Thanks to the rising popularity of CBD, there is a great wealth of products out on the market to choose from. Whether you prefer gummies, oils, vapes, creams, or edibles, the ways to boost your health or help various medical issues are veritably endless.

Lately, CBD salves are becoming a hot commodity among avid CBD users. But why? What is the difference between a CBD salve and a topical cream? What are the best brands to purchase salves from?

We’ve got answers to these questions and so much more in our best CBD salves for pain guide. Not only will we educate you about what CBD salve is, but we will also let you in on our top picks for the best CBD salves. But first, we want to explain to you how we came up with our top three salve brands but if you don’t have time to read all our research, will recommend Fab CBD Salve if you are in a hurry.

The Criteria for Our CBD Salve List

It’s important to know that while it may be exciting to have a wealth of options at your fingertips, not every CBD brand is equal. And before you go out and purchase any salve for yourself, you really need to take the time to do some research into the quality, effectiveness, and purity of the product as well as the overall reputation of the brand.

If all of this sounds too overwhelming and confusing, you need not worry. We have done most of the work for you. First, we set up some guidelines to follow as we were doing our research. We used these strict criteria to narrow our lengthy list down to our top three brands that we will present to you further down in this article.

In looking for our top three brands, we focused on:

  • The length of time that the brand has been in the industry
  • Salve ingredients
  • Verified customer comments and reviews
  • If the brand hired an independent third-party lab to test its products
  • Are third-party lab test results made available to customers?
  • Where the hemp is sourced from
  • Published writings from CBD journalists and niche experts
  • Salve purity
  • The brand’s overall reputation
  • Price of the brand’s products

As we continued working through brands, we found that our list grew by leaps and bounds. In order to cut down on some of the overwhelm, we tightened up and cut down the list even further until we were left with the top three salve brands that we will discuss at length below.

Best CBD Salves for Pain

Courtesy of Eva Green

#1 FAB CBD Salve — Top Quality and Most Effective

FAB has been bringing customers quality CBD products since 2017. To that end, everyone who works with FAB has a solid history in the health and wellness industries, so they all know what it takes to put forth the very best in quality CBD products.

Transparency is important to the brand, therefore, all of FAB’s third-party lab results are readily available for customers to find on the brand’s website. FAB’s mission is to use innovation, premium supplementation, and science to enable everyone, regardless of age or social status, to live a preventative wellness lifestyle.

All of FAB’s products are pure and clean because there aren’t any herbicides, chemicals, or pesticides used in the cultivation and harvesting of the organic hemp that the brand grows in Colorado. Because of this, customers are guaranteed to receive products that are clean, pure, and highly effective.

On a separate note, FAB is also well-known for its exceptional customer service. Everyone who works in FAB’s customer service department goes out of their way to be extremely attentive to customers’ needs and concerns. There is a multitude of verified customer reviews attesting to the fact that FAB is a strong brand that believes in both transparency as well as taking care of its customers.

All of FAB’s products are created from top-shelf extract that comes from organic Colorado-grown hemp. The brand’s CBD Body Salve, its newest product, contains 1000mg or 3000mg of full-spectrum CBD. The salve contains essential oils, botanical terpenes, and heating and cooling ingredients to calm and soothe. As with the rest of FAB’s products, its CBD Body Salve is also regularly tested for purity by an independent third-party lab.

FAB’s brand new CBD Body Salve is the perfect product for anyone with an active lifestyle. So, whether you golf, run, garden, do CrossFit, lift weights, or strain your fingers and wrists at a keyboard all day, FAB’s salve can help soothe away your aches and pains.

The brand’s CBD Body Salve is made with all-natural ingredients including organic golden jojoba oil, organic beeswax, menthol crystals for cooling, Cinnamomum camphora oil for heating, distilled full-spectrum hemp flower extract, organic rosemary oil, ginger oil, lavender oil, eucalyptus oil, vitamin E, and more.

What We Looked for When We Chose Our Top Salves

When we began selecting our top CBD salves, we considered the following:

Source of Hemp — FAB sources all of its organic hemp from Colorado. Moreover, the brand makes sure that no chemicals, pesticides, or herbicides are used. When it comes to the cultivation and harvesting of its hemp, FAB uses only state-of-the-art equipment and methods to ensure that the resulting extracts are as pure as they possibly can be.

Reputation — The brand has a strong reputation among both customers, industry experts, and other reputable brands for putting forth clean, highly effective, top-quality products. Also mentioned in various big publications, for example, it got the best CBD cream award from Observer and D Magazine.

Price — FAB’s CBD Body Salve is affordable and made to the highest quality. The price is right in line with the salves of other reputable brands.

Effectiveness — FAB’s CBD Body Salve is highly effective at handling tough muscle aches and pain. All of the ingredients used to create the salve come together in a synergistic way to not only provide relief but also provide comfort and soothing.

Our Thoughts and Conclusions — We’re big fans of FAB because we love the brand’s salve and how effective it is at handling tough muscle aches and pains. Moreover, FAB believes in helping others achieve their best health through the healing power of clean, organic CBD products. To that end, the brand believes in transparency and top-notch customer service. Customers will always feel supported and informed when they buy any product from FAB.

#2 Joy Organics

Joy Organics was created by Joy Smith, a mother, grandmother, and wife who has dealt with pain and sleep issues for most of her life. When her son suggested trying CBD for relief, she was so impressed with the effectiveness of the cannabinoids that she started her own company. Joy Organic’s mission is to help people through CBD.

Joy Organics Premium CBD Salve

Joy Organics  CBD salves are created from organic ingredients that support healthy joints and muscles. The brand’s Premium CBD Salve is a combination of phytocannabinoid-rich hemp oil, beeswax, and organic aromatic essential oils and is formulated to help soothe achy muscles and support skin health.

Source of Hemp — Joy Organics sources its hemp from the United States.

Reputation — The brand has a solid reputation among customers and industry experts for putting forth organic, effective, gluten-free, pesticide-free, lab-tested products.

Price — The brand’s prices appear to fall in line with other reputable brands.

Effectiveness — According to verified customer reviews, Joy Organic’s salve is effective at tackling tough aches and pains.

Our Thoughts and Conclusions — Joy Organics is a highly reputable brand that puts forth solid CBD product offerings. The prices are affordable and the products are effective. The brand has a large range of CBD products, offers free shipping, uses a third-party lab to test all of its products, and is a family-founded company with strong ethics.

#3 Cheef Botanicals

Cheef Botanicals was founded by a group of health enthusiasts with a special interest in cannabis products. Since most of the founders were involved in the commercial side of the industry, they all knew what was lacking. Therefore, they added hemp farmers from Colorado to the board and asked them to supply organic grade hemp that would later be made into cannabis products. These efforts led to the creation of cruelty-free, vegan, organic CBD products.

Cheef Botanicals CBD Relief Salve

Cheef Botanicals’ CBD Relief Salve is crafted from full-spectrum CBD, naturally moisturizes skin, is made of all-natural ingredients, and provides maximum strength for fast, lasting relief. All of the brand’s products are made in the USA out of full-spectrum CBD. The salve provides a soothing sensation on the skin and is a great option for athletes who are looking to recover from an intense workout.

Source of Hemp — Cheef Botanicals sources all its organic hemp from Colorado.

Reputation — The brand has a strong reputation for putting out clean, organic products that are highly effective.

Price — The price of the brand’s salve runs in line with other reputable brands, however, Cheef Botanicals also offers interest-free payment plans on its products.

Effectiveness — According to verified customer reviews, the salve has received a number of positive reviews. Customers all say that the brand’s salve is effective against their tough aches and pains.

Our Thoughts and Conclusions — Cheef Botanicals is a solid brand that puts forth clean, organic, effective CBD products. The brand does have all of its products tested by a third-party lab and those results are available to customers through the brand’s website. The brand also believes in transparency, therefore you will be able to fully explore every bit of information regarding its products.

Courtesy of Eva Green

What Exactly Are CBD Salves?

CBD salves work the same as creams, balms, and ointments in that they are all massaged into the skin to help bring about relief from general muscle aches and pains. Put simply, a balm is a topical concoction that is infused with natural ingredients, CBD, and other elements that can be applied directly to the skin.

Where creams and lotions have water and moisturizing agents in their bases, salve is created with fatty oils and wax. This explains why salve is thicker, denser, and more solidified than creams and lotions. Salve differs from other topicals because of the specific ingredients used in it as well as the amount of CBD present in the mixture.

How CBD Salve is Created

A salve is a very basic and simple mixture. All salve contains three basic ingredients including a natural wax like beeswax, a fatty oil base that carries the therapeutic compound, and a medicinal or therapeutic compound component.

Beeswax is commonly used for the base because it’s sticky and dense and has to be melted down in order to use it in mixtures. Overall, it is the best option for crafting salve. Some brands choose to use vegetable-based waxes such as candelilla wax. While this type of wax is a great option for vegan salves, typically beeswax is the best base overall.

What Carrier Oils Do In CBD Salve

Carrier oils do just that: they carry the CBD in the salve. While there are many different options when it comes to carrier oils, coconut oil seems to be the best due to its high fatty acid content. The higher the fatty acid content, the more CBD the oil will carry. When an oil is infused with CBD, the cannabis plant is ground up and then steeped for several hours in the oil. The heat, in turn, decarboxylates the cannabidiol into an active form. While the CBD is in this state, the fatty acids in the oil grab onto the CBD.

Once this process is complete, the oil is then mixed with the melted wax to create the salve. Next essential oils, fat-soluble vitamins like vitamins E, A, and D, and heating and cooling elements are added into the mixture. Finally, the completed salve mix is then poured into molds and allowed to cool and set for four or more hours.

As with any CBD product, you should always carefully read the label so that you have a full understanding of what’s in the product. Most importantly, pay close attention to the type of wax that is used, the base oil, and any other ingredients that are listed.

It’s also important to try to find the third-party lab testing results for the salve products you are interested in. If you cannot easily find those results on the brand’s website, then you should go ahead and either email or call the brand directly. While most brands use hemp as the cannabidiol source, others will use various marijuana strains that have a higher THC content.

How Does CBD Salve Work?

With any type of orally administered CBD product — gummies, oils, vapes, edibles, or capsules — it’s not difficult to understand that the CBD goes directly into the body so that it can enter into the bloodstream where it can take effect on a cellular level. With salve, however, the CBD enters through the skin, the largest organ in the human body. Even though the skin is considered a barrier, it also allows fatty oils, like the ones that salves are made of, to be easily absorbed.

When salve is massaged into the skin, lipids in the oil move the phytochemicals in the CBD through the skin’s cells. This allows the CBD to target specific areas of pain and discomfort. It’s during this time that the CBD also begins working with the body’s endocannabinoid system.

The endocannabinoid system, or ECS, is the body’s network of natural receptors and cannabinoids. The ECS works to help bring the body back to a state of balance by regulating:

  • Immune response
  • Appetite
  • Pain
  • Memory
  • Inflammation

Even though the ECS does not need CBD in order for it to function, cannabidiol does further boost the endocannabinoid system’s functioning. And while there are a host of studies documenting the benefits of CBD, there are not any specific studies on salves just yet.

There is, however, an encouraging study regarding transdermal CBD proving the compound’s effectiveness against arthritis joint pain and inflammation in rats. CBD salve might also be effective at tackling pain and inflammation from difficult skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, and acne.

Courtesy of Eva Green

Taking Advantage of CBD’s Many Benefits

CBD is a healing compound found in both the hemp and cannabis plants. There are many benefits associated with CBD that include:

  • Decreased pain
  • Reduced nerve pain
  • Decreased muscle pain
  • Decreased muscle spasms
  • Reduced Nausea
  • Relief of depression and anxiety
  • Decreased inflammation
  • Increased relaxation
  • Improved sleep

CBD salve can help to improve the overall health of your skin through its many anti-inflammatory properties that work to decrease excess oil production, reduce itching and pain, and increase overall moisturization.

By law, all full-spectrum CBD products must contain less than 0.3% THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol. THC is the compound found in cannabis that is responsible for bringing about that familiar “high” feeling. Full-spectrum products will not get anyone high. Moreover, salve, cream, and other CBD topicals are proven safe, effective, and will not cause euphoric feelings.

Salve, like all other CBD products, work to create an entourage effect within the body. In the entourage effect, all of the compounds within cannabis — THC, CBD, CBG, and others — work together to boost each other’s positive effects while lowering each other’s negative effects. Some negative effects associated with THC include nausea and paranoia, however, when THC is combined with CBD, these negative side effects are drastically reduced and even eliminated in some cases. Because these negative side effects are cut down, more pain reduction can be felt.

Lastly, when you use a CBD salve, you are allowing your body to receive a host of benefits with zero negative side effects. This makes healing and pain relief better in the long-run.

Closing Thoughts on Our CBD Body Salves

The main takeaway regarding CBD salves and other topicals is that they will not get you high. Salves are a wonderful way to help calm down aches and pains from an active lifestyle. The heating and cooling components of salve, coupled with the healing power of CBD, are great at soothing painful arthritis, fibromyalgia, bursitis, back pain, and other health conditions that bring on unmanageable pain.

Salve, like all other topical CBD products, offer targeted relief to sore joints and muscles by way of its absorption into the skin. Other types of CBD products such as oils, gummies, vapes, capsules, and edibles, bring the compound into the body in a different way to help heal broader issues and not specific, localized areas of pain.

Many salves, like FAB’s CBD Body Salve, contain ingredients that both heat up and cool the areas that it is applied to. This helps to greatly bring about comfort and soothing while the CBD is doing its thing to help heal the areas. In fact, salves often contain extra ingredients to boost the product’s overall effectiveness.

While it’s exciting to explore the realm of CBD salves, it’s very important to always do some research into the brand and its products. Look for brands, like FAB, that believe strongly in transparency and that have top-notch customer service. Always look for third-party lab results so that you know exactly what it is that you are putting in or on your body.

If at any time you are feeling confused or overwhelmed in your search or research, you can always go back to our guide and begin with our top three products in this guide. FAB’s CBD Body Salve is our number one pick not only because of the quality and strength of the product, but also because FAB truly cares about its products as well as its customers. It should also be noted that Joy Organics is our strong second-place contender.

Many people suffering from chronic pain are turning to natural methods as a means of relief. Prescription pain relievers are not only dangerous, but they’re also highly addictive. In light of that, more people are turning to CBD because it has been proven to be a safe, natural, effective treatment for many different health conditions.

CBD salves can help reduce nausea, decrease pain, cut down muscle tension and muscle spasms, increase relaxation, reduce sleep issues, decrease inflammation, relieve nerve pain, and a whole lot more. A great number of people are now finding relief for their tough pain-related medical issues without any of the worries about the damage that prescription pain medication can bring about.

Finally, if you have any questions or concerns related to CBD salve, never hesitate to schedule an appointment with your general physician or specialist. CBD salves, creams, and other topicals have been proven safe time and again, so you can confidently go forth and apply them to any area of your body where you feel muscle tension or pain.

Salves are a fantastic new way to tackle tough aches and pains. And with so many reputable brands offering top-shelf salves, the relief options are endless. If you have been thinking about using a CBD salve to help with pain relief, then please begin by looking into our top three brands. The key to your relief might just be a simple dab of salve away.