The Differences In Full Spectrum CBD Oil And CBD Distillate Can Be Significant. Here Is An Explanation Of The Two Based On My Experience.
For general everyday CBD healing and treatment purposes I will always suggest folks use a full spectrum CBD oil tincture, ours are offered in 300mg, 900mg and 1800mg. Full spectrum CBD oil contains many of whats considered the “impurities” of the CBD distillation/distillate manufacturing process, even more so for isolate. CBD distillate is much more of a concentrated form of cannabidiol and other cannabinoids. These impurities being fats, lipids, flavinoids, terpenes, proteins etc.. have much therapeutic value and are crucial elements in the entourage effect.
Full Spectrum CBD Oil And The Entourage Effect
Hemp cannabinoids and “impurities” are an integral part of whats called the Entourage Effect. This phenomenon happens when all compounds of the plant work synergistically in our bodies. Think of it as letting mother nature do her thing with the entire plant in your system, specifically your endocannabinoid system. We all have endocannabinoid systems which help regulate everything in our bodies and maintain homeostasis. I won’t get into the ECS deeply in this post. A full spectrum CBD crude oil condenses all of these compounds down into a molasses like liquid, a thick, dark sludgy looking oil. CBD crude oil is produced by either C02 or ethanol extraction. Simple arbitrary explanation, you would soak 100 lbs of the hemp biomass in maybe 50 gallons of ethanol in some sort of agitating device to stir up and strip the compounds from the plant.
Ethanol is a wonderfully safe solvent (because its so pure, and plants themselves produce ethanol) for extracting plant 
compounds. The system then recovers all of the ethanol through an evaporation and recovery process, leaving behind the CBD crude oil, including all of the “impurities”. People with more serious ailments will use crude oil straight as a treatment.You may have heard of the THC version called Rick Simpson Oil in the cannabis world, a highly concentrated THC oil used to treat cancer and other serious ailments. For both CBD and THC the most popular is a titrated down tincture form, which is the process of cutting the crude with organic MCT (coconut) oil. This brings the highly condensed mg/ml crude to a more manageable dose for daily use.
Refining CBD Oil
Taking this extraction and refinement process further, you are making distillate. For an ethanol example, the crude would be put into a rotovap device with more ethanol. The rotovap spins in a hot water solution cleaning up the crude further by evaporating out and collecting the ethanol and impurities. From here you are left with an even cleaner form of CBD crude. The last step in this process (I’m not going to get into too many details) is running the oil through whats called a short path. This is the final polishing of the process, leaving you with a 70-90% concentrated CBD cannabinoid distillate. There are other technologies and processes to manufacture CBD distillate, this is a basic process for explanation sake. The cream of the crop distillate product at the moment is the NDT (Non Detectable THC) broad spectrum CBD distillate. This is a process used to strip out all of the trace THC from the crude (maybe 1-3%) leaving behind a wonderful 80ish percent cannabinoids (CBD, CBG, CBN, CBC etc…) with no THC. Remember, when you concentrate hemp down enough into these forms, you will also be condensing down the little bit of THC that was in the starting material, thus bringing THC levels up anywhere from 1-7%. The final product manufacturing process, cutting the oils to get it down below the legal .3% range is needed.
As far as using full spectrum CBD oil or CBD distillate for health purposes its not an exact science. As I said earlier, I always suggest the full spectrum oil for a baseline daily supplement. For most folks thats enough. Some will also use a CBD salve or cream for spot treatment (eczema, arthritis, achy joints etc…). The more concentrated products, like distillate and isolate, absolutely have their place and we offer products made with them. A lot of people respond very well to an isolated cannabinoid treatment. Some people respond well to THC, others have an adverse effect. Others respond well to THCA, the precursor to THC. Same with CBD, CBDA. And the same with an isolated form of cannabidiol vs. full spectrum CBD oil. This is not an exact science. We are dealing with wholistic plant medicine.
My suggestion is to try it all, starting with a crude full spectrum. Find out what works best for you, consult your physician and an experienced CBD product supplier. And always feel free to reach out to us!
