Are Your Liquid Diamonds Foggy???
Are Your Liquid Diamonds Foggy?
It might not be fats and lipids…
Over the last few years, the industry has shifted toward a SKU commonly referred to as “Liquid Diamonds” or “Melted Diamonds.” In smaller circles, you may also hear the term “Crystallite,” a play on words referencing the original Δ9 vape oil category dominated by distillate.
For the sake of this conversation, we’ll use the term melted diamonds, as “Liquid Diamonds” has since been trademarked by a specific brand.
Regardless of naming conventions, melted diamonds are here to stay, so let’s talk about why they sometimes come out foggy, hazy, or just plain ugly.
The Basics
Melted diamonds are primarily Δ9-THC, and they typically offer:
Cleaner taste and aroma than standard distillate
Higher market value
Higher Δ9 percentages, when done correctly
The reason is simple. They are derived from high-purity THCa, most often produced via hydrocarbon extraction. When executed properly, melted diamonds often outperform distillate in both flavor and potency.
Sounds great, but there’s a caveat.
The Caveat
Traditional Δ9 distillate can be produced from older, dry-cured trim, where the primary goal is full conversion to Δ9 for the end product.
Melted diamonds, on the other hand, rely on isolated THCa. Cutting corners becomes much harder. Input material typically needs to be on the fresher side of the spectrum, and older trim often leads to undesirable yields or downstream quality issues.
THCa Isolate: Looks Can Be Deceiving
THCa isolate is everywhere right now, whether it’s headed to the hemp market or used internally in licensed cannabis operations.
The problem is that isolate is relatively easy to fake.
Subpar isolate can be mechanically ground into a bright white powder, fracturing whatever crystal structure existed and producing something that looks perfect. There are really only two reliable ways to verify isolate quality:
Laboratory testing
Recrystallization, to confirm how much of the material actually reforms a proper lattice, also known as diamonds
A quick red flag is when isolate is dissolved in solvent and it turns brown. Most pure compounds, including THCa, dissolve close to clear in their pure form.
When Things Start to Go Wrong
Let’s say you’ve been flipping kilos of isolate with no issues. Then a customer asks for that isolate to be melted into pen oil.
No problem, until it is.
When THCa converts to Δ9, it releases CO₂ as the acid group breaks. This is decarboxylation, or decarbing.
The expectation is:
Champagne or light yellow color
Total transparency
Fully decarbed oil
But in some cases, the oil comes out foggy, dark, or clear when hot and hazy after cooling.
Most people chalk this up to fats and lipids. Sometimes that’s true, but not always.
It Starts With the Biomass
To understand fogging, we need to look upstream at what is actually being extracted.
Fresh Frozen vs. Dry-Cured Biomass
Fresh frozen biomass preserves the plant’s native chemistry:
Dominated by THCa
Low oxidation
High monoterpene retention
Structurally intact phospholipids
Low levels of degraded lipids
Dry-cured biomass, by contrast, has undergone time, oxygen exposure, moisture loss, and enzymatic activity. This leads to:
Higher Δ9 and early CBN formation
Oxidized cannabinoids
Terpene degradation products
Phospholipid breakdown products
Polymerized waxes
The Usual Suspects (and Their Role in Fogging)
Oxidized fats and lipids slightly present at decarb temperatures and phase-separate on cooling
Polymerized waxes have poor solubility and may remain as suspended solids
Chlorophyll degradation products contribute dark or green haze
Plant sterols may crystallize slowly after cooling
Residual moisture enables emulsions and downstream instability
Running cold can mitigate many of these, especially fats and waxes.
But there’s one compound that almost never gets enough attention.
Phospholipids: The Overlooked Culprit
What the Hell Is a Phospholipid?
A phospholipid is a fat-based molecule that makes up plant cell membranes. It has:
A polar, water-attracting head
Non-polar, oil-loving tails
This dual structure makes phospholipids natural emulsifiers.
In extraction and post-processing, phospholipids can remain virtually undetectable in isolate powder, then suddenly cause issues once heat is applied. Yes, you can have 95 percent plus potency oil that still looks terrible.
Why Freezing Helps (But Doesn’t Solve It)
Freezing trim:
Slows enzymatic degradation
Limits oxidation and hydrolysis
Reduces formation of problematic breakdown products
However, freezing does not remove phospholipids. They are intrinsic components of plant cell membranes and become accessible once biomass is processed.
Why Phospholipids Are a Big Deal
If you’ve ever worked in the gummy space, you’ve probably used sunflower lecithin to help oil and water mix.
Sunflower lecithin is a phospholipid.
Phospholipids are emulsifiers. They are great for gummies and terrible for liquid diamonds.
Why They’re So Hard to Deal With
Once phospholipids are exposed to solvent, they are:
Easy to extract
Hard to detect
Very difficult to remove later
Their amphiphilic nature, meaning one part likes oil and the other likes water, allows them to remain dormant until heat mobilizes them during decarb.
What Happens During Cooling
You decarb. Everything looks perfect.
Then after an overnight cooling phase, you come back to find the same jar hazier than an IPA your buddy waits two hours in line for at his favorite brewery.
As the oil cools:
The cannabinoid matrix becomes less forgiving
Phospholipids and oxidized lipids begin separating
Heavier compounds lose solubility
CO₂ becomes less soluble
Nothing new formed. Cooling simply revealed what was already there.
How to Tell What You’re Dealing With
Fats and waxes usually show up as softer oil or reduced purity
Phospholipids show up as hard, high-testing oil that just looks bad
What Actually Extracts Phospholipids
Polar solvents such as ethanol, IPA, and methanol
Moisture, even in trace amounts
Heat
Long contact times
Aggressive mechanical disruption
Degraded biomass
Co-solvent systems
Why Moisture Is the Silent Killer
Water hydrates the phospholipid head, enabling:
Micelle formation
Micro-emulsions
Easier transport through solvent
Persistence through isolation and decarb
Phospholipids are not difficult to extract. They are difficult to avoid extracting once moisture, heat, or polarity enter the process.
Final Takeaway
Foggy liquid diamonds are not always a processing failure. They are often an upstream chemistry problem that the processing team doesn't account for.
Control input material, temperature, time, and especially moisture, and you control clarity.
Stay frosty, not moist.
