It can be overwhelming when you first explore the CBD section of your local health store. Some CBD oils reveal their strength as a percentage, others display the strength in milligrams (mg), and others use single-word descriptions, such as “low,” “medium,” or “strong.”

The CBD market is still relatively young, so we don’t yet have a uniform standard for revealing the strength of a CBD product. While every company attempts to make CBD more accessible to its customers, the disparity between descriptions can have the opposite effect.

Why exactly does this matter? Newcomers to the CBD sector must be guided towards the ideal strength oil for the best possible experience. You won't enjoy any wellness benefits if your CBD oil is too weak. And if you take too much of a strong oil, you might experience some adverse side effects.

Thankfully, we’re here to help you decode the strengths available to better assist you in finding the right one for your needs.

Fast facts

• There is no standardised measure for CBD products.
• CBD strength is commonly marked as a percentage or in mg/ml.
• Alongside cannabinoids, CBD oil also contains a carrier oil.
• The stronger the CBD oil, the more expensive it is likely to be.
• A stronger CBD can be of better value for money in the long term.
• Your age, weight and experience with CBD will all impact how different strengths affect you.

What does CBD strength mean?

Cannabinoids are extracted from industrial hemp plants and then combined with a carrier oil to make them suitable for consumption. This is because you would only need to take a tiny amount of CBD to realise any benefits – far less than you could reasonably measure with a pipette.

To help make it easier to measure and consume CBD oil, retailers mix it with carrier oil to increase the overall volume of the product. The strength of the CBD is then revealed as a percentage of the whole volume of oil or as a weight measured in milligrams.

Milligrams (mg) represent weight, millilitres (ml) represent volume, and conversion between them depends on the oil’s density.

You might need to do some math to understand your CBD oil's strength. For example, if you have 10 ml of CBD oil and it is a 10% strength oil, 10% of the 10 ml is made up of cannabinoids. This would be 1000 mg of cannabinoids mixed with approximately 9 ml of carrier oil.

Some CBD strength examples: