I'm impatient too. That's why I don't plan on trying to make any tobacco flavor stuff until I am a bit more experienced. It's gonna be painful though. I've been vaping tobacco ejuices almost exclusively for the whole year I've been vaping. Time to branch out.
My best suggestion is to throw together one or two big bottles of tobacco flavors in the steep closet. They'll taste great by the time you vape your shake & vapes and other mixes. The only difficult part about tobaccos is waiting for them to steep. Artificial tobacco flavors can range from steeping much faster than natural tobaccos, to needing longer.
Admittedly, some NETs need months to develop their full flavor, but I always vape them fresh and rotate flavors a lot or I lose my sensitivity to the nuances.
Why am I mentioning this here? Because I simply can't understand the apparently successful cottage industry of snake oil salesmen in the cotton world. Rayon is easy to source, cheap, and flat-out superior to every wicking option I've encountered so far (still want to get my hands on hemp). And for Pete's sake, even among cotton options, plain 'ol KGD sits at the top.
So why, WHY is rayon not our defacto other wicking option at this point? Why is it still on the fringes of vaping? How are these fancy cotton suppliers still going?
Because for many people, non-organic dental cotton (cotton bacon) is the "best". If something is packaged in a way that's convenient and looks fancy compared to just buying a bag of cotton, it's really easy for people to feel they're actually getting something superior.
Since I was a heavy rayon skeptic who was gung-ho about cotton until I realized how terribly inefficient it was for vaping compared to rayon (and considering the amount of singed/burnt cotton I saw in my years of vaping up to now, possibly hazardous) my skepticism really was hugely influenced the attitude towards hearing "rayon" more than realizing "oh, it's just cellulose. I know what that is."
Sure, that part I get - the folks selling the stuff aren't fools. I'm looking at it from the angle of why it (Rayon) hasn't clicked with the vaping crowd at large.
Too many people who do try rayon wick it using older guidelines, then assume it just tastes funny and stop using it. At least, that's the trend I notice. I tossed together my dad's first rebuildable the other day with rayon and SS fused claptons, I wouldn't do that unless I felt it was safe enough to use over cotton.
I think one thing that prevents rayon from being even more popular is the misconception that rayon is some kind of plastic. Combine that with the number of folks that just don't use RBA/RTA/RDA atomizers and opt for prebuilt stuff and it's somewhat of an uphill battle. It would be nice if manufacturers adopted rayon the way they seem to have adopted cotton and it's surprising they haven't since rayon is so inexpensive.
Absolutely. I'd like to rename it if I could, but considering Cellucotton is close enough to what I'd call it, I prefer saying that over rayon until I've explained what it is and its properties vs cotton. "It's basically pure cellulose wick."
But realize that they'd sell less pre-built coils if they put rayon in them- everyone would be getting crazy life out of them.
That's fair, but we got past
cotton pretty quick.
Seriously though, I do think that, plus the misconception about its properties which must be [confident tribuging (way too good to lose that autocorrect)] contributing to it. And at the end of the day,
because nobody is making any coin on it, nobody's pushing it en masse.
Well who can argue with that? Case closed!
Sorry, Rayon. Lucky us!
Another thing I notice is the "toxic chemicals" argument. Nevermind the fact cotton is degummed with the same chemical used in the production of rayon, the only really hazardous one has dropped in its frequent use. Bottom line for me is I tend to burn cotton. I was curious, so I pulled my rayon wicks that I'd done perfectly and
no burning whatsoever after vaping at high power, and if anything is going to release more junk it's something I burn.
That's not to say I'm not curious which of the two processes Graham uses to make theirs, just because I like to know things. Rayon will surpass cotton eventually. There's always a way for someone to re-package it or process it to make it different enough they've got some marketing points that up-sell their version as a "superior" form.
Well, I guess that's my fault for fully exposing a basically free source of Rayon... They can't make it that much better that the sources we've made available.. SO who would pay a 5,000% markup.
They can't make any money off it.. Guess we made it a not for profit wick, of no interest to resale market.
I would agree it probably still highly misunderstood out there... and the nillies running around are all; don't risk it, it's bad.
Well, I thank you for exposing said source. It did make me very aware of my over-flavoring to compensate for cotton's flavor loss, and it's nice to not be burning my wicking material.
I think that they
can make money off of it, it's just that they haven't really tried to. If more companies offered rayon as a filling in pre-made coils...
Let's just say, I would bet money I don't have that whoever does it first is going to get very positive feedback about how good the life and flavor is on that product's coils/wicks.
Just as cotton is cheap before being repackaged, so is rayon. I guess a problem could be that people would be trying to wick with it exactly like cotton (and thus having problems) unless it had instructions.
I nearly responded to one post where someone said it was an inappropriate recommendation for a long-term vaper as they could be exposed to toxins. Thus, I began the creation of a new wall of text, right before my SATA port came loose from my motherboard and I lost the post (BSOD, luckily that's all).
Essentially, I think people need everything about rayon condensed into one specific spot or they glance at it and go "too much trouble, sticking with cotton".
But, you know, I don't see people tracking down certification reports for cotton... what region it comes from, who certified it, ect... you'd think all of this would be helpful to know, but as it stands even the safety of organic cotton is more questionable than rayon, even if you assume the rayon is being produced with the "more toxic" of the two methods used to create viscose.
EDIT: Also, for anyone wondering, the Kylin RTA experiences no leaking at all when rayon is used as a wick. I've put 60ml through this tank in the past few days and I only got a tiny bit of condensation after filling with the juice channels wide open / cap off too long.
I got even more curious, filled it up and left juice flow and airflow wide open overnight, did the same last night. No leaking. Not a
single drop.
Just another reason I'll keep using rayon.
