Elixinol Review

By Main Hemp Patriot on March 12, 2022 No Comments / 125 views

Welcome to our Elixinol review!

As a CBD industry frontrunner, Elixinol is expected to maintain the highest standards of safety, quality, and product innovation, core tenets to which they frequently voice their commitments.

But nobody coasts on reputation alone, which is why we made sure to apply the same 27-item assessment we do for all other brands in the case of this Elixinol brand review.

According to our assessment, Elixinol earns a 93.4/100, which earns them entry into our highest tier of brands.

The six major ranking criteria we use include:

Quality
Transparency
Website Experience
Customer Service
Value
Brand Value

Every criterion is linked to a weighted score, adding up to an overall score out of 100 points.

For more information on how we review brands, check out this simple and informative guide.

Now, for a look at some of our favorite Elixinol products from the review process.

Learn More

Elixinol Immune Gut Health Capsules

Powered by a proprietary ginger extract as well as CBD, these Immune Gut Health capsules are among the most potently formulated products we’ve reviewed.

In addition to supporting gut health, which in turn promotes dozens of positive changes in the body, these capsules helped us feel calm and relaxed.

As usual, they’re formulated only with clean and effective ingredients.

Learn More

Elixinol Active Sports Gel

Competition is thickening in the CBD topical department as industry-leading brands continue to one-up each other, and Elixinol is no exception.

This highly concentrated, botanically enriched powerhouse contains more than a dozen essential oils and extracts, and zero harsh surfactants.

Our team noticed significant improvements not only in post-exercise soreness, but in work-related aches and pains, allowing for a smoother and more productive workday.

How Elixinol Got Started

Based in Westminster, Colorado, Elixinol was founded in 2014 by Paul Denham, who has a 30-year legacy in hemp.

The Elixinol brand is owned by Elixinol Global, a holding company with a hemp-based food company in Australia, as well as an emerging medical cannabis operation also based in the oceanic country.

Elixinol offers broad-spectrum and full-spectrum hemp products, specializing in capsules of many different concentrations and formulations.

Elixinol Coupon

Looking to get in on a top-tier brand without emptying your wallet?

We work closely with brands we review to bring our readership exclusive discounts, such as this 25% off coupon (coupon code: 25INSIDER).

What Makes Elixinol Unique?

Elixinol differentiates themselves from other CBD brands in a number of ways, including:

Brand loyalty: VP of Product Marketing Lindsay Topping told us that Elixinol has managed to build brand loyalty in a market where bouncing around from brand to brand has long been the status quo. The Elixinol team attributes this to their quality and testing protocols, research-driven formulations, and more.

Transparency: Elixinol offers detailed, comprehensive certificates of analysis (COAs) that give customers all the information they need to know. Customers can access third-party results directly by scanning QR codes on the products they purchased.

Education: Elixinol has one of the most comprehensive and robust learning platforms that our team has ever seen, covering what CBD is, how it interacts with the body, the difference between hemp extract types and major cannabinoids, and much more. The information is clear, concise, and highly relevant for everyday customers.

Research: Elixinol has partnered with several medical institutions and public-health-focused organizations on studies examining the efficacy of CBD and other cannabinoids for various health challenges. Moreover, they actually use this research to shape their research and development efforts (not just to say they did it).

Our Elixinol Review

As mentioned, we evaluate brands based on six major criteria, each of which are comprised of various subcriteria covering everything from the CBD extraction method to the brand’s involvement in community-level and global philanthropy.

First, let’s start with the all-important issue of product quality.

Quality

Max score = 35 points
Elixinol = 35 points

Far beyond the quality of the ingredients and formulations alone, we measure everything from product packaging to hemp sourcing methods when considering a brand’s overall product quality because all of these factors can affect user experience.

Here’s how Elixinol stacked up in this regard.

Product Quality

Elixinol sources their hemp from partner farms in Colorado that are registered with the state department of agriculture.

They use CO2—the industry gold standard for safety reasons—to extract cannabinoids from the hemp plant.

The CBD oil tinctures, capsules, and topical products we reviewed came in durable and informative packaging.

Each container was housed in a box, and both of these items took full advantage of the space, offering multiple paragraph-long blurbs about CBD, Elixinol, and the intended use of the product as well as basic product information (supplement facts, concentration, warnings, etc.).

Concerning ingredient quality, Elixinol makes use of many supporting botanicals, including turmeric, boswellia, ashwagandha, peppermint essential oil, and the first FDA-approved terpene, beta-caryophyllene.

This colorful palette of plant-based compounds allows Elixinol to offer their many formulation types (especially in capsules), including products to accommodate comfort, sleep disturbances, active lifestyles, stress, and more.

What we didn’t see ingredient-wise was equally as important; there were no artificial sweeteners, fillers, or harsh preservatives of any kind.

Finally, Elixinol provides full-spectrum and broad-spectrum CBD products, which we award full points for in the hemp extract availability subcategory.

Testing and Certification

Both on the website and the packaging, every Elixinol product we could find was linked (QR codes on packaging, links on the site) to a certificate of analysis from highly reputable labs like Botanacor and Eurofins.

With the exception of terpene readouts, these labs provided full-panel testing, reporting on major cannabinoid levels, any toxins detected, residual solvents, and everything else we needed to know.

Elixinol also backs up their products with US Hemp Authority certification and, for one product, USDA Organic certification, two prestigious credentials that are hard to obtain.

Extraction Method

Supercritical CO2 extraction allows manufacturers to cleanly and efficiently remove cannabinoids from the hemp plant biomass, as CO2 is a very human-friendly solvent.

As such, we reserve a 100/100 score for this subcategory only for brands that use CO2, which Elixinol does.

Transparency

Max score = 12.5 points
Elixinol = 10.375 points

Who is leading this brand, where are their products from, what’s in them, and are they backed by lab testing?

This category is all about how easy it is for customers (and reviewers like us) to access vital information like the above.

Info Accessibility

The “About Us” page on Elixinol’s website provides a decent introduction to CBD and the brand’s values, but there are no headshots/bios of company leaders and no specifics (i.e., dates) relating to when the company was founded and how they’ve grown over time.

However, customers can quickly and easily access certificates of analysis on packaging and on the site, which helped the brand recoup a lot of points in this category.

Finally, the product pages do an excellent job conveying all the necessary information and then some—ingredients, general guides, FAQ, etc.—so it’s full marks for product information accessibility.

Supply Chain Transparency

The only two tidbits of information we could exhume relating to Elixinol’s supply chain (where the hemp is grown, where it goes from there, etc.) were that the product is grown in the US and the oil is extracted with CO2 and ethanol.

We don’t expect a super-detailed breakdown of every small step in the supply chain, but it is important for consumers to at least know where/who the farms are, who formulates and packages the products, and so on.

As such, Elixinol took a solid hit for supply chain transparency, but were still able to round out the category with 10.4 out of 12.5 points because of their solid performance in other areas.

Website Experience

Max score = 7.5 points
Elixinol = 7.375 points

Regardless of the product, a well-designed website can convey trustworthiness and authority while making the learning and purchasing experience as seamless as possible, all of which convert to higher brand loyalty in the end.

For these reasons, we prioritize a brand website’s educational resources, mobile responsiveness, and of course, e-commerce experience.

It was very easy to access product categories and browse Elixinol’s fairly sizable catalog; we rarely had to rely on the “back button” or a tangled mess of filters.

The overall aesthetic is minimalistic and attractive, and on both product category pages as well as individual product pages, a wealth of supplemental information made us feel more confident as we donned the perspective of first-time CBD users.

Overall, the site was responsive on mobile devices, but we made a very small deduction for some minor user interface issues (i.e., scrollable image carousels not responding to swiping properly).

Site Content

In addition to the educational info peppered across product and category pages, Elixinol maintains one of the most well-written and robust information platforms in the business.

Between the “CBD 101” page, the 50+ blog posts, and the FAQ section, all of which are conveniently grouped under the “Learn” section of the Elixinol site, new and veteran CBD users alike can learn something new.

Customer Service

Max Score = 10 points
Elixinol = 9.5 points

Here is an arena where a brand’s actions towards their customers can be held up to their promises, which is why customer service is such a telling indicator of a brand’s overall integrity.

More than just accommodation and responsiveness, it’s also important for the customer experience that a brand provides common support channels (phone, email, chat) and maintains fair shipping and return policies.

Contact Options and Responsiveness

Though Elixinol has phone, email, and live chat services, the live chat isn’t really live—it routes you to a support bot that can either submit a ticket through the email system or direct you to the Elixinol knowledge base.

Still, all three channels we tested were highly responsive and accommodating, so we awarded 90/100 for this ranking factor.

Shipping and Return Policies

The shipping and return policies are fair in that customers are protected with a 30-day, money-back guarantee (and 72 hours for products received damaged), but we made a small deduction here because Elixinol doesn’t reimburse for shipping on returns.

Value

Max score = 10 points
Elixinol = 6.44 points

Some brands can justify charging premiums with their above-and-beyond quality standards, ingredients, etc., which is why we incorporate an “ingredient quality relative to price” factor alongside scoring for raw price.

Our standard practice when scoring raw price for a brand is to find a basic CBD oil tincture, and adjust the closest available concentration to a month’s worth of CBD (1500mg).

Then, we plug the raw price for that month’s supply into a scale we developed after assessing the pricing structure of industry-leading brands.

Pricing and Ingredient Quality

It costs roughly $110 for a month’s supply of Elixinol’s standard CBD oil tincture, which earns 17.5/100 for raw price.

This may seem harsh, but some of our trusted, high-quality brands charge as little as half of this amount.

On the back end, however, we gave Elixinol the maximum possible points for ingredient quality relative to price, since they have botanically enriched, clean ingredient lists every time.

Brand Value

Max score = 25 points
Elixinol = 24.75 points

Finally, this broad category measures a particular brand’s imprint on the CBD industry, their local communities, and the world at large.

This encompasses many efforts that don’t always fit nicely into boxes, so we cast a wide net by awarding credit for the following:

Product innovation
Community and industry involvement/memberships
Participation and/or investment in medical studies
Legislative and regulatory activism
Supplier oversight (vertical integration?)
Institutional knowledge
Philanthropy

Product Innovation

Between Elixinol’s synergistic capsules; high-quality oils, gummies, and topicals; and innovative liposome-enhanced formulation; it’s no question that they’ve earned full marks for product innovation.

Community, Research, and Legislative Investment

Elixinol has partnered with Realm of Caring and Johns Hopkins on several studies related to CBD’s effects, earning full points for research investment and participation.

We also default to a full score for community and industry involvement (as well as legislative activism) for members of the US Hemp Roundtable, as this particular association has been instrumental in moving hemp legislation forward.

Regarding supply chain oversight, Elixinol has the maximum amount you can have without owning the hemp production itself, earning 95/100 here.

Institutional knowledge runs deep throughout the leadership team, between Global CEO Oliver Horn’s experience leading major corporations (L’Oreal, Treasury Wine Estates, etc.) and Global R&D Director Beata Silber, PhD, who is a neuropsychology expert with more than a decade of experience in research departments for major companies.

Finally, on the philanthropy side, Elixinol is among the most generous CBD brands when it comes to donating both bulk sums and a percentage of their ongoing sales to various organizations.

The brand donates 5% of every purchase to a non-profit of their customers’ choosing, and their work with Realm of Caring and Leaf411 has taken aim at public health with a pro-CBD lens.

Our Elixinol Overall Rating

All totaled, Elixinol receives a score of 93.44, entering the top tier of brands that score over 90 points.

Here are some key takeaways to sum up our review:

Synergistic, research-driven formulations
High testing and reporting standards
Slightly expensive, but well-priced for the quality
Strong brand research, legislation, and philanthropy participation
Excellent website experience and customer service

We highly recommend Elixinol for CBD newbies and veterans alike, not just for their high-quality products, but for how well they educate and accommodate their customers.

Elixinol Product Reviews

We tested several of Elixinol’s products across all of their major categories, including the following:

Daily Balance CBD Tincture (Winter Mint)
Immune Gut Health Capsules
Good Night CBD Capsules
Stress Less CBD Capsules
Body Comfort CBD Capsules
Sports Gel

Following are our comprehensive reviews of the products we sampled as broken down by category, starting with oils.

Elixinol CBD Oils Review

Concentration

The broad-spectrum Daily Balance CBD Tincture we sampled came in a 500mg concentration, though it is also available in 133mg, 1000mg, and 4000mg strengths.

Here is the cannabinoid breakdown for our product according to the certificate of analysis:

CBD: 21.8mg/g (654mg total)
CBN: 0.04mg/g (1.2mg total)
CBG: 0.03mg/g (0.9mg total)
CBC: 1.0mg/g (30mg total)
THC: ND (non-detectable level)

The CBD level is right where we want it (and then some), and the supporting cannabinoid content is right around five percent of the CBD content, which is average as top-tier brands go.

Value

The 500mg Daily Balance CBD Tincture we reviewed retails for $39.99, which reduces to just under $0.08/mg.

Though this price point isn’t outlandish by any means—especially not for a highly reputable brand—it lands just outside of that highly competitive $0.03-$0.06/mg range.

As mentioned in the brand review, Elixinol made up several points on the back end of the price ranking factor for overall quality.

Packaging

The packaging (small box, darkly tinted bottle, and standard dropper lid) was consistent with Elixinol’s other products, which are consistent with the best brands in the industry.

Both box and bottle contained a QR code for easy access to lab reports, the labeling is succinct and highly informative, and the bottle/lid held up throughout our entire use of the product.

Ingredients

Here is the ingredient list for this Daily Balance CBD Tincture: Hemp extract (aerial parts), medium-chain triglyceride coconut oil, steam distilled peppermint essential oil, beta-caryophyllene (BCP).

While still fairly simple and straightforward, the rare addition of both a health-affirming essential oil and an FDA-approved terpene (BCP) bodes very well for the quality of this product.

This is among the most impressive ingredient lists we’ve seen for a “standard” CBD oil tincture.

Flavor

We thoroughly enjoyed the Winter Mint flavor of this broad-spectrum tincture, which somehow almost completely masked the hemp taste without assaulting the palate with extreme mintiness.

This was a smart play for three reasons:

Peppermint oil has various health benefits
It effectively masks the hemp taste while consuming
It leaves you with a pleasant aftertaste as well

Overall, we highly recommend the flavor, and would love to see more products from Elixinol and/or other brands using essential oils as flavoring agents.

Effectiveness

This tincture was moderately effective at reducing stress throughout the day, and when taken in the morning, it helped us wake up and get on with our day earlier (sometimes even skipping the coffee!).

In most cases, we had to take at least 2-3 full droppers (32-48mg) a day to achieve these effects.

Overall, this tincture was as effective as most other standard CBD oils from top-tier brands.

Pros & Cons

Let’s start with the pros for this Daily Balance CBD Tincture:

Excellent flavor
Above-average botanical support
Effective at reducing stress and promoting productivity

And the cons:

Slightly expensive

Elixinol Capsules Review

Concentration

All four of the capsules we tried—Immune Gut Health, Good Night, Stress Less, and Body Comfort—came in 15mg/capsule concentrations.

We also kept the unit count consistent at 60, so each product should contain 900mg of CBD.

Here are the CBD, THC, and total supporting (non-THC/CBD) cannabinoid readouts according to the certificates of analysis for these four products (per capsule):

Immune Gut Health: CBD = 17.37, delta-9 THC = 0.33mg, supporting cannabinoids = 0.99mg
Good Night: CBD = 14.34mg, delta-9 THC = 0.2/mg, supporting cannabinoids = 0.63mg
Stress Less: CBD = 13.52mg, delta-9 THC = 0.33mg, supporting cannabinoids = 0.48mg
Body Comfort: CBD = 15.62mg, delta-9 THC = 0.36mg, supporting cannabinoids = 0.63mg

Overall, THC levels were well below the legally mandated 0.3% cutoff, and supporting cannabinoid concentration varied between a decent 4-7% range, but the CBD was under-delivered in a couple of cases.

However, the melatonin (Good Night) and ashwagandha (Stress Less) help to make up for this.

Value

All four of these products retail for $64.99, which reduces to $0.07/mg.

As expected, this price point is slightly lower than that of Elixinol’s CBD oil tinctures, but it’s still slightly higher than most.

Once again, when the quality of the clean, synergistic ingredients are taken into account, we still consider these to be well worth the price.

Packaging

All of our capsules came in the same box/container combo, complete with ample supplemental information, basic product info, and a QR code for lab report access.

The lids secured tightly after each use, and the labeling was very helpful.

Simply put, there’s nothing more to ask for here—the packaging is top quality.

Ingredients

Here are the ingredient lists for each product we sampled:

Immune Gut Health: GinfortTM, (Ginger extract, 26% gingeroids, active gingeroids, hemp extract (aerial parts), medium-chain triglyceride coconut oil, vegetarian capsules [hypromellose, purified water, D-sorbitol], silica.

Good Night: Melatonin, hemp extract (from aerial parts), MCT coconut oil, vegetarian capsules [HPMC, purified water, D-sorbitol], silica.

Stress Less: Ashwagandha extract (withania somnifera), hemp extract (from aerial parts), MCT coconut oil, vegetarian capsules [HPMC, purified water, D-sorbitol], silica.

Body Comfort: Boswellia extract (boswellia serrata) (gum resin), hemp extract (from aerial parts), MCT coconut oil, vegetarian capsules [HPMC, purified water, D-sorbitol], silica.

Flavor

With the exception of the immune gut health capsules, all of these products had little to no scent or taste.

The immune gut health capsules didn’t taste of ginger on initial consumption, but we were able to detect faint remnants of ginger flavor about half an hour after consuming.

Overall, there were no major concerns in this department; everything in the scent and flavor department was consistent with CBD capsules from other top-tier brands.

Effectiveness

Even more so than the CBD oil tincture, these capsules all helped with relaxation and stress.

It was difficult to gauge the effect of the Immune Gut Health capsules in our case, both because this benefit is more of a “background application” and because we weren’t experiencing any digestive issues throughout the sampling window.

However, after several consecutive days of taking at least 3 of the Body Comfort capsules, we noticed a decrease in soreness, both after exercise and long bouts of working in a seated position.

Finally, the Good Night capsules helped us to fall asleep faster if we took at least 3 in the evening.

Pros & Cons

Let’s start with the pros:

Effective, botanically enhanced formulations
Various product options to address wellness challenges
Very clean ingredient lists

And now the cons:

Slightly lower concentration

Elixinol Topicals Review

Concentration

The Elixinol Sports Gel we sampled provides 1000mg of CBD in a 3.4oz (100ml) bottle.

Considering the majority of topicals stop somewhere between 500-750mg, we consider this broad-spectrum product to be among the stronger CBD topicals on the market.

Here is the cannabinoid breakdown according to the certificate of analysis for our product:

CBD = 991mg
CBC = 12mg
Delta-9 THC = ND (non-detectable level)

Considering the CBD content “falls short” of the label claim by less than one percent, we’ll call it an even 1000mg.

That said, the supporting cannabinoid concentration is a little low, at roughly 1.2% of the CBD concentration.

Overall, the product complies with the THC limit and delivers the CBD as promised.

Value

This product retails for $59.99, which reduces to just under $0.06/mg.

This is where Elixinol starts to climb into a more competitive price range; high-quality topicals typically cost at least $0.08/mg.

Considering the brand behind the product, we consider this particular topical to be an especially strong value.

Packaging

The pump bottle this topical comes in—which is housed in the usual box—is better than most at preventing messy build-up around the opening after a few uses.

As usual, the box and bottle both contain helpful and succinct info in addition to basic product details and a QR code for accessing lab reports.

Ingredients

Here is the ingredient list: Water, SD alcohol, glycerin, aloe barbadensis leaf juice, aminomethyl propanol, arnica montana flower extract, cannabis sativa (hemp) extract, capsicum frutescens resin, carbomer, chamomilla recutita (matricaria) flower extract, cinnamomum camphora (camphor) bark oil, cinnamomum cassia bark extract, citrus grandis (grapefruit) seed extract, cymbopogon schoenanthus oil, eucalyptus globulus leaf oil, hamamelis virginiana (witch hazel) bark/leaf/twig extract, limnanthes alba (meadowfoam) seed oil, mentha piperita (peppermint) oil, rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) leaf oil.

As expected, this topical contains upwards of a dozen natural oils and extracts, and no harmful preservatives.

There’s no room for critiques here; top marks for high-quality ingredients.

Scent, Texture, and Sensation

As most topical creams and ointments go, this Sports Gel by Elixinol was not very intense in the way of burning and cooling sensations.

We did notice a mild-to-moderate tingling sensation setting in roughly two minutes after application and lasting roughly twenty minutes after the fact.

The gel smelled of mint, pine, and just a touch of citrus.

It was slightly more viscous than average, leaving no drippy residue whatsoever, and massaged nicely into the skin in just a few seconds.

Effectiveness

This product was moderately effective at relieving aches and pains in smaller joints (sore wrists and knuckles) as well as larger application sites (hip and low back), though we have to say it really shines in the first application.

On most days, we were able to keep sore wrists and hands at bay by applying a very small amount of the gel to these areas every two hours or so.

This may not be the ideal product if you’re looking to cover up a nagging issue with intense burning and cooling sensations, but the discomfort relief it provided lasted significantly longer than most.

Pros & Cons

Let’s start with the pros:

High concentration
Effective at relieving minor discomfort
Long-lasting benefits
Competitively priced

And now the cons:

Milder tingling/cooling sensations

All Elixinol Products

Elixinol has a moderately sized product selection, offering CBD oils, capsules, and topicals featuring full-spectrum and broad-spectrum extracts.

CBD Oils

Elixinol offers four tincture products:

Organic Balance
Daily Balance: Full-Spectrum
Daily Balance: Broad-Spectrum
Everyday Rapid Reset: Liposome

The Liposome product is particularly interesting because its made with a special water-soluble technology that is supposed to drastically improve absorption, requiring less CBD for the same results.

CBD Capsules

Elixinol has six CBD capsule products:

Daily Balance
Sleep Good Night Capsules
Active Body Comfort
Calm Stress Support
Active Omega Turmeric
Immune Gut Health

Besides Daily Balance, which is the brand’s standard capsule, each of the other versions contain a special blend of synergistic herbs that are intended to produce a specific benefit, such as relief or relaxation.

CBD Topicals

Elixinol has three CBD topicals:

Sports Gel (Broad-Spectrum)
Hemp Balm (Full-Spectrum)
Lip Balm (Full-Spectrum)

The most unique product to Elixinol is the Sports Gel, which has a creamy, gel-like consistency.

CBD Gummies

Elixinol now offers a line of full-spectrum hemp gummies in various flavors.

The Good Mood gummy line comes in Passion Fruit, Mixed Berry, Pineapple, or Assorted Flavors, and customers can choose between a 30-count tub and 4-count sachets.

Conclusion

After completing our review, we concluded that Elixinol is an excellent brand with products that are safe, high-quality, and affordable.

The company is transparent about its entire operation from “seed to sale.”

The hemp is organically grown, the oil is extracted with CO2, and the purity of the products is proven with extensive, comprehensive third-party testing.

As for their products, our team was simply surprised at how affordable Elixinol made each product.

If we had to describe Elixinol in a word, it would simply be: impressive.

After personally testing their products and thoroughly vetting their operation, we are excited to recommend Elixinol.