All Flavoring Manufacturers: An Open Discussion

[Mr.Mann]

That helps doesn't it? I looked around and couldn't find it anywhere, at least not in obvious DIY areas?

Give us a hint at least, this is important info for all!

I ordered some VG nic from Vaperstek a long time ago, and have always thought it was higher than should be!! It's smooth sometimes, but but other times it can be very harsh even at 6-8mg/ml, and this was supposed to be the regular UK smoothest, cleanest, clearest, etc version not the TH version. I Haven't had a chance to pick up a test kit yet though, but I'm sure once I do it will be far too late to contact them about it.

I don't know about your experience with VT, but I don't believe this is about them.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/655942-nicotine-question.html#post15381436

That is a post on ECF that'll (currently) take you to the reddit post about the vendor in question. I don't currently buy nic form them (or any other product), but I am giving the vendor the benefit of the doubt right now.

 

[chargingcharlie]

It's on reddit and I wouldn't get too worried about it. The person reporting the issue is a DIY juice maker using titrate tests. The vendor (who is a real chemist) uses gas chromatography, which is far more accurate, to verify each batch. While mistakes CAN happen, I can assure you that no vendor would put close to double the nicotine in their base, without noticing it, unless it was a onetime screwup. The nicotine is the expensive part of the base so they would lose their shirts if this happened often.

 

[aikanae1]

I didn't mean to start anything other than ask the question / discussion of how important is home testing?

The results came in that the nic was 100mg. No idea why the home tests were showing off for several people. Someone else raised the question if test kits could get old or tainted. And proper mixing came up. I don't have the answers.

 

[capthook]

I don't know about your experience with VT, but I don't believe this is about them.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/655942-nicotine-question.html#post15381436

That is a post on ECF that'll (currently) take you to the reddit post about the vendor in question. I don't currently buy nic form them (or any other product), but I am giving the vendor the benefit of the doubt right now.

Thank you Mr. Mann.
And it does appear an end-user mixing issue. whew. I've got 100% PG nic

 

[aikanae1]

It's on reddit and I wouldn't get too worried about it. The person reporting the issue is a DIY juice maker using titrate tests. The vendor (who is a real chemist) uses gas chromatography, which is far more accurate, to verify each batch. While mistakes CAN happen, I can assure you that no vendor would put close to double the nicotine in their base, without noticing it, unless it was a onetime screwup. The nicotine is the expensive part of the base so they would lose their shirts if this happened often.

Well screw up was the concern. It was pointed out that if someone had added nic to a base that had already been mixed with nic, they would have come up with the same figures being reported and it appeared to be isolated to a single batch. There was enough to raise a valid red flag. I don't think it's prudent to blow off any concerns about proper nic level. I genuinely like that vendor and I didn't want this to blow up into a drama, which I don't think it did.

It did raise a lot of other questions specifically about home mixing and testing.

 

[chargingcharlie]

Well screw up was the concern. It was pointed out that if someone had added nic to a base that had already been mixed with nic, they would have come up with the same figures being reported. There was enough to raise a valid red flag. I don't think it's prudent to blow off any concerns about proper nic level. I genuinely like that vendor and I didn't want this to blow up into a drama, which I don't think it did. But the concerns were valid.

Being concerned is valid. But, IMO, nobody should be going into forums and naming names until it's verified from a reliable source. That thread on Reddit will still tarnish the vendors reputation even though it has been cleared up because people who don't bother to follow up will still spread the (incorrect) news that their nicotine had close to twice the amount indicated. I was happy to see that nobody here named the vendor, because that's exactly how witch hunts happen.

 

[aikanae1]

Being concerned is valid. But, IMO, nobody should be going into forums and naming names until it's verified from a reliable source. That thread on Reddit will still tarnish the vendors reputation even though it has been cleared up because people who don't bother to follow up will still spread the (incorrect) news that their nicotine had close to twice the amount indicated. I was happy to see that nobody here named the vendor, because that's exactly how witch hunts happen.

In this case, I don't think it will tarnish the vendor. They do a lot more business wholesale than retail and have a solid reputation. It's never fair to jump to conclusions without verifying. The only reason I brought it up is that I'm genuinely conflicted about home testing / kits now.

 

[JD1]

I don't know about your experience with VT, but I don't believe this is about them.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/655942-nicotine-question.html#post15381436

That is a post on ECF that'll (currently) take you to the reddit post about the vendor in question. I don't currently buy nic form them (or any other product), but I am giving the vendor the benefit of the doubt right now.

It's on reddit and I wouldn't get too worried about it. The person reporting the issue is a DIY juice maker using titrate tests. The vendor (who is a real chemist) uses gas chromatography, which is far more accurate, to verify each batch. While mistakes CAN happen, I can assure you that no vendor would put close to double the nicotine in their base, without noticing it, unless it was a onetime screwup. The nicotine is the expensive part of the base so they would lose their shirts if this happened often.

Thanks fellows. I think you're correct because if vendors were careless about this not only would they lose profits, but also open themselves up to some law suits.

 

[chargingcharlie]

In this case, I don't think it will tarnish the vendor. They do a lot more business wholesale than retail and have a solid reputation. It's never fair to jump to conclusions without verifying. The only reason I brought it up is that I'm genuinely conflicted about home testing / kits now.

Trust me...it will affect their sales. There's already a lot of bashing going on over there against this vendor and for no good reason.

 

[Cool_Breeze]

If people have received 2X nicotine base, send it to me and I will see that it is properly disposed of.

 

[Mr.Mann]

In this case, I don't think it will tarnish the vendor. They do a lot more business wholesale than retail and have a solid reputation. It's never fair to jump to conclusions without verifying. The only reason I brought it up is that I'm genuinely conflicted about home testing / kits now.

As with anything essentially "DIY", there is always room for error. And if the approach is flawed, the results will likely continually produce that error, so it can be tricky when one thinks they are doing it correctly. I don't know more about the situation though, as it's really not a concern, but if I used my titration kit, the first person I would ask before making a post about my findings would be DVap (that is if my findings seemed to be problematic).

 

[JD1]

................. if I used my titration kit, the first person I would ask before making a post about my findings would be DVap (that is if my findings seemed to be problematic).

Good advice there imo.

 

[DVap]

I'm not sure what the basis of this discussion is as I'm just poking my head in after my ear itched when Mr. Mann mentioned my name. If someone is going to make a statement about a vendor based on kit results, they'd best be damned sure they understand how to fully qualify that statement.

Something that must be understood about titration kits is that they provide a non-specific result. A non-specific result is one that can be attributed to the compound of interest or any of a number of other compounds with behavior to which the kit will respond. Furthermore, other compounds can act counter to the principle of the kit's operation. If we go back to 2009 when I introduced the idea of nicotine titration to ECF, I was careful to state that the nicotine titration was intended for a specific situation. This situation is that of unflavored nicotine concentrates in PG or VG. The farther afield one gets from this original scope, the more that can and will go wrong with the very simple principle on which any titration kit being marketed is based.

[Edit: I guess I'm no fan of DIY calculators either. If one doesn't truly understand the math involved, perhaps they shouldn't be DIY'ing.]

 

[aikanae1]

I'm not sure what the basis of this discussion is as I'm just poking my head in after my ear itched when Mr. Mann mentioned my name. If someone is going to make a statement about a vendor based on kit results, they'd best be damned sure they understand how to fully qualify that statement.

Something that must be understood about titration kits is that they provide a non-specific result. A non-specific result is one that can be attributed to the compound of interest or any of a number of other compounds with behavior to which the kit will respond. Furthermore, other compounds can act counter to the principle of the kit's operation. If we go back to 2009 when I introduced the idea of nicotine titration to ECF, I was careful to state that the nicotine titration was intended for a specific situation. This situation is that of unflavored nicotine concentrates in PG or VG. The farther afield one gets from this original scope, the more that can and will go wrong with the very simple principle on which any titration kit being marketed is based.

[Edit: I guess I'm no fan of DIY calculators either. If one doesn't truly understand the math involved, perhaps they shouldn't be DIY'ing.]

Thanks for your input. In this case (on Reddit) 3 people reported results ranging from 160mg to 190mg of unflavored nic in VG. They discovered they all had the same batch number also. They sent samples in and the samples showed 100mg based on spectometry (or whatever they do). The vendor is reputable, supplies a lot of juice manufacturers who I thought would have notice first but yada, yada ... No reason (IMO) to doubt the vendor. Those with weird results weren't new to DIY either.

It just brought up the question for me if testing nic should be done / reliability of it. I can accept non-specific, but those results were more than non-specific, they were misleading. Mixing error, contamination, .....? If the test is so unreliable, why would anyone do it? I have no answers, propably not even all the questions. I have no idea and may never have on this.

 

[Zanaspus]

[Edit: I guess I'm no fan of DIY calculators either. If one doesn't truly understand the math involved, perhaps they shouldn't be DIY'ing.]

Amen brother.

 

[Mr.Mann]

Thanks for your input. In this case (on Reddit) 3 people reported results ranging from 160mg to 190mg of unflavored nic in VG. They discovered they all had the same batch number also. They sent samples in and the samples showed 100mg based on spectometry (or whatever they do). The vendor is reputable, supplies a lot of juice manufacturers who I thought would have notice first but yada, yada ... No reason (IMO) to doubt the vendor. Those with weird results weren't new to DIY either.

It just brought up the question for me if testing nic should be done / reliability of it. I can accept non-specific, but those results were more than non-specific, they were misleading. Mixing error, contamination, .....? If the test is so unreliable, why would anyone do it? I have no answers, propably not even all the questions. I have no idea and may never have on this.

I still haven't really looked into it besides a cursory read, but I thought it was just one person. That is a huge difference to be more than one (and even more than two) if it was legitimately coming up so high. Either which way, I hope it does get worked out (if it was truly off) for the vendor's sake and, even more importantly, for the consumers(s).

 

[lyspaere]

Seems like a lot of DIY flavorings are out of stock right now. Maybe this is a regular occurrence, and I'm naive to that being a new DIY'er. Anybody else noticing that?

 

[AndriaD]

$10 for 120ml is 1/2 the price of any other nic I've seen! Thanks for the link.
Guess it's worth a try?

It's good stuff. Can't say the TH is really all that great, but I seem to be able to use a bit less of the Flash additive -- with a couple of my mixes, I was using up to 10% flash, but now I can reduce that to about 5%. With TH nicotine, 5% Flash, and 84% PG, I can get decent TH, even with sweet creamy type vapes.

Andria

ETA: it occurs to me that my "5%" might be misleading -- that is NOT 5% straight from the flash bottle. I mix up some pre-diluted bottles in varying strengths; the 5% I'm referring to comes from my "Sweet 3X flash" which is mixed at 18% flash, 6% sweetener (sucralose), in PG. Probably I should just start using the Flash straight, so i can give accurate proportions.

 

[JD1]

View attachment 418893

Seems like a lot of DIY flavorings are out of stock right now. Maybe this is a regular occurrence, and I'm naive to that being a new DIY'er. Anybody else noticing that?

It seems to be pretty common. I'm guessing that keeping a large selection of flavors is a bigger problem for the vendors than we realize. They probably need to order in bulk to keep their prices down. Then someone on the ECF mentions how much they like a flavor and there's a big run on that flavor. Now the vendor is out of that flavor but has to move a lot more flavors before reordering.

That's just me thinking out loud and I really don't know the cause, but, yeal, for whatever reason, it is a problem.

 

[Mr.Mann]

It seems to be pretty common. I'm guessing that keeping a large selection of flavors is a bigger problem for the vendors than we realize. They probably need to order in bulk to keep their prices down. Then someone on the ECF mentions how much they like a flavor and there's a big run on that flavor. Now the vendor is out of that flavor but has to move a lot more flavors before reordering.

That's just me thinking out loud and I really don't know the cause, but, yeah, for whatever reason, it is a problem.

I've communicated with a few sites that re-sell flavorings and they frequently tell me the same thing, something to the effect of we made our order and are still waiting. From what I can tell this is a problem more on the side of original sellers not fulfilling bulk orders in a timely fashion. Obviously this is not about all and in every situation (as what JD1 said, I am sure, does apply too), but it should be noted that our vendors are frequently just waiting on their re-up as their massive orders from the original sellers are not always simply sent out like our small ones.