Hello again.

When we brought the blog back in March, we promised a post on how to pick the right strength “without feeling like you’re decoding ancient hieroglyphs”. This is that post, although it’s turned out slightly different from the one we had in mind back then.

Rather than telling you which strength to choose, we’re going to explain how to read the numbers. That way you can make sense of any CBD product, ours or anyone else’s.

Two different numbers

Almost every CBD product has two numbers that matter, and they’re easy to mix up:

• Pack strength: the total amount of CBD in the whole product. This is usually the big number on the front.
• Per serving: the amount of CBD in one serving, as the label defines it.

The first tells you how much is in the pack. The second tells you how much you’re actually having. They are not the same thing.

Oils: the number on the front is the whole bottle

Our oils come in two strengths: 1000mg and 1500mg. That figure is the total CBD in the whole bottle. A 1500mg bottle has more CBD in it overall than a 1000mg bottle, but the number on its own doesn’t tell you how much is in a drop.

To work that out, you need two things from the label: the total CBD in mg, and the amount of oil in the bottle in ml. Then:

1. Divide the total mg by the ml. That gives you mg of CBD per ml of oil.
2. Check the dropper markings or the label. These tell you roughly how much oil is in a drop or a full dropper.
3. Put the two together. Now you know roughly how much CBD is in each serving.

We’re deliberately not giving you a number of drops for our bottles here. Your label is the place for that, and if the sums aren’t clear, email us and we’ll go through them with you.

For a bit of context, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) gives its own example in its June 2026 Food Fact Check: 10mg of CBD is about 4 to 5 drops of a 5% CBD oil. That’s the FSA’s example for a 5% oil, not a guide to our bottles. As the FSA says, always check the label for the CBD content per serving.

Gel tabs: the number on the front is per tab

Our 20mg CBD plus Vitamin D3 Gel Tabs work the other way round. The 20mg is the amount of CBD in each tab, not the whole pack.

That’s a good example of why it pays to read carefully. On our oils, the mg is the whole bottle. On our gel tabs, it’s one tab. Same unit, very different meaning.

Where the FSA’s 10mg fits in

The FSA advises healthy adults to limit CBD from food to 10mg a day. That’s general guidance covering all CBD foods. It isn’t a dose we’re setting for our products, and it’s a daily upper limit, not a target.

In the spirit of being straight with you: one of our gel tabs contains 20mg of CBD, which is more than the FSA’s 10mg daily guidance. We’d rather point that out than leave you to spot it yourself. If you’re unsure how a product fits with FSA advice, talk to us, and if you take medication or have a health condition, speak to your GP or pharmacist first.

The FSA also advises that under-18s, anyone pregnant, breastfeeding or trying to conceive, and people taking medication should avoid CBD foods altogether.

Creams, bath bombs and lip balms

Same principle, different products. On our cosmetics, the mg figure is the total CBD in the item:

• Creams: 300mg, 500mg or 750mg in the jar
• Bath bombs: 100mg in each one
• Lip balms: 100mg in each one

These aren’t foods, so the FSA’s 10mg daily guidance for CBD foods isn’t written for them. And please don’t compare a cream’s mg with an oil’s. They’re used in completely different ways.

The quick recap

• The big number is usually the whole pack, not one serving.
• To find mg per serving on an oil, you need the total mg and the ml.
• Gel tabs show mg per tab.
• The FSA’s 10mg a day is general guidance for healthy adults, not a dose for our bottles.
• At the time of writing, no CBD foods are authorised in the UK, so nothing is “FSA approved”.

If you’d like us to go through the numbers on any of our products, email help@cbdhealthyliving.co.uk. No question is too basic. We’d much rather you asked.

Thanks for reading,
The CBD Healthy Living team, Barnsley