With the expanding popularity of CBD products for health and wellness comes a plethora of options for how one may choose to consume cannabidiol. Various forms of CBD edibles vie for attention with products like CBD vape juices, CBD ointments and creams, and even CBD cosmetics and bath bombs. One option you may not have considered, though, is CBD oil tinctures.
What Are CBD Oil Tinctures?
Tinctures have been an accepted method of delivering medications for centuries. These days, the active ingredients in medications are both much safer and much more effective. However, the practice of taking remedies in tincture form is still medically valid, and even offers some distinct advantages over other means of ingestion.
CBD (or hemp oil) tinctures are simply oil tinctures in which the main active ingredient is CBD, or cannabidiol. These oils can contain other active ingredients to boost or suppress various desired effects, or they can keep it simple and have no other active ingredients beyond the CBD itself.
Effects & Health Benefits of CBD
Before we dive into the world of CBD oil UK tinctures, let’s examine some of the reasons cannabidiol is becoming such a popular wellness aid. Research on the benefits of cannabidiol began fairly recently, as most cannabis studies previously focused on tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, due to that compound’s psychoactive properties.
As various jurisdictions within the United States and other countries loosened restrictions on medical cannabis, researchers started exploring other organic compounds present in cannabis plants. CBD quickly drew the attention of those researchers, in part, because it is the second-most prevalent compound found in cannabis, behind only THC. Unlike its more famous counterpart, cannabidiol produces no psychoactive effects and will not get you “high.”
While CBD products aren’t for partying, research is showing that CBD offers a lot of potential to address myriad common health and wellness goals. These range from calming and relaxation applications, such as anti-anxiety and insomnia relief, to soothing joint and muscle aches, to promoting clear and healthy skin.
General Wellness
CBD’s most notable effects stem from its interaction with the endocannabinoid system. The ECS is a cell-signaling system in which neurotransmitters signal to receptors in various organs and systems throughout the body, most notably in the brain and nervous system, to assist the body in maintaining homeostasis, or balance. This helps the body to regulate such crucial functions as sleep, mood, memory, appetite, immune function, stress, pain, motor control, and other functions.
CBD and other cannabinoids, when consumed, interact with the endocannabinoid system in much the same way as the body’s own endocannabinoids, providing support for the same systems and organs and, as a result, improving the body’s overall health and wellness. It’s because of this support that CBD oil has become one of the most popular wellness supplements in the UK and can be found in everything from CBD vape oil, CBD oil tinctures, CBD gummies for pain and other CBD gummies to CBD creams and balms, CBD capsules and tablets, and more. In the US, you can access other hemp products, as well, including THC gummies, THC pen and THC oil vape products, CBD for dogs, and even CBD mushroom products.
It’s worth noting here that, while people legally use CBD now for a variety of issues and conditions, it is illegal in the UK to make medical claims about CBD and its effects. So, please note that nothing in this article should be construed as a medical recommendation for the use of cannabidiol.
Calming & Sleep
Many of the clinical studies of CBD explore its potential as a calming agent for treating conditions such as stress and anxiety. Test subjects frequently report noticeably lower anxiety levels when taking CBD. Other studies show that CBD may be an effective treatment for social anxiety, as well.
This CBD calming effect also works well as an all-natural sleeping aid that is not habit forming, unlike some pharmaceutical solutions. Often, CBD brands will supplement their sleep oil products with other natural relaxation supplements, such as passion flower and chamomile, to help bolster the restful effects of the CBD.
In some instances, conditions like anxiety and insomnia interact with each other, producing a negative cycle that can be difficult to put a stop to. CBD is helpful in such cases, because it addresses both conditions at once. Lower anxiety levels promote healthier sleep, and healthier sleep promotes lower anxiety levels, turning a negative cycle into a virtuous one.
All-Natural Pain Relief
Another very popular area of study for CBD’s usefulness is as an all-natural, non habit-forming pain reliever. Pharmaceutical pain remedies are frequently very powerful, but also can carry with them serious potential for addiction and misuse. CBD does not show such downsides in clinical trials, but it does show itself as surprisingly useful in combating minor pain.
These CBD effects are useful, in particular, for everyday sources of discomfort, such as sore joints and muscles after exercise or athletic activity. Subjects report that undesirable side effects are rare, and usually minor. This makes CBD oil tinctures an attractive option compared with many common opiate-based pain medications, or even over-the-counter pain remedies.
Healthy, Youthful Looking Skin
If you haven’t been paying attention, you may not have noticed that the cosmetic industry is getting into producing CBD-infused products, as well. That’s because research suggests that CBD has properties that are beneficial to promoting healthy skin.
CBD has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that make it a compelling component in maintaining skin health. Antioxidants are essential in fighting the free radicals that, unchecked, can cause skin damage and accelerate the appearance of aging, while anti-inflammatories reduce redness, swelling, and skin irritation. Current studies suggest that CBD can be a potentially effective treatment for conditions, such as eczema and dermatitis.
Why Choose CBD Oils?
Now that we’ve had a quick look at some of the uses for CBD, it’s time to loop back around to the main subject here: CBD tincture oils. Every method of CBD ingestion brings its own upsides and downsides with it. Depending on the health and wellness goals you wish to address with a CBD product, a CBD tincture oil may be the optimal method of using CBD for you.
The Advantages of Tinctures
A tincture is simply an active ingredient suspended in a solution, and as such is found as a liquid. CBD tincture oils are typically sold in bottles with eyedropper dispensers. The oil is drawn into the eyedropper, and then consumed sublingually. This gives you the ability to dictate your CBD dosage right down to the mg.
Sublingual ingestion means that the CBD oil is dispensed into the mouth and held under the tongue for a brief period (60 seconds for best effects). This allows the CBD to be absorbed through the cheek and gums, into the network of small blood vessels inside the skin of the mouth. Sublingual ingestion’s primary advantage is that it increases the bioavailability of CBD.
What Is Bioavailability?
Simply put, a substance’s bioavailability refers to how readily it is absorbed into the body. For anything taken as a supplement or medication, bioavailability affects how quickly it will take effect, as well as the dosage needed to produce the desired outcome, and how long it will last.
CBD naturally has a relatively low bioavailability, particularly when consumed in edible form. However, sublingual ingestion substantially increases CBD’s bioavailability, allowing it to enter the bloodstream and take effect much more rapidly than CBD edibles, such as CBD gummies or CBD tablets. Whereas a CBD edible may take up to two hours to produce a noticeable effect, CBD tincture oils usually start working within 15 to 30 minutes of consumption.
Other Reasons to Choose CBD Oil Tinctures
Beyond increased bioavailability and rapid-acting effects, there are some other advantages to choosing CBD tincture oils. One obvious plus is that CBD oils are discreet, and do not expose anyone except the user to any active ingredients. This can be advantageous when compared with inhaled methods of consumption, such as CBD vape products. Taking CBD tincture oils produces no odor or clouds of visible vapour. You never need a charger or an electrical outlet to keep your CBD tincture oil ready to use.
CBD oil tinctures also may be attractive for those who have limited space for storage. A month’s supply of CBD gummies can end up being a rather large jar, but the equivalent number of doses in a CBD tincture oil is a fraction of the size. This portability means you may even find CBD oil tinctures are an appropriate choice for traveling, as long as you’re careful to prevent leaking.
Shopping for CBD Oil UK Products
Not all CBD tincture oil products are created with equal care and attention to things like quality and product safety. While it can be difficult to determine the quality of something before trying it, there are a few things that set apart the good CBD products from the bad. Paying attention to these things should help you find not only a CBD product you’ll be happy with, but one that is safe to consume.
Organically Grown Cannabis Hemp
The very first thing you should look for in a quality CBD oil tincture is one that is made only with organically grown cannabis hemp. This is extremely important due to a peculiarity of the cannabis plant: It is a remarkably effective bioaccumulator.
Efficient bioaccumulators such as cannabis plants pull in large concentrations of minerals, compounds, and other things from the soil in which they grow. While this is one of the reasons cannabis plants have such a diverse range of survivable climates and conditions, it also means that whatever your hemp is grown in ends up in the hemp itself. And that’s not good if what it’s grown in includes chemical fertilisers, pesticides, or herbicides. All of that junk will make its way into the finished CBD product.
That’s why reputable companies make their CBD products using nothing but organically grown hemp plants.
Carbon Dioxide and Clean Extraction
The next thing to look for, and just as important as organically grown hemp, is the process by which the CBD is extracted from the organic matter. Less careful CBD companies often employ less safe extraction methods, and this introduces contaminants into the finished product. Use of butane or other chemical solvents leads to an impure product, and will not be the best thing for people who want to improve their health.
The best CBD oil tinctures are made via a carbon dioxide extraction method. CO2 extraction is not only completely safe and clean, it also is extremely efficient at pulling all of the desirable compounds from the plant, meaning more robust CBD oils as an end result.
Published Independent Test Results
Finally, it pays to look for companies that have their products tested through independent, third-party laboratories, and make the results of those tests both public and easy to find. Reputable companies in the CBD products market understand that transparency is good, and will back up the purity and potency of everything they offer with these tests. This not only helps ensure the safety of the products, it also offers peace of mind that you will get exactly what you’re paying for when you do business with these companies.
Closing Thoughts
CBD oil tinctures are a safe and effective way to discreetly consume CBD, and work well in assisting with a wide variety of health and wellness goals. Whether you are new to trying CBD as a health supplement, or have used CBD in other forms, CBD tinctures have a low barrier of entry and offer some distinct advantages over other means of ingestion, depending of course on what you want from a CBD product.
Please consider some of the things we’ve brought up in this article as you explore the market for CBD oil tinctures in the UK. Definitely be sure to only buy a CBD tincture you trust to be safe, and if you can’t tell just from a company’s web page, move on. Remember that companies with the best reputations have nothing to hide, so keep an eye out for things like third-party lab reports.
Most of all, we wish you all the best for your health and wellness goals in 2022. Perhaps the right CBD oil tincture will help you reach them.
This article was written in cooperation with CBDfx