How To Store CBD Oil for Maximum Shelf Life

After weeks of deliberation, you’ve finally landed on the CBD oil product that works for your lifestyle, meets your wellness goals, and enhances your self-care practice. Whether you’ve chosen a CBD oil to nourish your scalp or decompress after a long day in front of your laptop, it’s living up to its reputation and delivering results.

Now that you found the best CBD oil, you want to do all that you can to conserve its potency and encourage its longevity. Read on as we explain how to store CBD oil so that you can keep on enjoying it.

#1 Select a Cool, Dark, and Dry Place

Once you have discovered what to look for when buying CBD, and have purchased the best CBD product, it’s time to read the bottle. You likely noticed a recommendation on the bottle indicating that you should store your CBD oil product in a cool, dark place. This begs a few questions:

Should CBD oil be refrigerated?
And can you freeze CBD oil?

There’s no need to (indeed, refrigerating your oil might thicken it), and yes, you can, but we would suggest doing so only if you purchase CBD oil in bulk and want to preserve its freshness before you use it. In which case, ensure you thaw it to room temperature before using it and then move it to a temperate, sheltered area.

Ideally, you should be storing CBD oil between 60 and 70 degrees and away from sunlight and heat. This entails moving it out of the way of a window, your stove, your radiator, and blasts of extreme cold from, say, your AC or the weather outside.

But why? Because CBD oil is vulnerable to sunlight and temperature changes. A cool, dark, and dry place can prevent CBD degradation and save your CBD product from spoiling faster than its expiration date suggests.¹

Your best bet is to keep your CBD oil in one of the following:

Cupboard
Pantry
Drawer
Medicine cabinet

#2 Assess Your CBD Oil’s Packaging

CBD oil isn’t just sensitive to direct sunlight and temps, it’s also susceptible to oxygen.

For this reason, the best CBD oil is typically sold in airtight, dark or opaque glass bottles. If you received yours in the proper storage, excellent—and keep it in its original packaging for best results. If not, consider investing in a medical-grade airtight container.

#3 Keep a Lid on It

Literally. It’s all too easy to forget to secure the top of a bottle of olive oil when you’re cooking. Ditto if you’re storing CBD oil right before you leave the house, or immediately before bed. But ensuring the top is securely on can help inhibit the growth of bacteria and mold and maintain its strength.

What is the Shelf-Life of CBD Oil?

Estimates vary on the shelf-life of CBD oil but typically it’s between one and two years. What we do know for certain, though, is that its lifespan depends on a few key factors:

The quality of the product – Counterfeit CBD oils abound. If the one you accidentally brought home and have been using contains less-than-desirable ingredients, it might go rancid faster (which, we should add, might be a good thing). If you want to know how to spot fake CBD oil, search for a Certificate of Analysis, which verifies that the oil has gone through stringent third-party testing. This guarantees your oil contains what it claims—it may also increase your oil’s durability. If your product does not have a COA it is most likely fake.

The ingredients it features – You may have chosen a CBD oil that’s comprised of CBD isolate. Or you might have chosen an oil that’s enriched with other botanicals. If it’s the latter, its shelf-life will also depend on the longevity of the botanicals it contains. Your CBD oil’s COA will give you a full list of each ingredient, and the package itself should include an expiration date.

The extraction process it went through – The method of extraction also has a hand in a CBD’s shelf-life. The carbon dioxide extraction technique is deemed superior when it comes to creating full-spectrum and broad-spectrum CBD oils, as it helps the compounds stay stable.²

How Can I Tell if My CBD Oil Has Gone Bad?

Even if you follow all of the steps above and use up your beloved CBD drops before the expiration date strikes, they can curdle or lose their efficacy. ² With this in mind, inspect your CBD oil from time to time and keep an eye out for the following changes:

A rancid smell – We’re genetically programmed to tell when something has spoiled with our noses alone. If it smells sour, spoiled, or just plain off, you may have expired CBD oil.

A cloudy appearance – True, some full-spectrum CBD oils, which contain all constituents of a hemp plant, may have plant materials. All in all, though, CBD oils should have a consistency similar to MCT and hemp seed oil. If yours appears murky or clumpy, it might be high time to order another—or another form of CBD oil altogether, such as CBD gummies.

Learn more about the difference between CBD oil vs gummies to see which product might be best for you.

Freshen Up Your CBD Oil Routine with Peels

From a healthy mood to a better night’s sleep, CBD oil has gained widespread popularity for its wellness-promoting properties.³ And taking proper care of your product helps it take care of you.

Peels CBD elevates the TLC that CBD has the potential to offer. We say no to plenty of things—like pesticides, GMOs, neurotoxins, and THC–and a resounding yes to purity. Our award-winning products are created from citrus peels to give you the sort of results that last.

Give Peels a peek today to harness—and preserve—your vitality.

Sources:

ResearchGate. Long-term storage and cannabis oil stability. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236170001_Long_-_term_Storage_and_Cannabis_Oil_Stability
Healthline. Yes, cbd oil expires–here’s how to check yours. https://www.healthline.com/health/does-cbd-oil-expire
Healthline. 6 health benefits of cbd oil–and a look at side effects. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cbd-oil-benefits