Testing & trancparency
We are intentional about providing up-to-date information about our testing & transparency, we also want to make sure you’re educated about what is in your products. the following terms are to help you understand where to find information and what to look for in our CBD and others.
Certificate of Analysis (COA)
A certificate of analysis is a report, produced by an accredited laboratory, that details the chemical analysis of a product or in this case, our full spectrum tinctures. We produce a COA for each lot of tincture that we formulate, and they can be found here on our COA page. To find the COA that corresponds to your bottle of tincture, you first need to locate the lot number printed on your bottle. We print each lot number along the edge of our bottle labels next to the expiration date. We organize our COA page by strain and lot number. Find your strain, and then scroll down and locate the COA that corresponds to the lot number printed on your bottle.
COA or Cannabinoid Profile
A cannabinoid profile identifies the cannabinoids and their quantities present in a specific product or formulation.
Cannabinoids/ Phytocannabinoids
Cannabinoids are a group of biologically available chemical compounds that are found in both cannabis and naturally occurring in our body. The term phytocannabinoids refers to the cannabinoids that are produced by plants. There are more than 100 different cannabinoids in the cannabis plant including CBD and THC. Cannabinoids exert their effects by interacting with specific cannabinoid receptors present in the body. These receptors are part of the body’s central regulatory system known as the endocannabinoid system. Different cannabinoids interact with your body to produce different reactions and effects.
Delta-9 Tetrahydrocannabinol
Delta 9 Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive cannabinoid. It is the most abundant cannabinoid in marijuana plants. It binds with receptors in the body (mainly in the brain and central nervous system) that affect pain and can produce the euphoric effect that people associate with getting “high.” All of our products contain less than 0.3% delta-9 THC and so they won’t have psychoactive effects.
Additive
Acknowledge tinctures do not contain any additives. This means that our product is made using extract from our organically grown hemp and the safflower oil that we use as a carrier! Other companies, however, will put all sorts of other things into their products, like flavorings or outside terpenes, and all of those additional chemicals are referred to as additives.
<LDQ
This stands for “less than the limit of quantification”. When a compound on a COA is reported as <LDQ it means that the lab has detected the compound, but there are not high enough levels to provide an exact measurement. Terpenes frequently come back as <LDQ, but they are very potent, so even small amounts can have an effect. Check out how many different terpenes are in our bottles!
Third Party Lab Test
Third-party testing is when a company sends its product to an outside, unbiased lab for testing to see if it meets the standards of the company, and to ensure that what is on the label is actually inside the product. All of our products are tested by a third-party lab, Pinnacle CT Labs. We have chosen to use Pinnacle CT as they are ISO accredited, and they employ the most sensitive and high-tech methods of testing to ensure a level of accuracy and specificity that is unsurpassed in the industry. Additionally, they are one of only three labs in the state of Maryland that have been approved to test medical cannabis by the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission. While our products are not intended for medical use, we gain confidence in knowing our lab is one of just a few that are trusted by the medical industry.
Triple Lab Tested
We test our hemp three times during our manufacturing process. Our hemp is harvested from the field and immediately sent to the lab. Next, we extract our hemp to create the crude oil we use for formulation and ensure it is free of heavy metals, residual solvents, mycotoxins, foreign material, and microbiological contamination. Finally, we send each lot of our formulated product to our third-party lab to ensure the purity and quality of every bottle of tincture.
Heavy Metals
There are certain metals, like lead, mercury, cadmium, and others, that are known as heavy metals and are carcinogenic. The cannabis plant is amazing, in that it is able to absorb these materials from the soil, meaning that is can play a vital part in cleaning up toxic spaces and land. The problem, however, is that if a hemp plant absorbs these metals it then becomes toxic and unfit for human consumption. We test our oil to ensure it is free from heavy metals to ensure the safety of our consumers.
Pesticides
A pesticide is a chemical that is used to kill insects or other organisms that can damage or kill plants. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has studies pesticides, and determined that they can have adverse effects on human beings. As a certified organic farm we never use pesticides anywhere on our property, and we have had our soil and land tested to ensure no pesticides are present in the earth and as a result, in our products.
Solvents/ Residual Solvents
Many extractions methods rely on some sort of solvent to produce a product. Residual solvent testing ensures that none of these chemicals, also known as a volatile organic compounds, are detected in the product that remains.
Potency
A potency test indicates the amount of cannabinoids present in a sample. For example, when you take a look at this Forbidden V COA, you can see that each mL of our 1500mg Forbidden OR tincture contains…. UPDATE WHEN COA IN
Microbiological Contamination
This refers to the accidental introduction of infectious organisms, like bacteria or yeast, into a product or substance. We test for this type of contamination to ensure our products are clean and safe for human consumption.
Mycotoxin
A mycotoxin is a toxic byproduct of fungus that can cause sickness and even death. All of our products are tested to ensure they are mycotoxin free.
Quality Control
A quality control represents a system of maintaining accuracy and high standards in manufactures products, like our full spectrum tinctures, by testing a sample against an established measurement or specification. Our third-party lab have a wide variety of different quality control measures and systems put into place to ensure that all of the tests they run and results they report are reliable and accurate.