Anyone familiar with the CBD market has heard of the three types of CBD: full-spectrum, broad-spectrum, and CBD isolate. You can spend hours scanning google to find various companies explaining the differences between the three options. We even put together our own helpful guide.

What’s interesting is that you sometimes find companies or customers pitting these three options against one another. Many argue for CBD isolate, some say full-spectrum, and others stick with broad-spectrum. 

But the truth is that these options don’t have to compete.

Broad Spectrum CBD is best for managing pain.

Even Revre’s own products offer a bit of variety. While we have no full-spectrum offering, our sports cream is broad-spectrum and our tinctures consist of CBD isolate.

Curious to know why? 

It’s not that one is better than the other. Each one just serves a different purpose. For pain management, the primary use of our sports cream, we’ve found three distinct advantages to stick with a broad-spectrum solution.  

#1 – No THC = No Psychoactive Effects and No Failing Drug Tests

Both broad-spectrum and CBD isolate products stand apart from full-spectrum options because they have 0% THC. Full spectrum products can legally consist of up to .3% THC.

THC is the psychoactive element in hemp plants – the stuff that gets you high and makes you crave a full bag of doritos. Most people think that the whole hemp plant does this, but that’s not the case.

THC is just one of multiple compounds found in hemp. Others, like CBD, CBG, and CBN, have no psychoactive or intoxicating element, eliminating the risk of getting high or becoming overly confident in one’s ability to “just start a band, man.”

This little graphic might help illustrate the differences between each option.

The lack of THC in a broad-spectrum sports cream makes it possible for you to safely use the product without fear of failing a drug test. For athletes, this is obviously a huge advantage as they are often subject to random testing. Failing could lead to being benched or worse.

#2 – Enables Higher CBD Content

The lack of THC in our sports cream also means that we can really pack in a lot of CBD so you can experience real results. 

If you shop around the CBD topical cream market for awhile, you’ll find that most options consist of somewhere around 200-250 mg of CBD. 

Ours has 1,000.

This sometimes freaks people out. We get it. Such a large discrepancy can feel alarming, but we don’t make these decisions willy-nilly. 

Our Sports Cream has 4x the average amount of CBD found in most topical creams.

Each of our products go through a rigorous research process, something our founder Rob has had a passion for since the beginning of Revre, especially when it comes to managing sports injuries. His own introduction to hemp products came out of a desire to golf again after being sidelined from pain. 

But many of the existing products he tried only eased the pain a little bit. He started looking more into the ingredients and found that most options had small amounts of CBD but loads of other stuff he couldn’t pronounce. The promise of “natural wellness” turned out to just be another marketing ploy. 

His solution wasn’t a stroke of genius. It was actually pretty simple: if hemp helps, why add all this other crap? 

He took that simple idea and started developing the sports cream, avoiding all the additives and upping the CBD dosage along the way. With no THC in the product, he could keep adding until he found a solution with real results and none of the risks associated with full-spectrum options.

#3 – Interacts with Other Cannabinoids

To understand the last advantage we’ll highlight regarding broad-spectrum solutions for pain management, we need to do a brief science lesson. We’ve covered this topic more in depth here, so we’ll just give you the highlights for now.

Your body has what is called an “endocannabinoid system.” Scientists say that this system helps maintain homeostasis through various receptors in your body. Adding other cannabinoids may help your endocannabinoid system perform better, producing what’s known as “the entourage effect.” 

Here’s why this matters.

Broad-spectrum solutions allow you to benefit from all the helpful cannabinoids by only removing THC. Pure CBD isolates, which we use for other solutions, have their own advantages that we will cover in a later blog, but they do not utilize various cannabinoids. You get the purest form of CBD, sure, but when it comes to pain management, you want to pull from all the possible cannabinoids you can so you can get the full entourage effect. 

Bottom Line

Full-spectrum, broad-spectrum, and CBD isolate all have their advantages. No one solution is the right call for every product, which is why we put so much work finding the right solution for each unique problem. 

If you’re an active athlete looking for a topical cream that actually helps you manage your pain without putting you at risk of failing a drug test, look for a broad-spectrum solution. It’s the right call for that problem.