Why Is Third-Party Lab Testing Important?

If you’re new to CBD oil, the number of products available can be overwhelming. But whatever you choose, you want to know you’re getting what you paid for.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Local Oregon news outlet KGW8 recently sent 15 products for lab testing and reported surprising results. Some products had just 20 percent of the CBD advertised on their labels. Others had no CBD at all.

Misleading labels, such as reporting the amount of CBD in nanograms instead of milligrams, can also be common. A “High Potency” product can claim to have 5,000,000 nanograms of CBD, but that translates to just 5mg.

A 2017 University of Pennsylvania study backed up these findings. Researchers reported nearly 70 percent of CBD products sold online had inaccurate labels.

Third-Party Testing

How do you know what’s in your bottle? Any CBD oil company you purchase from should have third-party lab testing results available on their website. If they don’t, or the company is unable or unwilling to share them with you directly, we strongly recommend not buying products from them.

Lazarus Naturals third-party tests all of our products for potency, heavy metals and pesticides. This testing process ensures we offer products that are safe, natural and consistent. Test results are available under the “Test Results” tab of each individual product page.

What To Look For

Looking at science-heavy terms and numbers can be intimidating. Instead of scrolling through a long document, focus on identifying these key factors.

Testing Location: Would you buy a car without having a third-party mechanic look at it first? The same concept applies to CBD products. If a product is tested in-house, you are taking their word at face value. Seeing results from a third-party lab means they have nothing to hide.

Amount of THC and CBD: Federal regulations require hemp-derived CBD products to contain less than 0.3% THC by dry weight. It’s not considered a hemp product if it contains more. This means it may not be legal in your state or could be subject to different regulations.

You also want to ensure your product contains the amount of CBD advertised. A third-party lab result will confirm this.

Missing Cannabinoids: All full-spectrum or broad-spectrum products contain several cannabinoids in addition to CBD. These include CBDa, CBG and CBC. A third-party lab test shows the amount of these other cannabinoids in your product.

Do you still have questions about what to look for? Ask in the comments section of this post!