Feals Review + Our Best Rated CBD Brands

This Feals review has been medically reviewed by Gavin Van De Walle, MS, RD and was written by the team at CBDStudy, a CBD research publication.

Feals is a new CBD brand that is trying to bridge the gap between consumer and company. They have created a friendly and inviting brand that can help people take the edge off and live a healthier life by implementing CBD into their routine. The brand has an extensive social media presence, boasting nearly 26,000 Instagram followers.

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Feals Overview

Feals has simple packaging with a fun flair. Their branding is a rusty peach color, and that theme is consistent throughout. You can find this color on their social media, their packaging and all over their website.

Not only does Feals offer a membership plan that allows you to save 30 percent on monthly orders; they also sell a “flight” or a sampler pack of their products. Feals only has one product, a CBD oil.

We would love to see one or two more products to choose from, but at the same time we think it is great when companies perfect one product before expanding. The brand does offer their oils in different strengths, so there are still some choices to be made. However, there are some downsides to the company, such as trace amounts of pesticide residue in their products, their high price point, and low transparency.

The Good:

• Good membership plan that takes 30 percent off
• Satisfactory cannabinoid profile
• Friendly and accessible branding
• Free shipping
• Satisfaction guarantee

The Bad:

• Poor transparency
• High prices without much to justify them
• Pesticide residue found in our lab results

Who Is Feals?

Feals was founded by Drew Todd, Alex Iwanchuk and Eric Scheibling in 2018.[1] The trio transitioned from the ad tech industry when they decided they could use their marketing experience to reach consumers who had misconceptions or hesitations about CBD. Their goal when founding the company was to make their brand so accessible and inviting that it made consumers excited about CBD.

Their Approach

Feals takes the approach of being your friend, making CBD fun and easy, as well as educating you along the way. However, we think Feals isn’t quite reaching the required level of transparency. There is not a lot of background information about the company or its founders on the website. We would definitely like to see that information more easily available, especially considering that the brand prides itself on being a friend in the industry and someone newcomers can trust. This approach may work on new CBD users, but seasoned CBD users tend to like more transparency in all areas.

The third-party lab results and hemp origins are not easily accessible on the site, and are buried in the Frequently Asked Questions. And the FAQ is a challenge to find in and of itself. Feals could benefit from a website that is more streamlined to encourage people to view their third-party lab results and learn more about the company.

To expand on their friendly branding, Feals offers a referral program that gets you a $20 credit for every friend you refer. Your friends will also receive $20 off their first order. We like that the company offers both this and the membership program in order to save more on CBD.

Feals: Product Highlights

As we mentioned above, Feals only offers one product: CBD oil. They offer it in three different strengths, 600 milligrams, 1,200 milligrams and 2,400 milligrams. The 600-milligram product goes for $74.95, the 1,200 milligram for $134.95 and the 2,400 milligram for $244.95.

We don’t really believe that their product justifies this price point, especially when our independent lab found pesticides in their organically grown full-spectrum formula. Also, and maybe more importantly, these are only 15 mL compared to the traditional 30 mL bottle that CBD is normally packaged in.

We want to be careful to point out that being a new company does not mean your products are automatically lower quality. In fact, one of our highest-rated CBD brands was only formed in 2019. Your company’s age does not define a quality product by itself, but when you have the additional issues of pesticide residue, small product sizes, high prices and low transparency, the company’s newness seems to shine through a little bit stronger.

Their oils are very clean, with no ingredients aside from the hemp extract and the carrier oil. Carrier oils are needed in order for CBD products to be formulated correctly, and many companies use MCT oil. Feals suggests that if you don’t like the earthy taste of full-spectrum oils, you should mix it with another food or beverage. The ingredient list and other specs can be easily found in the “see product details” section of the product page.

If you cannot decide on a strength, Feals offers a sample pack for just $20. We love that they do this, because it makes CBD seem more approachable to new people. It can be nerve-wracking to shell out $100 or $200 on something you have never tried, so offering an affordable sampler can make that step a little bit easier.

We do want to emphasize that a sampler isn’t necessarily an indicator of how CBD will work for you. If the sampler doesn’t work for you right away, you may need to give CBD more time. We always recommend that people try CBD for at least 30 days before deciding it isn’t the plant-based tool for you. Like vitamins, it needs time to build up in our bodies.

Our Lab Findings

In order to give you every angle of the company, good and bad, we have to test the products we receive for ourselves. This allows us to report unbiased, factual information in order to verify the company’s claims. Lab results are one of the most important aspects of a high-quality company, so we sent off a sample of Feals’ 600-milligram full-spectrum CBD oil to an independent lab.

The amount of CBD reported to us was a little over the 600-milligram mark, but it is not concerning. The industry standard for label and lab result variance is 10 percent, and this is a 6 percent difference. What was concerning was the pesticide residue that was found in a product that was supposed to be organic. Chlorpyrifos is a controversial pesticide, which has been on and off the FDA’s banned list since 2015.[2] The pesticide is currently banned for residential use, but is allowed for larger agricultural farms.

We do want to point out that having trace amounts of this pesticide is not necessarily an indication of negligence on Feals’ part. The amount is very small, and is in the “safe range” for human beings to consume. On top of that, the third-party lab that tests Feals’ products only detect 100 parts per billion or more, so at 101 ppb it is understandable why their lab would not have picked this up.

At the end of the day, it could simply boil down to different tests producing different results. That being said, when people purchase organic products, it is usually because they have made a decision to limit pesticide exposure.

Shipping and Returns

Feals offers free shipping on every order, with no minimum purchase amount. This does help the company be more accessible and friendly, so we appreciate that. There are some CBD companies that offer free shipping on every order, but they usually require you to purchase a certain amount in order to qualify. Feals says that all orders will typically be delivered in two to five business days.

In order to mimic the average customer experience as closely as possible, we order our products via standard shipping, just like anybody else. We placed our order early in the week in order to avoid any weekend delays. Feals sent out our shipment the next day and it took five days to reach our mailbox. We don’t think this is bad at all for free shipping.

As far as returns, Feals does have a satisfaction guarantee. It is always great for us to see companies do this, because it shows they trust their products. If you are not satisfied with your first order from Feals, you can contact them within 30 days to receive a full refund. After your first bottle, the company will only refund your money and accept returns if you have not used your product or opened it. If this is the case, you have a full 60 days to make your return.

We also want to throw out there that our customer-service experience was truly great. We sent them an email and it only took a few hours for a representative to get back to us. The company answered our questions well and helped us to navigate further information. We also love that they followed up with us a week later to make sure we were satisfied with our experience.

Our Verdict on Feals

There is nothing off-putting about this brand, but there are a few things that raised slight concerns for us. We would like to see a more consistent product, and one with less pesticide residue in a formula that is supposed to be organic—especially when you are paying a premium price for a 15 mL bottle. Also, they are not very transparent. There is no background information about the company or why it started on their website.

For a brand that says being friendly is their MO, they aren’t making themselves easy to approach. The lab reports and hemp origins are buried in the website, which we typically like to see companies have more readily available. There are some redeeming things about the brand, such as their customer-service team, free shipping and membership program. Ultimately, though, a great CBD company cannot be built on these things alone, and the brand must offer more.

Overall, we think that you can find a better and more consistent product for a lower price elsewhere.

References

[1] Priya Rao. (2019). The DTC Effect: Inside CBD Brand Feals’ Positioning and Marketing. Glossy.co. Retrieved from https://www.glossy.co/beauty/the-dtc-effect-inside-cbd-brand-feals-positioning-and-marketing

[2] Lisa Friedman. (2019). E.P.A. Won’t Ban Chlorpyrifos, Pesticide Tied to Children’s Health Problems. NYTimes.com. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/climate/epa-chlorpyrifos-pesticide-ban.html

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Published September 28, 2020