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From Field To Product
Organically grown hemp. Carefully extracted.
- About Us
About Endoca
Our Story
From humble beginnings to a global mission – we grow, harvest, and craft hemp with care for people and planet.
What Is CBD?
CBD is nature’s way to restore balance, calm, and overall well-being – naturally and without the high.
The Process
From seed to shelf, we grow organically, extract cleanly, and follow strict quality standards for purity.
Lab Testing
Every batch is third-party tested to ensure purity, safety, and the exact amount of CBD every time.
Our Values
Sustainability, transparency, and wellness guide every decision – for you and for the planet.
At a glance
What actually differs
The dividing line is water. A balm is anhydrous: plant oils, butters and waxes, nothing else. A cream is multiphase, and the European Pharmacopoeia classifies it by its continuous phase, a hydrophilic cream carrying water as the continuous phase with an oil in water emulsifier. Water brings two obligations: an emulsifier, and an antimicrobial preservative, because the pharmacopoeia requires that the need for and the efficacy of the chosen preservative be demonstrated.
What neither formulation changes much is where the CBD ends up. In vitro, CBD and cannabinol permeate human skin about 10 times more readily than delta-8-THC, which still leaves CBD a lipophilic molecule meeting a barrier built to exclude them. Applied to excised human skin for 24 hours, CBD from colloidal formulations stayed below the limit of detection in the receptor fluid underneath.
For scale, the largest modifier of CBD exposure ever measured in humans has nothing to do with format. Taken with a high fat, high calorie meal, cannabidiol peak plasma concentration rose 5-fold and total exposure rose 4-fold. Nothing comparable has been shown for anything applied to skin.
Where the difference actually shows up
It shows up in handling, not pharmacology. An anhydrous balm leaves an occlusive film that stays where it is put, which is why balms are the format people reach for on small, high friction areas such as knuckles, heels and cuticles. A cream spreads much further per gram and sinks in quickly, which is why it is the usual choice for shoulders, legs and backs, and the easier one to use before dressing.
It also shows up in what can go wrong. The CBD is rarely the irritant in a topical. The preservative often is. Methylisothiazolinone positivity reached 5.97 percent of patch tested patients across European dermatology clinics in 2015, then fell to 4.72 percent in 2016 and 2.96 percent in 2017 after it was banned from leave-on cosmetics. A balm with no water needs no such preservative. A cream does, and which one is chosen is a genuine safety variable.
Where it does not show up is dose. Neither format has a dose that means anything in milligrams of circulating CBD, because that measurement has never been made in humans.
What the human evidence shows
Topical CBD has almost no human pharmacokinetic data. No absolute oral bioavailability for CBD has ever been established either; the one figure in the literature is 31 percent, for smoking. The largest transdermal CBD trial, 212 children on a gel at 250 or 500 mg daily, missed its primary endpoint.
What people get wrong
Choosing between them
Choose by area and by texture, because the CBD evidence does not separate them. A balm is the denser format: it stays where it is put, needs no preservative, and has the shorter ingredient list. A cream covers a far larger area per gram and leaves no sheen. If you have ever reacted to a cosmetic, the balm is the more cautious start, and a patch test is worth 48 hours either way. What you should not do is choose between them expecting a difference in how much CBD reaches your blood.
Legal status and safety
A CBD balm or cream placed on the market in Great Britain is a cosmetic product under Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 as retained in GB law. Article 20 requires that no claim implies a characteristic or function the product does not have, and that claims are legal, truthful, evidenced, honest and fair. That limits a CBD topical to cosmetic statements about the appearance of skin.
No medicinal claim may be made. The Food Standards Agency advice of no more than 10 mg of CBD a day covers CBD in food, not topicals, and no health claim for CBD is authorised under Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006.
Before first supply, the responsible person must hold a cosmetic product safety report signed by a qualified assessor under Article 10, keep a product information file under Article 11 for 10 years, and notify the product through the Submit Cosmetic Product Notifications service. THC must stay inside the exempt product definition in regulation 2(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, which allows no more than 1 mg of a controlled drug in any component part.
On practical safety, patch test for 48 hours, avoid broken skin and the eye area, and read the preservative and fragrance lines rather than the CBD figure.
How Endoca tests for this
Every Endoca batch carries a certificate of analysis, and it is worth knowing what it settles. For a salve or body butter the COA reports the cannabinoid content of the extract used and screens for pesticides, heavy metals, residual solvents and microbiological contamination. What no COA measures is skin penetration: no assay tells you how many milligrams crossed the stratum corneum, because that question has not been answered in humans. Endoca works from its own farm, own land and own extraction, since 2010.
Frequently asked questions
No. Strength is the milligrams of CBD declared per jar or per ml, and a balm can be weaker or stronger than a cream. What a balm does differently is sit on skin as an occlusive film instead of spreading thin and absorbing.
Barely, on the only human data available. In 46 adults applying five commercial topical CBD products, peak whole blood CBD ranged from undetectable to 2.0 ng/mL and none produced discernible pharmacodynamic effects. Systemic absorption from a consumer cream has not been demonstrated.
Because a cream contains water and a balm does not. Water supports microbial growth, so an emulsion needs an antimicrobial preservative system, and the pharmacopoeia requires its need and efficacy to be demonstrated. An anhydrous oil and wax base gives microbes nothing to grow in.
No. That advice concerns CBD consumed in food and drink by healthy adults. A balm or cream is regulated as a cosmetic product, under a framework requiring a safety assessment and notification beforehand. No daily figure exists for topical CBD.
References
Millar SA, Stone NL, Yates AS, O’Sullivan SE. A systematic review on the pharmacokinetics of cannabidiol in humans. Front Pharmacol. 2018;9:1365.
Zamarripa CA, Tilton HE, Lin S, et al. Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of five distinct commercially available hemp-derived topical cannabidiol products. J Anal Toxicol. 2024;48(2):81-98.
Lapteva M, Faro Barros J, Kalia YN. Cutaneous delivery and biodistribution of cannabidiol in human skin after topical application of colloidal formulations. Pharmaceutics. 2024;16(2):202.
Stinchcomb AL, Valiveti S, Hammell DC, Ramsey DR. Human skin permeation of Delta8-tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol and cannabinol. J Pharm Pharmacol. 2004;56(3):291-297.
Xu DH, Cullen BD, Tang M, Fang Y. The effectiveness of topical cannabidiol oil in symptomatic relief of peripheral neuropathy of the lower extremities. Curr Pharm Biotechnol. 2020;21(5):390-402.
Berry-Kravis E, Hagerman R, Budimirovic D, et al. A randomized, controlled trial of ZYN002 cannabidiol transdermal gel in children and adolescents with fragile X syndrome (CONNECT-FX). J Neurodev Disord. 2022;14(1):56.
Uter W, Aalto-Korte K, Agner T, et al. The epidemic of methylisothiazolinone contact allergy in Europe: follow-up on changing exposures. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2020;34(2):333-339.
European Pharmacopoeia monograph 0132. Semi-solid preparations for cutaneous application. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.
Epidyolex 100 mg/ml oral solution. Summary of product characteristics, sections 4.2 and 5.2. Jazz Pharmaceuticals.
Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products, as retained in Great Britain law, articles 10, 11 and 20.
The Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, SI 2001/3998, regulation 2(1), definition of exempt product.
Last reviewed 1 October 2026.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.