A new category of CBD ingredients called "water-soluble CBD" has entered the market in everything from CBD gummies and drinks to CBD skincare and wellness products. Creating a CBD ingredient that dissolves into water-based formulas is a significant innovation that gives food, beverage, and consumer goods formulators much more flexibility and potential use cases for this popular ingredient.

Traditional CBD, or cannabidiol, is a natural compound in the hemp plant. CBD is extracted from the hemp plant biomass (stalks, leaves, and flowers) in an oil form. Like all cannabinoids, CBD is lipophilic, which means it loves to be dissolved in fats and oils and naturally wants to separate from water.

As an oil, CBD only dissolves in other oil-based ingredients and oil phases of formulas easily. CBD must blend into the oil phase of a formula. For this reason, most of the early CBD products on the market were CBD tinctures in an oil carrier like hemp seed oil, MCT oil, coconut oil, natural butter-based CBD muscle balms, and oil-based CBD serums.

Traditional CBD ingredients like CBD distillates and CBD isolate only dissolve into water-based product formulas with a significant amount of sheer and emulsifiers (synthetic ingredients that bind oil and water together.)

CBD's oil-loving nature makes it difficult, if not impossible, to work with in the most popular natural, water-based personal care and wellness formulations like CBD beverages, CBD gummies, and CBD skin care without an intervention.

water-soluble CBD serum — Water-Soluble CBD to the Rescue

Unlike traditional CBD, which only plays nice with other oils in a formula, the water-soluble CBD ingredient category was specifically designed to dissolve easily into the water phase of a formulation and work well in formulas with very high water content.

Product formulators now easily incorporate water-soluble CBD into various water-based products, including CBD gummies, serums, topicals, and beverages.
This CBD innovation has been a game changer for the food, beverage, and consumer goods industries. Water-soluble CBD ingredients help product developers create a wider range of more bioavailable products.

Is All Water-Soluble CBD Also Nano CBD?

Before we get too far into the explanation of water-soluble CBD, it's critical to understand that all nano CBD is, by its nature, water-soluble. Still, not all water-soluble CBD is nano CBD. Water-soluble CBD and nano CBD are two related but distinct terms used in the CBD industry to describe different aspects of CBD products. You must understand both when sourcing the right CBD for your next formulation.

Water-soluble CBD refers to CBD formulated to be more easily dissolved in water. Effectively dissolving CBD in water can increase its bioavailability and make it more effective for specific uses. Water-soluble CBD can be created through various techniques, including applying mechanical sheer high-speed mixing, chemical emulsifiers, liposome structures, or nano-particle technology.

On the other hand, nano CBD refers explicitly to CBD molecules that have been reduced to a very small size using nanotechnology. This technique breaks down the CBD molecules into nano-sized oil droplets or particles, typically between 10 and 200 nanometers, which decreases the size of the CBD lipid particle, allowing it to absorb faster through the skin or mouth. Nano CBD's size and other stabilizing elements also improve its bioavailability and consumer experience.

What Makes Water-Soluble CBD Dissolve In Water?

It's important to note that not all water-soluble CBD ingredients and products containing water-soluble CBD are created equal. The most distinct points of difference lie in the approach to creating the ingredient itself and what the product formulator must do to prepare the ingredient to be water-soluble in the formula.

As you've learned, CBD is oily and doesn't naturally dissolve in water. There are a few common approaches to creating a CBD that appears to dissolve in water with the help of one of these three additions.

Mechanical: A mechanical process like sheer using a high-velocity mixer or ultrasonic sound waves will blast apart the large CBD molecule into tiny CBD nano oil droplets. These tiny nanodroplets remain homogeneously dispersed throughout the watery solution. Due to their nano size, they stay suspended homogenously in the product for a while but not long enough for commercial shelf-life stability.
Chemical: A chemical binder, emulsifier, and/or carrier oil are added to the CBD ingredient to create a water-compatible CBD called a liposome. Many different food and cosmetic grade emulsifiers are used to encapsulate the small CBD droplets so they remain suspended, preventing agglomeration.
Hybrid Mechanical & Chemical: Both mechanical and chemical techniques above are used to create a water-soluble CBD ingredient.

Bioavailability

Water-soluble CBD allows for the use of CBD in a much wider variety of products and is also more bioavailable. CBD bioavailability refers to the proportion of CBD that enters circulation. It becomes available to produce its desired effect in the body after it is consumed (eaten, vaped, smoked, or applied.)

The CBD's absorption rate, efficiency, and effectiveness in your formula determine your customer experience and the success of your product. How fast did your customer notice a shift in their need state after consuming or applying your CBD product? Your customers' answer has everything to do with your product's bioavailability; the CBD's size and the encapsulation technology used to stabilize and release the nano CBD into the body determines bioavailability and overall customer experience.

Look for these three factors when sourcing a stable, highly bioavailable CBD ingredient for your next formulation:

A CBD molecule size under 225 nanometers
Encapsulation technology that offers a high passenger load of at least 25% active
Proven penetration and bioavailability studies.

Why Water-Soluble CBD Makes Better Products

The CBD products market existed long before water-soluble nano CBD. What makes this new technology such a game-changer for product manufacturers?

CBD gel — Allows for New CBD Product Categories

First, it opens up entirely new product categories for development. CBD-infused products that were tricky, if not impossible, to make with traditional cannabinoids are totally feasible with water-soluble CBD ingredients.
For instance, transdermal patches. These patches can deliver carefully controlled doses of nano CBD to the user in seconds for instant relief. Or offer sustained relief overtime.
Water-soluble nano CBD also opens up a tremendous opportunity in the CBD-infused beverage market, allowing for high-dose CBD beverages with high bioavailability and fast onset.
The latest nano CBD innovations in beverages create shelf-stable products with great taste that don't interfere with the overall flavor of the beverage.
Water-soluble nano CBD's high bioavailability consistently delivers relief to users faster than conventional CBD, regardless of delivery method.

Safe and Consistent Dosing

Speaking of dose control, CBD nano-encapsulations offer more reliable and consistent dosing. CBD isolate, and CBD distillate lipid particles are large and vary in size, which can lead to it settling out in the product. This creates unpredictable dosing when the CBD doesn’t remain evenly suspended in the individual sip of your CBD-beverage might contain 10x more CBD than average or 10x less. Water-soluble CBD has a consistent particle size that remains homogeneously dispersed. The nanoparticles are so small that they're less likely to settle in a mixture over time. The homogeneous dispersion over time offers water-based CBD products a level of stability and consistent dosing unmatched by traditional CBD.

The Marketing Advantage of Water-Soluble Nano CBD

Water-soluble nano CBD makes better CBD products and offers other marketing benefits. The growing market size of CBD products means consumers have many brands to choose from. Consumer experience creates loyal customers that keep coming back for years. Water-soluble, nano CBD offers a distinct consumer experience within minutes of consumption, allowing consumers a virtually immediate confirmation that your product “is working.” Brands that use water-soluble nano CBD can offer superior, fast-acting, highly-bioavailable products while presenting themselves as technology leaders in the CBD sector.

Better technology that offers consumers a more immediate experience of your product? That's an excellent place to start when marketing a new product!

The Bottom Line on Water-Soluble Nano CBD

Unlike traditional CBD, which cannot dissolve in water, nano-encapsulated water-soluble nano CBD is fully water-soluble and far more bioavailable. This technological improvement opens up exciting possibilities for product development, from potent and fast-acting sublinguals to transdermal and edible solutions. Our proprietary phospholipid encapsulation offers the sweet spot of the right size lipid particle for ideal fast-acting absorption with the highest potency on the market at 30%. At 200nm our unique nano-encapsulation is so small that it’s absorbed into the body through the skin, mucous membrane, or digestion much more easily and efficiently than conventional CBD.

The unique properties of water-soluble nano CBD result from real innovation in the cannabis industry that will allow for an ease of use never before experienced when formulating with CBD, increased production efficiencies, more stable and more potent products, and better consumer experiences.