A little clarification, since I am the manufacturer of the flavouring you're maligning here (Decadent Vapours Absinthe).
There is a UK supplier selling a liquid knowing that the flavouring in concentrated form 'eats' HDPE plastic bottles. The supplier is considering other materials for the bottles so the concentrated flavour can be sold direct to the public.
This sounds awfully dramatic, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume this unscientific panic-mongering is due to ignorance of the basic chemistry, rather than anything more malicious.
It is a fact of life that many essential oils can do this in strong solutions, and that essential oils are used in most ejuice flavourings (pretty much all fruit/spice flavours, and most tobacco flavours,) and more widely in many food flavourings.
Put Loranns Peppermint concentrate, or citrus oils, or spearmint snus in an HDPE bottle, and they have exactly the same effect (which is why Loranns use glass bottles for all their concentrates.) Make up a 5-10% solution and put that in the same HDPE bottle, and it doesn't - the excipients act as a buffer, and there's no corrosion.
It's exactly the same with the Absinthe - it's a perfectly safe product, made from approved food flavourings, but it contains natural essential oils (fully volatile,) that are incompatible with certain artificial compounds - specifically the material the dropper bottles are made out of. That's all.
I could solve the problem by diluting the concentrate, but that would end up making it weaker than most of my other concentrates, and would feel too much like giving short measure - I'd rather find compatible bottles, or a reformulation that will stabilize the oils to stop them doing this. Absinthe is very high in essential oils (they're what gives the drink its characteristic 'louche',) - higher than any of my other flavours, and that's why it's the one flavour causing this problem. But it's still made entirely from commercially produced, approved food flavouring concentrates.
Food corrosion is nothing new - there's a whole
industry out there refining packaging techniques for foods that have a deleterious effect on containers. But are you never going to risk eating lasagna (oh no - it
DISSOLVES ALUMINIUM!!!
, or salt (Oh no - it
EATS METAL!!!
EVEN
STAINLESS STEEL!!!
), or water (oh no - it
CORRODES STEEL PIPES!!!
) Or Vinegar, Mentos, Coca Cola, Baking Soda, Soy sauce, and all the other foodstuffs that can undergo deleterious reactions in contact with the wrong substances?
I would sort of assume, seeing as how you proudly claim to produce the first "Made in UK" ejuice, that you might understand this much chemistry already, but apparently not. Or is it really just an attempt to score points at a time when we surely ought to all be pulling together?
There is another UK supplier who advocates putting a drop of 36mg VG on your tongue for a bit of extra kick.
Both of these suppliers are in favour of no regulation for electronic cigarettes and liquids. It's not difficult to see why and it's a no brainer to see how simple it is to build a case for regulation when such irresponsibility is shown.
John.
For the record, and speaking purely for myself, I tend towards option 2 actually, though I'd be more enthusiastic about it if the MHRA weren't so obviously biased.
