Are you one of the millions of people now using CBD every day to combat stress and fatigue or simply to promote general health and wellness? If you are, I bet that you’re always on the lookout for a new and interesting way to get your daily dose of CBD. You’ve graduated past CBD oil and have tried everything from CBD gummies and capsules to CBD vape juices and isolates. The CBD industry never stands still, though, and with every person using CBD for a slightly different set of reasons, the demand for different forms of CBD has shown no signs of slowing down. In this article, I’m going to discuss a new form of CBD that you may not have tried or even heard of yet: CBD concentrates. For many people, CBD concentrates will prove to be the most exciting development in the industry since CBD first appeared on the market. So, what is it that makes CBD concentrates so special? Reading this article, you’re going to find out.
What Are CBD Concentrates?
CBD concentrate is a very thick, viscous substance that consists almost entirely of pure, raw hemp essential oil. CBD oil drops – the kind that you hold under your tongue and then swallow – are far from pure. CBD oil contains a small amount of hemp essential oil that’s diluted with a carrier such as olive oil or MCT oil from coconuts. CBD concentrate, on the other hand, is collected and packaged almost exactly as it is when it comes out of the CO2 extraction machine. CBD concentrate may go through filtering to remove impurities, but otherwise, it’s as close to a direct plant extract as you’re going to get.
While it’s possible to hold CBD concentrate under your tongue and swallow it as you would CBD oil, the most common way to use CBD concentrate is by inhaling it from a wax vaporizer. Vaping CBD concentrate might not be the easiest thing in the world – it’s certainly not as easy as holding CBD oil under your tongue – but learning to deal with that mild inconvenience can give you some very worthwhile benefits.
These are the pros and cons of CBD concentrates.
CBD Concentrates Are Extremely Potent
As I mentioned above, an oral CBD tincture is always diluted with a carrier oil. In fact, the carrier oil is most of what’s in the bottle. If you buy a 30 ml bottle of CBD oil containing 500 mg of CBD, for instance, the bottle is only about 1.6 percent CBD. The rest is plain oil. CBD concentrate is much more potent in terms of the percentage of CBD that the package contains. It’s common to find CBD concentrates containing more than 60 percent CBD. That means a small amount of CBD concentrate can go a very long way.
CBD Concentrates Are Highly Bioavailable
Did you know that when you use standard oral CBD oil, most of the CBD doesn’t reach your bloodstream at all? That’s the big drawback of taking any medication or supplement orally – the liver kicks in and metabolizes most of the active ingredient before allowing the rest to pass through to your bloodstream. Studies suggest that the bioavailability – the amount of CBD that your body actually uses – of oral CBD could be as low as 13 percent. With CBD concentrate, on the other hand, the bioavailability is at least double what it is with standard CBD oil because you’re inhaling the compound. That means if you switch from CBD oil to CBD concentrates, you can get the same effect you’re currently getting from CBD oil while using less material.
CBD Concentrates Absorb Instantly
Have you ever used a medical inhaler or smoked a cigarette? If you have, you know why inhaling is a popular way to get an active compound into your body; it’s because an active compound that you inhale enters your bloodstream almost instantly. The primary function of the lungs is to oxygenate your blood by drawing oxygen out of the air you inhale. They’re extremely efficient at that job because they have something like 600 million tiny air sacs directly connected to your circulatory system. Because of that efficiency, you can do something like inhale a bronchodilator or smoke a cigarette and feel the effects instantly. The same thing happens when you inhale vaporized CBD; there is no faster way to get CBD into your system. Some people use CBD to fight panic attacks and sudden flare-ups. If you’re one of those people – and you get good results from using CBD – your results will probably be even better if you switch from your current CBD product to CBD concentrates.
CBD Concentrates Can Be Sticky and Messy
Hemp essential oil is a tar-like substance that’s very thick and extremely sticky. Working with it isn’t easy; that’s why many CBD concentrates are packaged in syringe-like applicators. To dispense the CBD, you’ll simply squeeze the applicator’s plunger until a rice-sized ball of CBD concentrate comes out. It helps to have a metal dab tool handy. You’ll use the dab tool to retrieve the ball of CBD concentrate from the applicator and place it on your vaporizer’s atomizer coil. Even using an applicator and a dab tool, though, CBD concentrate can be messy if you aren’t careful. It can stain clothing. It’s difficult to wash off of the hands. It’s typically sold by the gram, so losing even a small amount is kind of a big deal.
CBD Concentrates Aren’t Cheap
CBD concentrate isn’t the most inexpensive form of CBD on the market. There aren’t many companies producing it, so there isn’t a lot of competition pushing the price points down. If you’re looking for the cheapest option for buying CBD in terms of dollars per milligram, CBD concentrates aren’t it. Once you experience the benefits that I’ve described above, though, you will almost definitely decide that the extra few dollars are worth paying for the most potent and bioavailable form of CBD that you can buy.