Cannabidiol (CBD) companies need to provide third-party laboratory testing results for their products to personally confirm whether or not they are getting the right amount of CBD as stated on the product label. Companies usually provide their products’ third-party lab test results or certificates of analysis (COA) on their websites and product pages.
COAs are signs of a brand’s commitment to transparency. Brands that provide COAs help customers rest assured that they are getting the amount of CBD they are paying for, which builds consumer trust.
For instance, many Sugar and Kush reviews from the web highly rate the brand’s cotton candy CBD oil and mention how legitimate they are after receiving documents with their purchase. This brand provides CBD lab reports for every product including keto CBD gummies, kush CBD gummies, and flavored CBD oil.
Apart from providing customers with legitimate information about products, proper third-party lab testing is a standard practice among CBD brands to avoid legal repercussions. Making false claims about any CBD products can get a brand in trouble with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As such, we must look for a CBD product’s lab test results that back up any claim a brand makes to ensure we are purchasing products from a compliant CBD company.
Where To Find COAs
Brands usually provide CBD lab reports on their website. There should be a page dedicated to lab reports that are arranged by product and by batch. For instance, Sugar and Kush CBD has a tab on its website that redirects visitors to a complete listing of their products with their respective certificates of analysis.
Reliable brands would make their COA page easily accessible for customers looking for information before making a final purchase. Sugar and Kush CBD arranges their lab reports by CBD form, meaning there are sections for CBD gummies, CBD oil tinctures, CBD cookies, and CBD bath and body care products.
Sugar and Kush’s CBD oil tinctures come in different strengths, particularly between 300mg and 3,000mg. So, if a customer intends to purchase a 1,000mg strawberry CBD oil product, they can find the COA that matches the product’s strength.
Similarly, each product strength contains different batches of COAs. For instance, Sugar and Kush 500mg vanilla CBD oil has five different COAs that represent different product batches that underwent lab testing. These different testing batches help us know how current the products are and that CBD brands are dedicated to constant lab testing.
At the same time, a product’s COAs should be available on the product page. When purchasing a CBD product on a website, there should be a link to the appropriate COA for that product for customer convenience. Sugar and Kush CBD provides a link to view the lab report of every product they have in their shop.
For even further convenience, product pages should be accessible through QR codes. When purchasing CBD products in a dispensary, a CBD product’s box should come with scannable QR codes that redirect customers to the same product’s page on the brand’s website. We can view the product’s COA through the product page to see what the laboratories have found in the products.
What COAs Show
As a way to provide customers with correct product information, COAs are a complete profile of the product that a brand submits for testing. COAs display the complete range of cannabinoids that a CBD product contains. Cannabinoids are the naturally occurring compounds in hemp plants, from which CBD products are derived.
CBD is one cannabinoid among the hundreds that occur naturally in hemp plants. CBD is only the second most prominent cannabinoid in hemp plants, the first one being tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC is a psychoactive compound that may cause users to become affected, which is what we want to avoid when taking CBD products.
COAs confirm the total amounts of THC and CBD in a particular product. So, if a brand claims that their CBD oil tincture contains 500mg CBD, that product’s COA should display an amount in that range. A reliable CBD brand would round down the amount from the total CBD instead of rounding up. So, if a lab report states that the product has 460mg CBD but the label states that it is a 500mg CBD product, customers may feel cheated.
Lab reports also test for residual solvents, microbial content, and heavy metals that may occur in CBD oil products due to poor manufacturing practices. Reliable brands should have products that pass the tests for these contaminants, meaning the lab tests do not detect any harmful substances.
Conclusion
Lab testing for CBD products is important to let customers know that they are purchasing CBD products from a reliable brand. CBD companies that provide certificates of analysis for their products help consumers rest assured that they are getting the correct amount of CBD as stated on the product label. COAs also confirm the absence of harmful contaminants in CBD products.