CBD (cannabidiol) oil is made from the hemp plant (Cannabis sativa). They’re completely non-psychoactive — meaning they won’t make you high.
CBD oils are used to alleviate conditions such as anxiety, inflammation, pain, epilepsy, autoimmune disease, and much more.
As CBD becomes more popular every year, we’re seeing an influx of CBD brands enter the market — each claiming to have the best CBD oils around.
In this article, you’ll learn how to tell the difference between mediocre and premium CBD oil. We’ve also included a list of the three best CBD oils on the market right now.
Let’s dive straight in.
Best CBD Oils on the Market for 2020:
1. Royal CBD Oil — Editor’s Pick
This CBD brand has already won several awards for its CBD oils. They’re favored for their high potency and low cost. The founder of Royal CBD, Justin Hamilton, has stated multiple times in interviews that his number one goal is to provide consistent and reliable CBD products at a cost anybody can afford.
This goes against the current industry sentiment, where CBD brands are marking up the cost of their oils as high as possible purely for the sake of profit. They’re leveraging the hype around the CBD industry to sell low-quality oils at a high markup.
We see Royal CBD as a long-term player in the CBD industry because of this core philosophical difference. They already have a ton of loyal customers using these oils every month, thousands of positive reviews online, and over a dozen high-profile brand mentions.
A few examples of respectable endorsements for this brand include websites such as Metro Times, CityBeat, Riverfront Times, Venture Beat, and CFAH.
All Royal CBD oils are made from organic hemp, use a full-spectrum hemp extract, and come with the whole gamut of independent lab testing to prove the oil’s quality and purity.
You can get Royal CBD oils in four different potencies:
- 250 mg CBD oil — low-potency
- 500 mg CBD oil — medium potency
- 1000 mg CBD oil — high-potency
- 2500 mg CBD oil — ultra-high potency
Each potency also comes with the choice of four flavors — mint, vanilla, berry, or natural (unflavored).
2. Gold Bee CBD Oil — Best Value
Gold Bee is a small, family-run CBD brand with roots in the beekeeping industry (hence the name). The founder has been passionate about CBD since early 2015 and has been working on new methods for extraction on his California-based farm.
In 2019, the company first launched into the CBD scene with its own line of CBD oils. They started out selling only to local dispensaries, but the popularity of these oils quickly prompted the company to expand with two new extraction facilities and an online shop.
Now, anybody in the United States has access to Gold Bee’s award-winning CBD oil.
What makes these oils so special is in the way they’re extracted. Conventional hemp extraction prioritizes volume over quality. The final yield contains high concentrations of cannabinoids (such as CBD), but much of the terpene content is lost in the process.
Gold Bee came up with a way to preserve as much of these active terpenes as possible.
The process involved is tedious and has a relatively low yield, but it’s well worth the effort.
Independent lab reports have shown Gold Bee oils are high in terpenes such as linalool, myrcene, bisabolol, humulene, pinene, and lavandin. All of these terpenes have shown powerful medicinal benefits of their own.
You can order Gold Bee oils in three different potencies:
- 300 mg CBD oil — low-potency
- 600 mg CBD oil — medium potency
- 1200 mg CBD oil — high potency
You can also choose between the raw, unflavored oil or a delicious, 0-calorie honey flavor.
3. CBD Pure — Runner Up
CBD Pure is a UK-based company. We’ve included them on our list for our international readers because Royal CBD and Gold Bee both only ship within the United States.
This company is regarded by many to be the premier source of CBD products across different categories, including CBD oils. They were one of the first to implement rigorous quality control testing for all of its products.
These oils are made from organic hemp plants harvested from Colorado, USA, and processed using high-tech supercritical CO2.
You can find the third-party lab report for every batch of CBD hemp extract the company publishes live on the company website. These tests check the total cannabinoid profile, CBD content, terpene ratios, and check for common hemp contaminants. The most common contaminants include heavy metals, pesticides, solvent residues, and microbial contaminants.
CBD Pure oils come in three main potencies — medium, high, and ultra-high potency. However, the potency scale for these oils is different from most brands. This company uses a smaller bottle size for its oils (10 mL instead of 30 mL). This means the active ingredients are diluted in less oil, making them stronger than other CBD oils with a similar total CBD content.
CBD Pure oil potencies:
- 500 mg CBD oil — medium potency
- 1000 mg CBD oil — high potency
- 1800 mg CBD oil — ultra-high potency
These oils don’t come in any flavored options. Just pure, all-natural hemp extract.
How to Evaluate CBD Oils
Finding the best CBD oil isn’t always easy. There are a lot of companies filling bottles with nice branding and low-grade or impotent CBD extracts.
Learn how to evaluate CBD products to decrease your odds of wasting your money on CBD oils that won’t work the way they’re advertised.
A) Full-Spectrum vs. CBD Isolate vs. Broad-Spectrum
There are three main types of CBD products you can order:
Full-Spectrum CBD Oils
Full-spectrum CBD oils are considered to be the best option by most experts. They’re made to include all the active terpenes, cannabinoids, and other phytochemicals in the hemp plant.
Each ingredient works together to contribute to the overall effect profile of the oil.
This makes them stronger and provides relief for a greater range of symptoms and conditions than the other CBD oil types.
CBD Isolate Oils
CBD isolate oils contain only one active ingredient — CBD. All the other constituents (terpenes, cannabinoids, etc.) have been removed.
These products are usually the cheapest but lack the benefits of these additional ingredients.
You can improve the effects of a CBD isolate oil by taking terpene concentrates alongside your oil. Companies like Finest Labs sell terpene extracts in small dropper bottles that allow you to enhance your CBD isolate with specific terpenes. This is a simple and affordable way of boosting the effects of a CBD oil to be closer to a full-spectrum product.
Broad Spectrum CBD Oils
Broad-spectrum CBD oils are somewhere in the middle. In theory, they contain everything except for the THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) — which is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Hemp makes THC too but in very low concentrations.
No CBD oil made from hemp contains enough THC to make you high, but there could still be enough to register on a drug test.
Unfortunately, while removing the THC, many of the other constituents become damaged or removed, making them much closer to a CBD isolate than a full-spectrum product.
B) Formulation
The formula of a CBD product is important as well. Most CBD oils contain pure hemp extract in a carrier oil base (such as MCT oil, hemp seed oil, or olive oil). You can also find CBD oils formulated with other herbs or nutrients to support a specific symptom or condition.
Alternatively, you can use other supplements alongside your CBD oils to target a specific symptom or condition. Here are a few examples to consider:
- For pain & inflammation — boswellia, turmeric, or magnesium
- For muscle pain & soreness — magnesium, turmeric, or BCAAs
- For stress & anxiety — kava kava, L-theanine, or passionflower
- For sleep — melatonin, valerian, or hops
- For joint pain & arthritis — glucosamine, MSM, or green-lipped mussel
- For mood & depression — St. John’s Wort, 5-HTP, or tryptophan
C) Cost vs. Value
While the total cost of a CBD oil is important, it’s useful to look at the value of the oil as well.
The best metric for assessing value is to find the cost per milligram of CBD. This will show you how much money you’re paying for every milligram of the active ingredient. It will allow you to compare the value between different CBD oils regardless of the total price.
To find the cost per milligram, divide the total cost by the total CBD content.
For example, a cheap $30 bottle of oil with 100 mg of CBD works out to 30 cents per milligram (poor-value).
A more expensive bottle of around $80 with 1000 mg of CBD works out to just 8 cents (high-value).
For high-quality CBD oil, you should look for a product that costs between 8 cents and 18 cents per milligram.
D) Third-Party Testing
Third-party testing is very important when it comes to CBD products. It’s the only way to prove the claims a company is making about its products.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1: a CBD company sends a sample of each new batch of hemp extract to an independent lab
Step 2: the independent lab (no affiliation with the manufacturer) runs various tests on the sample to check the potency and look for traces of contamination
Step 3: the results are sent back to the manufacturer
Step 4: the manufacturer posts the results live on the website for customers to see for themselves
All reputable CBD companies will keep these tests current and live on the public website. If a company doesn’t do this, you should look elsewhere. The only reason a CBD brand wouldn’t do this is if they didn’t order the test at all (red flag), or if the results came back with a failure (also a red flag).
Final Thoughts: Best CBD Oils to Buy in 2020
CBD oils are all the rage. There are hundreds of CBD oil brands operating in the United States alone — not to mention around the world.
If you’re going to give CBD oils a try to help manage symptoms — it’s worth doing the research to find a quality product from a reputable brand.
Look for signs of quality, such as third-party testing, high value (rather than focusing on total cost), and clever formulations. The best CBD oils, in general, are full-spectrum hemp extracts, complete with the entire range of active cannabinoids, terpenes, and other phytochemicals.
Our top three brands are Royal CBD, Gold Bee, and CBD Pure — all three of which offer top-notch products at a competitive price. For the best value, go for the higher potency options for each. They’ll last much longer and give you a lower cost per milligram of CBD.
To see the lowest prices, click here.
