So, after waiting a month for Blu-Cigs to get their heads out of their rectums, I canceled my order with them and did the research I should have done before attempting to order from them. Ended up going with Totally Wicked.
I ordered a 30ml bottle of the 18mg Camel flavoured eliquid and a TECC Titan 510 (AKA re-branded JOYE-510) starter kit.
The first thing I saw was the turn around time; downright amazing. I made my order Sunday, July 12th. My product shipped the next day and arrived at my house on Thursday, July 16th. About as fast as one can expect with USPS priority going from Bradenton, FL to San Jose, CA.
The products themselves are quite nice. The 510 produces nice vapor and throat compared to the Blu unit I almost bought (One of my friends was not as "lucky" as me with the Blu and ended up getting his) and seems much more reliable than the Green Smoke unit (A DPV9, KR808D1 or some variant that uses the same style disposable cartridge with atomizers in them) one of my flatmates has. Battery lasts me a couple good hours of smoking before it requires a recharge. The charger that came with the unit charges properly (as expected), but the power cable for it is *extremely* short requiring me to either have a power strip sitting on my desk, or having the charging unit sitting on the floor under my desk. The atomizers also seem to work fairly well and produce a nice throat hit, but as this is my first long term experience with eCigs I don't really have much to compare against.
As for the Camel flavoured 30ml 18mg eliquid, I'm fairly impressed. It has a reasonably plesant flavour, good throat, and enough vapor production to satisfy my need to see smoke (vapor) when I exhale. It does taste somewhat like a camel would... if you removed the oil-pan flavour from the actual cigarette and just left the tasty Turkish(esque) flavours.
I found the people on the flash chat that Totally Wicked hosts to be extremely helpful and quite willing to answer questions. To be honest its what sold me on buying from TW.
There were a few things that bugged me about this order and any good review must show the good with the bad. These issues wouldn't stop me from recommending TW to eCig neophytes and buying more from them if not just because of the turn around times, the friendliness of the people, and the overall quality of the products.
First off the prices are in my opinion quite high compared to the exact same products out of china. For example you can find the JOYE-510 starter kits for anywhere from 30-45 USD at most of the Chinese based stores. Not exactly a deal breaker as I don't know if the TECC rebranded products have higher quality control or not, but also knowing that the JOYE-510 starter kits wholesale for 10-20 USD (or cheaper) in bulk from vendors in China shows there is a major profit margin here.
As for the eliquid, I find I am a bit reluctant to pay a dollar a milliliter, especially considering that the components of the liquid are extremely cheap. Propylene Glycol is extremely cheap in food and medicinal grade qualities (talking mere dollars for liters). Tobacco essential oils used for adding the nicotine are not terribly expensive either (though I do not know about medical grade). And food grade flavouring is also extremely cheap.
That having been said, I don't feel like I need to run the TW eLiquid through a gas chromatography-mass spectrometer like I do with some of the juices I've purchased directly out of china to make sure that there isn't Ethylene glycol in the mix. So I guess there is a trade off for trust/quality and price.
In the end, if I had to make my purchases again, I'd probably do it the same way. I just don't know if I'll buy replacement parts via TW as the prices are double what I can source elsewhere.
I ordered a 30ml bottle of the 18mg Camel flavoured eliquid and a TECC Titan 510 (AKA re-branded JOYE-510) starter kit.
The first thing I saw was the turn around time; downright amazing. I made my order Sunday, July 12th. My product shipped the next day and arrived at my house on Thursday, July 16th. About as fast as one can expect with USPS priority going from Bradenton, FL to San Jose, CA.
The products themselves are quite nice. The 510 produces nice vapor and throat compared to the Blu unit I almost bought (One of my friends was not as "lucky" as me with the Blu and ended up getting his) and seems much more reliable than the Green Smoke unit (A DPV9, KR808D1 or some variant that uses the same style disposable cartridge with atomizers in them) one of my flatmates has. Battery lasts me a couple good hours of smoking before it requires a recharge. The charger that came with the unit charges properly (as expected), but the power cable for it is *extremely* short requiring me to either have a power strip sitting on my desk, or having the charging unit sitting on the floor under my desk. The atomizers also seem to work fairly well and produce a nice throat hit, but as this is my first long term experience with eCigs I don't really have much to compare against.
As for the Camel flavoured 30ml 18mg eliquid, I'm fairly impressed. It has a reasonably plesant flavour, good throat, and enough vapor production to satisfy my need to see smoke (vapor) when I exhale. It does taste somewhat like a camel would... if you removed the oil-pan flavour from the actual cigarette and just left the tasty Turkish(esque) flavours.
I found the people on the flash chat that Totally Wicked hosts to be extremely helpful and quite willing to answer questions. To be honest its what sold me on buying from TW.
There were a few things that bugged me about this order and any good review must show the good with the bad. These issues wouldn't stop me from recommending TW to eCig neophytes and buying more from them if not just because of the turn around times, the friendliness of the people, and the overall quality of the products.
First off the prices are in my opinion quite high compared to the exact same products out of china. For example you can find the JOYE-510 starter kits for anywhere from 30-45 USD at most of the Chinese based stores. Not exactly a deal breaker as I don't know if the TECC rebranded products have higher quality control or not, but also knowing that the JOYE-510 starter kits wholesale for 10-20 USD (or cheaper) in bulk from vendors in China shows there is a major profit margin here.
As for the eliquid, I find I am a bit reluctant to pay a dollar a milliliter, especially considering that the components of the liquid are extremely cheap. Propylene Glycol is extremely cheap in food and medicinal grade qualities (talking mere dollars for liters). Tobacco essential oils used for adding the nicotine are not terribly expensive either (though I do not know about medical grade). And food grade flavouring is also extremely cheap.
That having been said, I don't feel like I need to run the TW eLiquid through a gas chromatography-mass spectrometer like I do with some of the juices I've purchased directly out of china to make sure that there isn't Ethylene glycol in the mix. So I guess there is a trade off for trust/quality and price.
In the end, if I had to make my purchases again, I'd probably do it the same way. I just don't know if I'll buy replacement parts via TW as the prices are double what I can source elsewhere.
