
CBD skincare product popularity is rising because they work so well. Salves, lotions and creams are extremely effective in delivering the body cannabinoids.
Questions we often get are What exactly is a salve? I’ve never heard of a CBD balm? Are either of these creams? Salve and balm, a lot of folks don’t know what they are. Throw in CBD cream, and forget it, everyone’s confused… to be truthful, I don’t think I knew what the difference of a salve and balm were before getting into CBD products. Its not exactly easy to explain the components of a salve, lotion, cream or balm on the spot, there really isn’t an exact working definition for these CBD products. Everyone makes their products somewhat differently. All I can do is explain how we do things. Our CBD Salves, CBD creams and CBD lotions are extremely popular and effective, that we can tell you. Each product is used for different applications. CBD lotions are used just like you would any other daily lotion product. CBD salves, we suggest, are used for acute pain. I.E. a psoriasis or arthritis flare up.
CBD Salve: Salves (and balms) are oil based, salves having a softer consistency than a balm. We keep our CBD salves simple. At it’s core a salve is a combination of our full spectrum CBD oil (oils are the emollient that are used to soften your skin and act as the healing, protective base) mixed with beeswax. Beeswax is firm and thick while acting as a barrier to keep both the moisture and medicinal qualities in, and everything else out. The CBD oil is the carrier agent that penetrates your skin to deliver the beneficial cannabinoids. Based on our clients needs we will ad herbs, vitamins (vitamin E), butters (shea butter) or essential oils (peppermint, lavender, rosemary). The beeswax is melted down, you add in the CBD and it will harden to your desired consistency. There is no water added to a CBD salve, this will allow for a long shelf life as the beeswax will be a preservative.
CBD Cream: Creams are water based and our creams are simply CBD oil, water and an emulsifying agent like beeswax. The ratio would need to be around 45% water, 45% CBD Oil, 5-10% emulsifying agent. Emulsifying simply means blending two or more liquids that typically would not mix. Like oil and water. A CBD cream will be thicker than a CBD lotion because of the higher concentration of CBD oil in a cream. Because we don’t use perservatives, you need to store CBD creams & lotions in a cool dry place. A refrigerator works great. Any CBD product with a high concentration of water will have a shorter shelf life.
CBD Lotion: Lotions are also water based. We also try to keep our CBD lotions as simple as possible. In our experience less you mess with mother nature the better the healing results. Lotions are made blend of water (more than a CBD cream) and full spectrum CBD oil mixed with an emulsifying agent (waxes, beeswax). Lotions will always have more water than oil which gives them a shorter shelf life. We don’t like adding preservatives to any of our CBD products, so lotions should be stored in the fridge or anywhere with cool temperatures.
We are finding that the lotions are the most popular for people that are using the products medicinally, which is pretty much everyone. This is simply due to the CBD lotion being the easiest to apply. A lot of people use lotions on their hands and joints because of arthritis and chronic pain. Older folks can’t dig into a can of hardened CBD Salve or Balm. Its not comfortable for their arthritic hands.
All of our CBD products are manufactured with Organic butters, oils, waxes etc… If we add essential oils & herbs back into our salves, creams and lotions we do it for therapeutic properties with the adjunct benefit of smelling nice.
To read more about the effects CBD has on your body, refer to this article.