Ah, yes, CBD. It’s the new health supplement that will temper your anxiety, cure your migraines, fix your sex life and reverse all the terrible decisions you’ve made up until this point. Or something like that. The New York Times called it “beauty’s new high”. Bon Appetit have written about it being “the wellness world’s new favourite drink”. It’s “The Only Thing That Helps My Period Cramps”, said one Buzzfeed writer. Truly, it sounds like (and could just be) a miracle ingredient.
Taken from cannabis, CBD is the part of weed that doesn’t get you stoned. IE… you’re not going to develop a penchant for Neil deGrasse Tyson and disappointing your parents. Instead, various people claim, you’ll be very chill. Or medium chill. Or maybe not that chill at all, since there are very few long-term human studies into its benefits and no single substance can completely alleviate the crushing weight of being alive.
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Still, the potential for CBD to be a life-improving supplement is there. Short-term human studies suggest CBD exhibits anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety properties. One study also hints at its potential in easing seizures. For now though, it remains a trendy cure all – loved by the GOOP glitterati as much as self-medicating stoners who want to put down the pot. You can even buy yourself kush flavoured CBD vapes.
It’s worth a lot, too. Business Insider says CBD is a $1 billion industry. But without the right science, how do you know what products you can trust? You’re going to need a proper non-scientific and completely anecdotal review on all the goods out there, across a range of price points and various formats, to see what works best for you based on someone you don’t know! To do this, I got a bunch of stuff from a bunch of people and tested out their best CBD products (ie the ones with the most cannabidiol in). Lessgeddit!
High Tide CBD Infused Cold Brew Coffee
Price: £5
CBD: 5mg
Just gonna say it: this product was created by the devil or someone with a severe hatred for humanity. If you’re into stabbing chest pains, hypertension-like symptoms and dizziness, then by all means give it a whirl. Maybe you just like coffee in which case you probably won’t feel anything. But it does beg the question, why purchase this product (which is more expensive than normal coffee) when the anxiety-inducing effects of caffeine are undoubtedly going to counteract any potential positive effect of CBD. Consider one of the selling points on their website is “Stress Free” and it’s all a big noooooooope. You might also be shitting for hours ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Rating: 0/5
Value for money: 0/5
CBD Living Water
Price: £5.99
CBD: 4mg
Mmmmmmmlovelylovelylovely water. The juice of the gods, nature’s gift, basically just rain filtered into a plastic bottle and into my mouth – you gotta love it. Of course you’re gonna want to add CBD to water, the world’s most refreshing and strangely flavourless beverage. It’s a good idea! Thing is: this one sells itself on a degree of elitism with a “powerful enhanced hydration beverage” top line, which also brings about a £5.99 price point.
Did I feel refreshed and calm? Yes. Do I feel the same from drinking water and not much different despite having ingested 4,000,000 nanograms of CBD, whatever that means? Pretty much! Not really sure what was to be expected here, it’s just a bottle of water with a veneer of being even more powerful. If I had more money I would buy it everyday and leave it stocked in my fridge, like a weird health goth episode of MTV Cribs. Alas, however: I will drink once more from the lead coated bathroom tap.
Rating: 3/5
Value for money: 3/5
CannabiGold Intense Tincture
Price: £215
CBD: 3000mg
This is the real deal lab tested stuff for the CBD connoisseur. Then again you could probably tell that from the sleek spaceship like design and price point. Clocking in at 3000 MG, this has 30x the amount of CBD than the smallest available tinctures (basically drop bottles, where you squeeze the liquid out onto your tongue). This shit made me want to sleep like a beautiful little baby and it felt as though the edges of my day had been given a nice cannabidiol influenced buffer.
Cheaper products are available, like this one for £20. That said, they’re useless, with a small amount of CBD, and you’ll want to get a tincture that has at least 500mg minimum to feel even the slightest effect.
If the weight of my bank account could lift a drop of CannabiGold’s sweet nectar into my mouth every day for the rest of my life would I do it? You absolutely bet. Of course I would. But I’m broke and despite the fact the bottle supposedly lasts for a month and a half at the recommended dosage, it’s perhaps not worth numbing away that much of my pay cheque.
Rating: 5 / 5
Value for money: 3 / 5
Hemp Hookahzz CBD Platinum E-Liquid
Price: £399
CBD: 3000mg
Wassup all my fellow hemp hookahzz! Since we’re doing an e-liquid, this is the one that’s supposed to be a little bit like smoking weed. I decided to go for the most expensive product here, the real primo shit, because if that’s not good then why bother with the rest right? I will say on smell alone DO NOT GO THERE. Days later it continues to follow me around, its sickly aroma haunting me – the run-off from a “pink diva” flavoured e-ghost. Sadly, this is like inhaling perfume for dogs.
Perhaps it chilled me out a little but nothing is worth being around that scent. The product is gloopy, a lot more thicker than your average e-liquid. If you’re a big baby who really must smoke a CBD vape rather than hitting some weed or any of the other products in this review then my advice is to go to a head shop where you can probably sample something if you ask nice enough / already buy weed from the people in there.
Rating: 1/5
Price: 1/5
Ohana – Prasanta Lavender Soothing Balm
Price: £40
CBD: 200mg
First off, this smells bomb. Obviously that’s the lavender talking but god damn, this is exactly the kind of thing you want to put on your body. Unlike a lot of the businesses on here, Ohana is a relatively small operation. It was founded by a woman called Jasmin who – after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis – developed a love for the therapeutic use of CBD. It’s not some big multi-million business like CannabiGold. Still it is hard to tell exactly what this balm does with regard to CBD. I don’t have MS, I’m just a dude who wants to chill the fuck out, and topical use isn’t really having much of an effect on my brain compared to the range of tinctures on offer. However all things considered, like I said, this does smell real fucking good!!!!!
Rating: 4/5
Price: 3/5
Raised Spirit – Coconut Oil Pro
Price: £59.99
CBD: 1,000mg
Smells bad, this one, like someone yacked in a jar and let the residue ferment. But, if you like, you can put the coconut snot in food, which is good? Because we all eat food, and a lot of people use coconut oil, so this seems like an easy way to get some CBD into your system. Again: does it work? At this point I’m so CBD’d out I’m not sure what’s real, what’s placebo, and what my general state of mind is on any given day.
Rating: 3/5
Price: 3/5
In conclusion:
You’re going to need to splash out to feel any real benefit from CBD. When you do, make sure it’s on a tincture as this feels like the most effective way to be chilled out. Then again who knows? You might eat and drink nothing but CBD infused meals for a week and feel nothing.
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