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Eh, I know a lot of reviewers receive free samples from vendors and it doesn't keep them from giving their honest opinion.
I don't agree at all. Reading through Josh's posts here, his reviews on his site, and the feedback he's received...he's a credible, straight-forward critic of e-juice...much like a food critic. Food critics are specifically catered to as they provide unbiased, public reviews of a restaurant. How would receiving samples from vendors be any different?
As for the ads...let's say Josh gives an excellent rating to a particular juice from a specific vendor. Would it be a conflict of interest for a vendor to pay Josh to post a link or ad right next to a review so interested individuals have the ability to instantly go to that vendor's site and/or product? I certainly don't see it as such. IMO, it's the honest reviews he provides that makes him trustworthy...not the ads/links. If a vendor wants to pay to have Josh imbed a link directly to that vendor's site or product, it doesn't sway his review...it merely provides his followers with a convenient way to find that juice should they wish to order it for themselves.
I wouldn't see that as much of an issue, and I wouldn't see free samples as much of an issue either, really.
I'm thinking more along the lines of banner ads not related to any particular juice.
It is human nature for a person to be tempted to provide good reviews of products that people are paying them to review.
And that is essentially what a banner ad is.
If chefjosh can maintain his integrity, that's great.
And if his reviews of juice from those who advertise on his website are fair and balanced that's great too.
And if the vendors that get negative reviews decide to pull their advertising, I doubt anyone would be surprised.
If there are banner ads on the website, and no bad reviews of juices from that vendor, I'll remove the site from my bookmarks.
And life will go on, and everybody will be happy.
Anyway, feedback was requested, and I gave mine.
Thanks Flying Fox. I appreciate your opinions on my reviews and especially, the manner in which I conduct my site. I knew eventually people would doubt my integrity as soon as vendors began showing interest in advertising on the website. The sad part is the folks who will assume I'm biased without checking the reviews for themselves, but there's really nothing I can do about them.
The funny part is, and I only noticed this just now...of what's currently posted, the bottles I received at no charge from the vendor have some of the lowest scores on the site, while the juice I bought seems to do very well. In fact the only 2 perfect scores on the site I paid for in full.
I wouldn't see that as much of an issue, and I wouldn't see free samples as much of an issue either, really.
I'm thinking more along the lines of banner ads not related to any particular juice.
It is human nature for a person to be tempted to provide good reviews of products that people are paying them to review.
And that is essentially what a banner ad is.
If chefjosh can maintain his integrity, that's great.
And if his reviews of juice from those who advertise on his website are fair and balanced that's great too.
And if the vendors that get negative reviews decide to pull their advertising, I doubt anyone would be surprised.
If there are banner ads on the website, and no bad reviews of juices from that vendor, I'll remove the site from my bookmarks.
And life will go on, and everybody will be happy.
Anyway, feedback was requested, and I gave mine.
DC, I think that's more than fair...all I ask is that you don't discount my reviews simply because I run ads. Take a look at the reviews and then, if you still think I'm being biased, go ahead and call me out. When I think a juice is poorly made, or the flavors are unbalanced, or just plain off, I am all to happy to tell the world. This site is not about making money. The simple arithmetic makes that an near impossibility anytime in the next several years, bare minimum. The site is a service that I provide because I have the culinary training and background, and because I can find the time and the tools to do it.
I wanted to add one more thing, DC2...I did try to keep the site ad free, using a paypal donate button. Right now it's labeled "Pay It Forward" but at one point it just said "Donate". In 3 months, I have had one person donate money to help the site. That's when I finally started taking advertising and the "Buy It Now" button a little more seriously.
Just buy Halo and forget it.They are the best IMHO and i've tried quite a few and made a couple of homemade messes! Not to mention a few of Bubbas homemade juices I wish I had found Halo sooner........
Prime 15 is one of my favorites.Just buy Halo and forget it.They are the best IMHO and i've tried quite a few and made a couple of homemade messes! Not to mention a few of Bubbas homemade juices I wish I had found Halo sooner........
Tribeca is fantastic, but too sweet for me.
The rest of their tobacco flavors...
Well, if you like ginger, then I suppose you'll like them.
OThank you so much. As a newbie, it is super hard to get a honest review. I feel as if every video or review I watch is a paid advertisement. Thank you for your investment of time, effort, and money. I will be watching.
Just buy Halo and forget it.They are the best IMHO and i've tried quite a few and made a couple of homemade messes! Not to mention a few of Bubbas homemade juices I wish I had found Halo sooner........
I haven't had a chance to review anything from Halo yet, but in my experience no vendor is the best at everything. If they were, we wouldn't have so many successful vendors out there to chose from.
From what I've read about them, I'm sure there are a few, maybe even more than a few good, or even great flavors from Halo, but I'm also certain that they are not the end all and be all of e-juice. That being said, they are on my list of vendors for when I get caught up and make my next set of juice purchases. While some vendors do send their juice in for samples, not all of them do, and a good portion of the juice I review is still bought and paid for by yours truly.
I think chefjosh spoke the truth. I have ordered from countless different juice vendors. While Halo does offer quality products, I found that their customer service leaves A LOT to be desired. That said, the best customer service I have ever experienced from an ejuice vendor has got to be Highbrow Vapor. If you are not satisfied in *any* way, shape, or form, they will make it right, even if it ends up costing them $. That said, not all of the flavors I have tried from them have been "world beaters," so I do agree with chef; no vendor is the best at *everything.* I recently recieved an order from aroma ejuice, and I am in the process of evaluating the effect of their WTA-infused ( Whole Tobacco Alkaloids ) juices. I have found that nearly every "USA-made" juice vendor I have tried has had at least one or two fantastic flavors, but again, what I find "fantastic," the next person may be repulsed by. 
Agreed and well said, BigErn...No one company can do everything well when it come to quality e-juice. And in my experience the same holds true for Chinese juice. They most certainly are not ALL bad. While they often lack the complexity and eloquent balance attributed to much of the American made juice, many of them are quite good in their simplicity and are true to flavor. The Dekang Tobacco flavors, for example, are some of the best straight tobaccos on the market, as they extract the flavor directly from natural tobacco leaf, something that, as I understand it, no US company currently does. Of course, things like honey-cured and flue-cured tobaccos are a different ball game entirely, and nothing China makes, in my experience, comes close to PS Swagger or iVape's Sweet Caroline.
Would be interesting to see a site with more than one vaping chef all with the same liquids just to get varied reviews. I'm a chef, but a newbie one, haven't graduated culinary school yet still have the intern and externships to do so my palate just isn't developed enough to claim professional chef LOL. Good luck with your site Chef Josh, your reviews are great!
Interesting site at a quick glance. I'll have to spend some more time checking it out when I'm not supposed to be working.
I've only been vaping for a couple of months now and have been told that higher PG concentrations lead to better taste and higher VG to better vapor production. I just did a quick run through of your reviews and find it interesting that very few of the juices you've reviewed have a high PG/VG ratio (like an 80/20 or 85/15). Are you sampling individual juices at various PG/VG ratios and just reviewing at whatever ratio worked best?
I've only been vaping for a couple of months now and have been told that higher PG concentrations lead to better taste and higher VG to better vapor production. I just did a quick run through of your reviews and find it interesting that very few of the juices you've reviewed have a high PG/VG ratio (like an 80/20 or 85/15). Are you sampling individual juices at various PG/VG ratios and just reviewing at whatever ratio worked best?
Very professional, thoughtfully designed site, w/well-written reviews.
Good luck going forward. I can see how much work went into this, on many levels.
Good luck going forward. I can see how much work went into this, on many levels.
What you say about PG being a better vehicle for flavor delivery, and VG delivering more vapor is usually true, but there are quite a few juices out there that bend those rules to the point of breaking. VG will almost always yield huge plumes of vapor, but there are plenty of 100%VG mixes out there that deliver on flavor as well without any PG at all. That said, a good deal of juices with 50% or more VG still deliver tremendous plumes and also have the PG benefit of flavor delivery. Also, I've had plenty of 80/20 juice that falls flat in the flavor department. While PG does help to deliver the flavor, it must be utilized correctly with the proper proportions of flavoring and nic.
As far as what I review, when given the option, I always opt for the "house" or recommended blend from a particular supplier, for example, Mister-E-Liquid's 33/67 blend. When I order juice and I'm simply asked to chose my mix without receiving that vendor's recommendation, I usually opt for as close to 50/50 as I can get. I'm not sensitive to PG, and I feel that this method gives every juice the best opportunity to perform well.
As far as what I review, when given the option, I always opt for the "house" or recommended blend from a particular supplier, for example, Mister-E-Liquid's 33/67 blend. When I order juice and I'm simply asked to chose my mix without receiving that vendor's recommendation, I usually opt for as close to 50/50 as I can get. I'm not sensitive to PG, and I feel that this method gives every juice the best opportunity to perform well.
You may want to add that to your site on how you go about reviewing, might help ease some concerns to viewers that don't come here and see this, if they are concerned about stuff like this, LOL I had never though of it before, the things I learn reading these threads!
chefjosh,
I can't tell you how much emphasis this sentiment should have. I'm 6 days off
the stinkies, and I was looking for a site to load up my first load-ahead to keep me
on the program.
Randomly bouncing from one thread to the next, searching for that "first" vendor
that has a good chance of yielding a mix of juice that will keep me on the program
is, well, frankly, unworkable. There's just waaaaayyyyyy too much information
out there for a noob to absorb quickly to get that first order in--before my starter
kit runs out--with any confidence of a good result.
This thread, and your website, should be stickied somewhere as one of those
"first stops" for noobs.
Thank you sir, keep up the great work!
whynes
I, for the sake of all of us, appreciate what you did for those who enjoy such a thing, but (as a Libra) I also have to point out the opposing side. Forgive me if this bothers you.
Gordon Ramsay is a 5 michelin star chef and he LOVES the foie gras. Meanwhile, I am vegan and I would never condone the abuse of animals for the sake of the taste of its artificially fattened liver; let alone eat such a mess. I appreciate that you have made such a website but, at the end of the day, each person's taste is very different. Above all it is the one thing that they can call their own. A professional chef, for example, who tells me that a filet mignon is tasty, means nothing to me because I'd never eat it.
I am a DIY ejuice kind of guy, so I take all juice reviews with a grain of salt, but instead of happy-fun-times comments I thought I would present the other side who is unaffected by such opinion. A professional chef who tells me that one artificial flavor is better than another is still just a person using their opinion to hold sway over the masses, who believe the chef's opinion over their own common sense, just because they say they are better at it. Artificial flavoring does not require a chef to tell you that it's artificial. Each artificial flavor represents something that it is clearly not. In almost all cases, no matter how bad they may taste, they are clearly better than the ashtray taste of a real cigarette. To those who agree with me please vape whatever makes you happy. I am a musician, but I cannot tell you that one song is better than another if you love the song I do not. I can scream that song X is awesome, but if you think it's not, then it's not the song for you.
P.S.: Why do chefs smoke when they know full well that it affects their ability to taste? How does one claim to have a "professional palette" when they have clearly limited their ability to claim such a thing in the name of stress relief? Why do a job that is so stressful, then claim to love it, when it becomes too much for one to bear that they must, in essence, shorten their lives and weaken their ability to do it just for the sake of enduring it? Contradiction much? That would be the same thing as a musician blowing out their eardrums because making music is stressful and then claiming authority on all such matters.
Gordon Ramsay is a 5 michelin star chef and he LOVES the foie gras. Meanwhile, I am vegan and I would never condone the abuse of animals for the sake of the taste of its artificially fattened liver; let alone eat such a mess. I appreciate that you have made such a website but, at the end of the day, each person's taste is very different. Above all it is the one thing that they can call their own. A professional chef, for example, who tells me that a filet mignon is tasty, means nothing to me because I'd never eat it.
I am a DIY ejuice kind of guy, so I take all juice reviews with a grain of salt, but instead of happy-fun-times comments I thought I would present the other side who is unaffected by such opinion. A professional chef who tells me that one artificial flavor is better than another is still just a person using their opinion to hold sway over the masses, who believe the chef's opinion over their own common sense, just because they say they are better at it. Artificial flavoring does not require a chef to tell you that it's artificial. Each artificial flavor represents something that it is clearly not. In almost all cases, no matter how bad they may taste, they are clearly better than the ashtray taste of a real cigarette. To those who agree with me please vape whatever makes you happy. I am a musician, but I cannot tell you that one song is better than another if you love the song I do not. I can scream that song X is awesome, but if you think it's not, then it's not the song for you.
P.S.: Why do chefs smoke when they know full well that it affects their ability to taste? How does one claim to have a "professional palette" when they have clearly limited their ability to claim such a thing in the name of stress relief? Why do a job that is so stressful, then claim to love it, when it becomes too much for one to bear that they must, in essence, shorten their lives and weaken their ability to do it just for the sake of enduring it? Contradiction much? That would be the same thing as a musician blowing out their eardrums because making music is stressful and then claiming authority on all such matters.
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