What Is Live Resin? Probably Your New Best Friend

Live resin is a delicious, flavor-packed cannabis concentrate that offers much more than just potent cannabinoids. Compared to other concentrates, like distillate, live resin is one of the few to deliver tasty terpenes and aromatic flavonoids, all to take your senses along for the ride. But that’s only scratching the surface. What else lies in live resin’s ooey-gooey center? What else does this honey-hued, supremely flavorful cannabis extract offer? 

In this article, we’ll roll up our sleeves, pass around a few pens, and get the party started with a brief introduction to the world of cannabis concentrates. Think of this as a personal consult with a professional budtender, a cannabis sommelier—here to answer all your queries about what live resin is, what it does, and how it fares against other types of cannabis concentrates. 

So, let’s offer a pocketful of pens that captures all the fun-fueled vibes live resin has to offer!

First, Pocket These Pens

If you’re lookin’ for flavor-rich, extra-potent live resin vape pens, these are two must-haves (not only according to us, but also to a number of our most loyal customers).

Ice Cream Cake Live Resin Delta 8 Vape Cartridge

With around 400 puffs of deliciously divine sweetness, our Ice Cream Cake Live Resin Delta 8 Vape Cartridge peppers the mind, senses, and taste buds with some seriously electric feels. More euphoric than energetic, this vape cart leans heavier on the indica side than sativa, making it perfect for a movie marathon, spa day, or lazy day doin’ absolutely, positively nothin’. 

Gelato Live Resin Delta 8 Vape Cartridge

Achieve a similar euphoria with an equal helping of relaxation by toking our Gelato Live Resin Delta 8 Vape Cartridge. This one-gram vape cart beauty lets you sink into a pool of electric static and deeply indulge in a bowl of baby-backed bliss. 

What Is Live Resin?

Live resin is one of the most true-to-form cannabis extracts on the market. This concentrate carries the plant’s full cannabinoid, terpene, and flavonoid profiles—features not found in other extracts. (More on that soon.) Long-time cheefers and doobie newbies gravitate toward live resin for its seriously delicious flavors. Since it carries the plant’s terpene and flavonoid profiles (the parties responsible for cannabis’ aromatics), live resin offers tongue-smothering tastes; other extracts can’t claim flavors like these. 

What Is Distillate?

Live resin’s opposite is an extract called cannabis distillate. To make distillate, cannabis scientists have to whittle away most of the plant’s compounds, leaving behind high amounts of cannabinoids, like delta 9, delta 8, THC-P, and so many more. That’s why, typically, products with distillate extract have higher concentrations of cannabinoids than live resin products. So, you’ll see a higher boost of potent effects with distillate products. But, you won’t get the same tasty, terpy flavors. 

What Is Live Rosin?

Another popular, flavorful cannabis concentrate is live rosin. Like live resin, live rosin carries the plant’s tasty trippy terpenes and cannabinoids. The main difference between these two extracts is their extraction process. While both live resin and live rosin are made from flash-frozen buds, live rosin doesn’t undergo a solvent-based extraction like live resin. Instead, live rosin extraction is done by pressing the frozen cannabis buds flat until they release that sweet, gooey nectar. 

You can find live rosin in a number of our THC vape pens!

What Is Liquid Budder?

Liquid budder is another staple extract in our line of THC vape pens, most notably in our THCA vape pens. Like live resin and rosin, this cannabis extract offers a punch of true-to-strain flavors and feels, but with a little twist. Many customers compare the lighter effects of live resin to those from liquid budder, saying they complement each other well. Our liquid budder pens carry potent levels of THCA—a trippy feature not found in some of our live resin pens. 

What Are Liquid Diamonds?

Browsing our line of vape pens, you can also find liquid diamonds: a fan-favorite concentrate that’s purely potent and freakishly flavorful. Like live resin oil, liquid diamonds are made from flash-frozen hemp buds. But like real diamonds, liquid diamonds need a li’l heat and pressure to find their final form. By applying a li’l heat and pressure to the live resin mixture, we can create an entirely different type of cannabis concentrate—one that’s teeming with extra delicious flavors and extra potent effects.

How Live Resin Is Made From Cannabis

Now, before you get ahead of us: No, you really shouldn’t take a crack at making your own batch of live resin. This cannabis extract is super challenging to cultivate, especially in some backyard lab-in-a-shed. Making live resin requires expert know-how that you and your old college roommate might not have access to (even if you add y’all’s IQ). Now, let’s see just how hard it is to make some ooey-gooey extract. 

Harvest the Plant

First, before we can concoct some seriously delicious, seriously potent products, we need some perfectly grown buds. To keep our products in line with the 2018 Farm Bill, we use U.S.-grown hemp buds. These hemp buds are expertly grown and carry a rich diversity of cannabinoids. We harvest these tall, towering hemp plants, pluck the buds from the leaves, and look for any blemishes. Our products have to be oh-so-perfect. 

Flash Freeze

Next, on our quest to make some mighty tasty live resin vapes and live resin gummies, we then flash-freeze these freshly plucked buds. The instant these buds are frozen, we capture and preserve all their tasty terpenes, vivacious flavonoids, and trippy cannabinoids. 

Grind ’n’ Twist

Then, we take these icy-cold buds and finely grind them down to a perfectly primed pile of clippings. If you’re trying to do this on your own, in that backyard lab-in-a-shed, you’ll probably need a commercial-grade grinder. Or, you’ll need to pack each flash-frozen bud into a personal grinder and get to twistin’. (And don’t forget to empty the kief catcher.) Your wrists will definitely be sore in the morning. 

Introduce Solvents

Now comes perhaps the most dangerous step of all: introducing solvents. Solvents are chemicals that help dissolve certain compounds. Most, like butane and CO₂, are extremely volatile and flammable. So, you definitely should not try this at home. These chemicals help us whittle away unnecessary plant material and spotlight the plant’s freshness and aromatics. 

Purge Solvents

And finally, those solvents can’t linger in the finished product. So, we need to remove ’em through a seriously complex filtration method—a luxury not found in your backyard lab-in-a-shed. After this step, we pass these products to independent labs to verify all solvents have been purged. These tests help us determine the purity and potency of our product. Making your own live resin is next to impossible and a waste of time. So, just trust the professionals and puff the best, not the bootleg. 

What’s in Live Resin?

To better answer your question of “what is live resin,” we need to bust out the microscope and peel back the curtain. Let’s look at just what compounds are in this honey-hued, cosmically divine cannabis extract. 

A Plethora of Cannabinoids

Cannabis plants, like our Almighty Hemp and the Classic Canna-Cool Marijuana, are teeming with compounds called cannabinoids. These compounds are what fuels all the fun we associate with cannabis. Most notably, the main cannabinoid that disc jockeys the fun is THC; this compound is responsible for cannabis’ red-eyed giggles and euphoric sprinkles of bliss. It’s the compound that gets you properly baked; and live resin is rife with it. There are so many different THC compounds peppered throughout our live resin hemp extract, from delta 8 to THC-P to delta 9 to the elusive delta 10 and THCA. 

Strain-Specific Terpenes 

Terpenes are molecules found in plants, responsible for the plant’s funky fresh aromatics. From the sweet smell of roses to the pungent aroma of cannabis strains like Sour Diesel, terpenes create a diverse range of scents. Live resin retains the full terpene profile of the plant, giving us a product with a rich, layered aroma.

Flavonoids

Flavonoids are naturally occurring compounds found in virtually all plant species; they’re the compounds responsible for Nature’s diverse flavor profile. The multi-layered flavonoid profiles of different cannabis strains result in live resin extracts that can have fruity, sugary, skunky, or even strong diesel-like flavors.

Why Choose This Cannabis Concentrate

With so many concentrates to choose from, why should you (a canna-sseur) pick live resin? Sure, liquid diamonds, live rosin, and others are mighty fine, but what makes live resin so gosh dang good? 

Full Flavor 

First and foremost, live resin’s flavors put it head and shoulders above other concentrates, like distillate. Since its terpene and flavonoid profiles stay intact, live resin offers more flavor than other cannabis concentrates—a feature our fans can’t seem to get enough of. 

More Balanced Effects

Live resin will, typically, have a lower concentration of THC cannabinoids than extracts like distillate. Though live resin still gets you baked, buttered, and extra crispy, it doesn’t carry the same high THC levels as other concentrates. So, the effects from live resin pens can feel more balanced than others. 

Get Your Live Resin Faves at TRĒ House!

With our growing line of THC gummies, vapes, syrups, prerolls, and more, we’ve just barely scratched the surface of our sweet suite of products—many of which carry live resin formulas! Order from our wide range of products and see why so many adults see us as their go-to headshop for THC and mushroom products (yes, we said “mushrooms” 🍄).