Same 10% on the label, different cannabinoids in the bottle

Pick up two oils marked 10% and the label alone will not tell you much about full spectrum vs broad spectrum CBD. On a Cibdol oil that figure is CBD only, so a 10 ml bottle of CBD Oil 10% contains 1,000 mg of CBD and every percentage point stands for 100 mg per 10 ml. Beyond that one figure, two 10% oils can differ in everything else they contain, from which other cannabinoids turn up and in what amounts to whether any terpenes and flavonoids are left.

What the extract names tell you

Hemp extracts are sorted by what stays in them after processing, and the words on the label follow that. A full spectrum oil still carries the other hemp compounds next to its CBD, a broad spectrum extract has had its THC taken out while the rest stays, and a CBD isolate is CBD by itself. So the name tells you what was kept, not how many milligrams of each compound you are getting. You may also come across the entourage effect, the idea that several plant compounds might act together, but science has not settled it and it is best read as a hypothesis.

How heat and extraction shape the profile

Inside the hemp plant, most cannabinoids are present as acids, CBDA and CBGA among them, and heating is what turns them into their neutral forms, a step known as decarboxylation. When researchers heated these acids in the lab, CBDA and CBGA changed at about half the speed of THCA, and some of the starting material or end product went missing without explanation. The way an extract is heated therefore affects how much of the acid form you end up with. ^[4]

The extraction method plays its part too. Researchers who extracted cannabis with supercritical CO2 in 2017 found that the amount of extract they got out depended heavily on the pressure used and on the plant material they started with. ^[5]

What lab tests of shop-bought oils found

Labels and contents do not always agree, and two published studies make the point. Researchers in 2018 analysed 14 CBD oils on sale in European countries and found that 9 strayed notably from the CBD amount on the label, with wide variation in cannabinoid profile from one product to the next. ^[2]

A team in the UK tested 29 CBD products that are easy to buy here. Of those, 11 (38%) came within 10% of the CBD content they advertised, and most also held other phytocannabinoids, CBDA and CBDV among them. ^[3]

Batch certificate 260084, line by line

Cibdol CBD Oil 2.0 starts from a full spectrum hemp extract, so the plant's own terpenes and flavonoids stay in, and CBN, CBG, CBC and CBDa are then added at measured, declared levels. During production the extract is decarboxylated, and all six strengths are made to the same recipe.

Look up batch 260084 of the 10% CBD oil and you will see CBDa, CBG, CBC and CBN each given their own line at 4 to 7 mg per ml, outside the CBD percentage, and on the 10% oil they are declared at 50 mg each per bottle. ^[1] You will not find one measured figure for each cannabinoid. Instead the certificate sets a permitted range per 1 ml and adds a result column, and for this batch the CBD range is 80 to 140 mg per ml with a result of Conform, which means the batch met the specification. ^[1]

Each certificate belongs to a single batch of a single product. You will find them in the batch certificate lookup in the Tools section, 16 of them at the time of writing, and you pick out yours by matching it to the batch number printed on your bottle. Batches that have sold out stay in the list. Every certificate there is issued by CureSupport Nederland B.V., the company that makes the products, and its name appears next to each batch in the lookup. Read a certificate as a record of the tests listed for that one batch, not as proof of health effects, of whether the oil suits you, or of regulatory approval.

Putting two 10% oils next to each other

Say you have two made-up oils in front of you, both marked 10%. Bottle A is made with CBD isolate and bottle B with a full spectrum extract. Each certificate can show CBD inside the specified range, but B's may also give separate lines to other cannabinoids, for example CBG or CBN, whereas an isolate certificate has little else to show. With a broad spectrum oil you would see other cannabinoids listed as well, coming from an extract whose THC has been removed.

With two certificates side by side, look at:

• Whether the batch number is the one on your bottle
• The ranges given per ml in the specification, and what the result column says (Conform)
• Which other cannabinoids get a line of their own
• How that certificate words its THC limit
• Who issued the document