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I think Halo has videos of their lab. Any vendor in the US who has access/pays to incoporate all that is probably going to have to charge substantially more for their juice.
If you by production of eliquid you mean the process of extracting concentrated nicotine, most labs will have that information for you (Off the top of my head Wizard and RTS come to mind) If by production of eliquid you mean suppliers that sell premixed liquid, why would it matter if there was a chemist supervising the lab? Why would they even need a "lab"
Really? I read a great blog on Valley Vapers. They only carried Dekang eliquid because of the safety factor. They tested a hundred different sites eliquid and found many of them that had different nicotene concentrations and one that had 270mg of nicotene. They posted the results and named names. The supplier that supplied the one with 270mg wrote that it wasn't her fault because she was suppose to get diluted nicotene and got pure nicotene. Those that mix the ingredients, that produce the final product we breathe into our lungs need to have safety controls. I haven't found any that provide proof of that. Where do they make/mix/blend/produce/etc their liquid? A bath tub, on their counter, or maybe on the kitchen table. That is my issue.
a supervising chemist would make sure they are not putting chemicals that shouldn't be inhaled into e-liquids and so they know the correct procedures for handling hazardous materials. i've already seen a number of e-liquids with artificial colors that are iffy enough on food and by extension much more iffy inhaled. (inhaling has much less barriers to your bloodstream than digestion) there are also a number of flavorings (such as cinnamon) which should be limited for inhaling purposes as they are irritants to the lungs.
a professional lab follows rules to avoid contamination. not just bacteria contamination and such but also simple things like mixing flavors. there's a reason why people go to school for chemist training.
i'm all for DIY but sometimes i wonder why i'm ok with getting kitchen sink mixed e-liquid when i certainly wouldn't do that for things like eyedrops or even toothpaste --both items which are as easy to mix at home than e-liquid is.
regarding the original question, i know V2 has some videos of their batch testing facility and i've seen some videos of chinese wholesaler factories where i assume a lot of the pre-packaged american cartos come from.
a professional lab follows rules to avoid contamination. not just bacteria contamination and such but also simple things like mixing flavors. there's a reason why people go to school for chemist training.
i'm all for DIY but sometimes i wonder why i'm ok with getting kitchen sink mixed e-liquid when i certainly wouldn't do that for things like eyedrops or even toothpaste --both items which are as easy to mix at home than e-liquid is.
regarding the original question, i know V2 has some videos of their batch testing facility and i've seen some videos of chinese wholesaler factories where i assume a lot of the pre-packaged american cartos come from.
Actually that was done here on this forum.
You can always make your own. Then you know 100% of what your getting. We have a whole DIY forum.
I didn't realize it was done here. I read it on their site. They may have just been reproducing it.
Probably. At any rate, it was discovered thankfully.
They are trying to get this off the ground (very long).
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...facturers-standards-association-launches.html
Seriously?? You're holding V2 up as a shining example of good quality control? OMG!!! Their quality control is so good they cannot replicate flavors from one batch to another, their CS is overflowing with complaints of not filled, half-filled and pre-vaped cartomizers arriving in a customers vape mail. There are frequent and strident complaints from customers with more QC complaints than you can shake a stick at. Skim through their forum and be sure you find the posts from the head guy. When first confronted with bad QC issues he said that some Chinese chemist left the lab that makes the juice and took the recipe with him. Then find another post that says that there was never a lost recipe...they just decided to change it and see if anyone noticed. I could go on but I won't.
I get to visit Wizzard Labs in their new facility Monday to pick up an order. I have complete trust in them anyway.
Honestly, I can tell the difference between 12 mg/18 mg/24 mg nicotine levels with my senses. I don't need the test. I am glad it is there for everyone who has a concern though. Thanks, Caridwen!
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I usually can too. But I make e-liquid for my elderly mother sometimes. If she ever got 270mg nic. or whatever it was, I hate to think what could have happened.
I make my own on my kitchen counter. Only need a small amount this time so didn't want to use the bathtub.
i would hate to see what the results are for anyone vaping 270mg nic.
to the op chemist or not, most of the vendors used extensively by ECF members are usually very thorough in what they do and cant see that happening with the better venders here.
that dekang video is amusing in the fact that its te cleanest room on the planet and yet we still dont know what kind of chemicals could be in the juice itself. a cleanroom does not dictate a safe juice.
from china im more afraid of what they arent telling us is in the juice then what is....................
How many liquids have you personally sent out for certified testing and analysis in order to make that statement?
One of the so-called top vendors send me juice back in August, the labels looked like they were done on their kid's bubble-jet printer. They weren't even on the bottles straight. One drop of moisture and they turned into a big unreadable smear. Sure screamed "kitchen table" to me, so I never ordered from them again.
I guess their stuff tastes good though, since they are very popular. Does your vendor have a GC-MS machine? Do you?
BTW.......where's the lot numbers of most of this stuff? How can it even be traced back in the event somebody DID get sick?
What is the effect of 10%, 20% or 30% food flavorings on a cell of your lung tissue?
So-----Not sure what your definition of "thorough" is here.
For me, the only statement I feel is true at this point, and I vape with it in the back of my mind: there is a lot we do not know.
I'm not coughing anymore like I was on analogs. I have anecdotal evidence. We make surveys. None of that tells me a whole lot, at least not in any way even vaguely approaching good science. Right now, I feel comfortable vaping nicotine suspended in PG/VG. But I have concerns about flavorings, about silica wicks, etc.
As for information about the actual "conditions" under which my juice is being put into bottles and sent to me? I use 3 vendors besides my own DIY.....mostly because I have enough information about them to satisfy my personal concerns. My concerns aren't the same as X, Y, Z persons, so I can only speak for myself and that doesn't amount to a hill o' beans for anyone else I"m sure. Nor does it have any real scientific basis either.....but they have certain "procedures" in place, and certain backgrounds, that make me feel reasonably comfortable, so I just go with that.
Now I heard about juices being made in a lab but after reading this I looked on youtube and found this Inside the Lab at Johnson Creek - YouTube I diy and if I do buy juice I only buy american and don't really look into if they do it in a lab or not I guess after smoking a tabacco stick with more chemicals than whats found in the home depot paint aisle I can't really see any e-juice from a reputable supplier being any worse.
As long as my vendors use decent ingredients, I frankly don't care if they have a clean lab or videos or a chemist. Why would someone mixing juice ingredients need that kind of stuff, except as show? To test nicotine levels? I could teach a high school student how to do that, and I'm certainly no chemist.
Mixing up e-juice isn't much more complicated or dangerous than mixing a rum and Coke, when you get down to it, and I trust my bartenders to do that in badly-lit, crowded rooms people have been throwing up in.
I'm glad Dekang puts on their little show if it eases the minds of the easily-spooked, but really, it makes no difference to me if my juice is mixed in a lab or a kitchen counter.
Mixing up e-juice isn't much more complicated or dangerous than mixing a rum and Coke, when you get down to it, and I trust my bartenders to do that in badly-lit, crowded rooms people have been throwing up in.
I'm glad Dekang puts on their little show if it eases the minds of the easily-spooked, but really, it makes no difference to me if my juice is mixed in a lab or a kitchen counter.
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A lab, really? The ratio calculators are well known and accurate. Vendors don't need chemists, because all of the flavorings and nicotine are not produced in house. They buy those elsewhere. The only vendors that might actually need a chemist would be Ahlusion and Aroma Ejuice, and that would be stictly for the WTA side of things, and even then, not absolutely necessary.
What vendors are desperate for are Flavorologists. These rare individuals usually have degrees in food science and chemistry. I work for a company that makes cleanroom wall and ceiling systems and I can assure you that e-juice manufacturing does not need a cleanroom environment. If it did, then every kitchen and restaurant in the world is not up to your standard of quality control.
EDIT: To clarify, what would be the point of making this stuff in a cleanroom? The idea behind cleanrooms is to eliminate particles (contaminates) because the manufacture of something would be impossible otherwise. one speck of dust can ruin a $50,000 stack of components, etc. You are far more likely to add contaminates than they are. raidy did a test when he was developing the Genisis Atomizer involving vaping regular eliquid and vaping straight PG. The PG theoretically should have vaped clean and left zero residue on the wick. This was not the case. When he examined it under a microscope, the buildup on the wick was caused by dust, human skin cells and other atmospheric detrius that got sucked in through the air hole. Very little, if any, of the buildup was caused by the PG.
Hospitals, research laboratories, and microprocessor manufacturing plants need cleanrooms, not ejuice vendors. Besides, I doubt that you realize that a basic 20' x 20' cleanroom costs nearly as much as a house. We sell 1/4" aluminum honeycomb cleanroom 4' x 8' panels for $208 each, and that does not include installation or the specialized framing members, some of which cost well over $100 for a 20' length. A 30" x 70" cleanroom door will cost you $1,496.00.
What vendors are desperate for are Flavorologists. These rare individuals usually have degrees in food science and chemistry. I work for a company that makes cleanroom wall and ceiling systems and I can assure you that e-juice manufacturing does not need a cleanroom environment. If it did, then every kitchen and restaurant in the world is not up to your standard of quality control.
EDIT: To clarify, what would be the point of making this stuff in a cleanroom? The idea behind cleanrooms is to eliminate particles (contaminates) because the manufacture of something would be impossible otherwise. one speck of dust can ruin a $50,000 stack of components, etc. You are far more likely to add contaminates than they are. raidy did a test when he was developing the Genisis Atomizer involving vaping regular eliquid and vaping straight PG. The PG theoretically should have vaped clean and left zero residue on the wick. This was not the case. When he examined it under a microscope, the buildup on the wick was caused by dust, human skin cells and other atmospheric detrius that got sucked in through the air hole. Very little, if any, of the buildup was caused by the PG.
Hospitals, research laboratories, and microprocessor manufacturing plants need cleanrooms, not ejuice vendors. Besides, I doubt that you realize that a basic 20' x 20' cleanroom costs nearly as much as a house. We sell 1/4" aluminum honeycomb cleanroom 4' x 8' panels for $208 each, and that does not include installation or the specialized framing members, some of which cost well over $100 for a 20' length. A 30" x 70" cleanroom door will cost you $1,496.00.
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You took that as him holding them up as a shining example of good quality? I don't think he said anything of the sort. The OP asked if any juice vendors have any video/pics/info about their juice making facilities, and that person posted one which does. He didn't give any opinion, positive or negative, about the quality of their juice or products. It looks like you read waaay too much into that post, or just the mere mention of V2 sends you flying off the handle.
Anyway,
I totally support what the OP is saying here. But I can also see both sides here.
For me personally, I'm not worried about it. Would I prefer to have all my juice made in a certified clean room, with guys wearing while lab coats who are in the middle of paying off their Chemistry degree? Absolutely. Do I loose sleep over that not being the case? No. I rarely think about it. We all eat and drink tons of things every day that are prepared by others, and which we really don't have any idea who was making it in what conditions.
People seem to have a false sense of security when it comes to "regulations" as if being approved by the FDA means anything. To many people it does, to me it doesn't. I've worked at a place with an actual certified clean room. It wasn't food products being made, but it was still a certified clean room which specific policies that were supposed to be followed, and many times those policies were not followed, and in actuality the clean room was a "clean room" in name only.
I didn't personally work in the clean room as that wasn't my job, so I didn't participate in any rule bending, but I was well aware of it, as was everybody there. In general I just have VERY little faith in regulatory agencies and measures. I have far more faith in the people making the juice. If it's something they care about, and love doing, and they care about vaping and the community in general, I feel much safer vaping their juice compared to a professional chemical company's product who likely don't care or even know about vaping, and don't really care about their job.
It's likely more difficult to get a reputation as a good juice vendor, than it would be to simply submit samples for testing and get a stamp of "approved juice" Building a reputation is something that takes time and effort, and means more to me than a couple tests being done a few times a year on some juice samples.
But, even though it's not a huge deal for me, I still totally agree with the OP. Lot# are something that SHOULD be on every single bottle of juice anybody makes. If they found out that a few bottles of flavoring they were using was contaminated with something dangerous, and they don't have records of which batch of ingredients were used in which batch of juice, how are they going to know which is the dangerous juice and which is the safe juice?
There should be accurate ingredient lists on EVERY juice. Sorry for the guys with their fancy special blends, you have a responsibility to list everything you put in your juice. You can still keep quantities and ratios secret, but people should know exactly what a juice maker is putting in their juice. If you have an allergy to something, and a juice maker is putting all sorts of flavors and extracts in their juice, how will you know which one is safe for you to vape if they refuse to tell you the ingredients of the juice?
If they really cared about the vaping community they would have no issue releasing a full ingredient list. If some other company really wanted to copy your juice, they could simply have it analyzed and figure it out themselves. Hell, you can even throw in some stuff on the list that isn't actually in the juice just to throw people off. Bottom line, the juice makers can be respectful to their customer's health while still maintaining their proprietary juice blend/flavor. And no, simple saying "Contains PG, VG, and nicotine" is not being respectful to your customer's health.
Nic strength is another area where current trends are totally lacking. How accurate are your nic levels? What's your margin of error? Have you ever once considered or tried to figure out your margin of error? Is your 18mg bottle of juice 18mg, +/- .2mg? Or is it 18mg, +/- 10mg? Why aren't our juice vendors telling us this? Do they even know/care?
Juice base is naturally anti-bacterial and all that, so I'm not very concerned about getting infected juice, and I trust my vendors enough to think they at least put forth an effort to keep the juice clean. But I still get upset about the lack of professionalism by the vast, vast majority of juice makers. It seems most juice vendors only care about making tasty flavors, and having a following. Why do they totally ignore any safety aspects of it?
They don't need much money to simply be upfront with customers about their juice. As I mentioned, a real accurate list of all ingredients, organizing their juices into batches, which they keep records of which batch of ingredients went into which batch of juice, and telling us their margin of error for nicotine content would go a long way in showing people that you take your juice making seriously, and that you aren't just out to make a quick buck with nicotine moonshine.
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