guesswork regarding your product’s purity and trustworthiness.
Customer Reviews
Do you know who you’re buying your CBD product from? It’s crucial you do. Although growing fast, the CBD industry is still nascent in Australia.
Ineffective, diluted, or fraudulent CBD products are rife. Fake lab results and certificates of analysis are also becoming more common. They’re used to deceive customers into trusting subpar CBD products.
How do you avoid these fakes? Check reviews.
The experiences of prior customers and their collective feedback are excellent quality signals. Products that don’t work will accrue negative reviews and sentiments from buyers.
However, it’s also possible to fake customer reviews, which is becoming more prevalent. Unscrupulous stores often use paid reviews to inflate their product ratings, giving an impression of trustworthiness.
To avoid this, you should verify multiple feedback channels to see what customers have said about a product or seller.
Look through:
- Historical product ratings and comments customers have left on a product’s listing page
- Feedback on the CBD shop and what people are saying about it online
- Reviews made by independent CBD product reviewers or channels
- Forums, social media pages and Facebook groups that mention the brand
The themes you discover here can be revealing.
Exercise diligence and ensure you cross-check the authenticity of reviews from multiple sources. Refrain from relying on a single source of information here to reduce the risk of falling prey to fake customer feedback.
Takeaways
It’s important to know what to look for if you’re seeking the best CBD oil or gummies in Australia. Not all CBD products are of equal quality.
High-quality versus low-quality CBD products vary massively in their purity, strength, nutrient density, and effectiveness.
Our shopper’s guide here taught you about the most critical indicators of CBD oil quality. We covered a range of factors to keep in mind, which included:
- Pricing and its importance as a quality indicator
- Lab testing results to verify CBD extract purity, concentration and contents
- What labelling and packaging should consist of in quality items
- Opting for supercritical gas-extracted CBD oil versus those made with solvents
- Checking the origins of hemp used as the source of your extract
- Checking prior customer feedback to validate CBD products or suppliers
Following this advice will mean you can find the best CBD products in Australia while minimising risks to your safety.
Plus, you’ll save money and effort by avoiding ineffective extracts that don’t benefit your health.
FAQs
It’s a good idea to check the product’s Certificate of Analysis (COA) as the first step to verifying its authenticity. This document will detail what the tincture contains, including its strength, purity, and cannabinoid content. It provides peace of mind that you’re not purchasing a fake, diluted or mislabelled product. This precaution is prudent to obtain top-quality CBD oil without risking your safety.
Review its independent (third-party) laboratory analysis report. Doing so gives you a detailed, precise overview of the product’s exact cannabinoid, phytocompound, terpene and nutrient contents (in ng/mL readings). Most importantly, these results will objectively confirm if the extract is pure. The lab report will register detectable quantities of toxic chemicals, heavy metals or contaminants. Reading this analysis in full will let you certify how good the CBD oil is.
The same precautions and review steps for buying CBD oil products also apply to CBD gummies. You should check for the absence of unwanted additives or artificial ingredients in CBD gummies. This includes preservatives, synthetic colours or flavours, sweeteners, or scents. Ingesting them will harm your long-term health, so it is advisable to avoid them.
Assess the extract’s third-party lab test results. These results are the most trustworthy source of information on a product’s safety. Don’t forget to also review the country of origin where your extract was sourced. Preference CBD oils made in Australia, the UK, or the US, where quality is higher on average than in other regions. Additional background research on providers and their products is also prudent as an added risk mitigation.
Author
Originally from Byron Bay (Australia), Steve Jacobs is a writer and expert on the world of hemp. His passion for hemp products developed from working with organic hemp cultivators and sustainable skincare brands in Byron. Inspired by these eco-friendly approaches to crafting superb products, Steve realised the opportunity at the intersection of aromatherapy, natural skincare and the magic of hemp. He founded Bondi Hemp to bring this dream to life, bringing rejuvenating hemp extracts, refreshing botanical hemp topicals and revitalising essential oils to everyday Aussies. True to his Byron roots, Steve infuses every drop of his responsibly produced hemp products with the rich terroir of the Byron Region, resulting in unsurpassed quality without harming the earth. Today, Steve continues to write and speak about hemp, skincare, and aromatherapy from his family’s home in Northern NSW.