List of vendors who re-label & sell eliquid made by someone else

[zapped]

4 years ago bro, look at the join date. Sadly I was one of the vendors just starting out that got caught in the FDA's illegal seizure of shipments.I foolishly rolled all my initial investment and my profit into my third order because "I havent been caught yet" and they seized it, destroyed it and then sent me a bill for destroying my property of all things.

With all my money tied up in that shipment, they accomplished what they set out to do and that was to put the smaller companies out of business. I wasnt the only one to fall prey to their illegal acts. I just didnt have 10k-20k to fight it in New York. A couple of the other e-cigarette companies won in court due to Judge Leons ruling but it was settled on a case by case basis instead of a class-action suit so once again the little guys were screwed.

Im over it now, I consider myself fortunate. I got out cheap...I lost a 5 months of my time and my initial investment but I know Cashmere from Puresmoker said he lost a shipment valued at over 100k and almost walked away himself.

I understand youre only talking about juice but Im offering an ex-vendors perspective and the two kind of go hand in hand unless you would want to pay double shipping costs for some reason The same relabeling also applies to both products.

 

[Red_Bird]

No eliquid is truly all American made.

Liquid nicotine is refined and made in two countries I'm aware of, there may be more. China and India.....China is selling the majority of theirs to the USA.

 

[unquiet]

That's a good example of my one of my concerns here. It's very simple - many people love VR. I've purchased juices from them and they're just not to my liking. So I've risked my money, fair enough, and drawn my conclusion, and I sadly check that one off my list.
But I'm always interested in new juices that show up and it'd be pretty easy to blow another piece of my paycheck ordering the same juices that I've already rejected under another label. To the extent that relabeling is common practice it's easy to see that that could escalate into a serious ripoff.
When someone comes into the forum and says "Every coffee flavor I've tried has the same burnt taste" it could be because she isn't ever going to love a coffee vape. But what if they've all been the same damned stuff (at various prices, too)? This is presumably hyperbolic, but the point seems clear to me.
This isn't about bashing vendors or underestimating the difficulties entailed in running a business. It's about trying to be an intelligent consumer.

Exactly. I don't think it's too much to ask to know who made the juice that I am putting into my body.

And plenty of vendors DO resell other companies juice - AS the other companies juice.

Also, this is the kind of thing that if vendors can't regulate themselves, I bet the FDA would be happy to step in and do it for them...

 

[bfrie]

No eliquid is truly all American made.

Liquid nicotine is refined and made in two countries I'm aware of, there may be more. China and India.....China is selling the majority of theirs to the USA.

Always go for companies getting it from the Indian extraction company. Much higher quality

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[aubergine]

Excellent thread. We still don't have a list of vendors who relabel/remix and I suspect that we won't? Dunno.

It's a real threat to vendors whose profit margin relies upon selling something that can be had very cheaply from the source by anyone, and we're fond of our vendors and reliant upon and loyal to this industry, as we should be. With catastrophes like the one that slammed zapped (I remember that!) and the FDA/BT poised to send us all to Blu et alia hell, no one wants to further beleaguer smallish suppliers, right?
It also takes the fun out of things a bit as we deconstruct the language of " 100% US made - our very own unique amazing secret blend of delicately extracted natural peach and imported, select vanilla bean" (read, dump together some Dekang peach and some Dekang vanilla right here in the US and sell 30 mg for $20), etc.
A proper part of good marketing is hype, and I'd not expect any vendor to de-gloss his product with legally unrequired transparency. It just doesn't work that way unless customers demand it.
But in a market economy businesses compete with one another for profit and survival, and consumers are, or ought to be, the best regulators, especially if they really are invested in product excellence in the future. I have monumental respect for vendors who do simply disclose what's there to disclose and for anyone genuinely (and carefully) moving the industry towards a better product. That is NOT what happens under a BT monopoly (I'm guessing that's the best we can do in the long run).
So. No list, but a good conversation.

 

[aubergine]

And that'd be Wicked (see that website for their current disclosure and description).
Would it perhaps be refreshing to stop the "He Who Must Not Be Named" thing? Loyalty, fear of reprisal, what?
Burt's Bees products are manufactured by Clorox, not some sweet organic farmer in Vermont. So, going to find a yellow jackets nest in my mailbox for saying so?
I still buy Burts Bees products. Cute little containers, nicely functioning grease. Coloring made from beetle-shells; those vegans need to know.

Chiming in a little late here but you guys realize that there are only a handful or two of factories in China producing E-cigarettes right? They even offer to brand them for you if you purchase above a set amount.

The factory that I was dealing with when I was in business was selling me the exact same juice they were selling an extremely popular (at one point) British vendor who's name may or may not have reminiscent of a popular Broadway play based on the Wizard of Oz. The only difference was the labels and I'm assuming they applied their own at first and as they gradually increased their orders had it done for them.

It's much more common than you would think.Vendors obviously dont want to tell you who their supplier is as that hurts the bottom line but also dont want to lie to you about whether its made in-house or not. Ive heard more than one vendor say "We have it made for us in China" ....they do...just not in the way you think.

 

[infoimp]

Burt's Bees products are manufactured by Clorox, not some sweet organic farmer in Vermont.

...wait...what?!?! crap.....

 

[Mr.Mann]

No eliquid is truly all American made.

Liquid nicotine is refined and made in two countries I'm aware of, there may be more. China and India.....China is selling the majority of theirs to the USA.

Velvet Cloud Vapor extracts their own nicotine.

 

[Legosaurus]

Yeah, just about to mention that. I have some of VCV on the way and am looking forward to seeing if there is a huge difference.

 

[Legosaurus]

Virgin Vapor also uses USA nicotine.

 

[DietSalem]

Kokomo Pure Vapors in Kokomo, Indiana do this. I know they have permission for some of it - but also know some vendors didn't know it was going on. They always relabel it to say "Kokomo Pure Vapors - name of juice" and the original vendor is no where to be seen. They then raise the price.

I actually got banned from their establishment for mentioning this to a customer. It's actually a pretty common practice in the vape world unfortunately.

 

[zapped]

I know AVE hand mixes their own juices...its not a blend.Ive heard Ben mention a few times that the company that extracts his nicotine has caused orders to be put on hold as they struggle to keep up with demand.

Besides not liking pg because of the harshness, theres something to be said for 100 percent vg solutions.To the best of my knowledge Dekang and all other Chinese liquids have a high pg content to them.

 

[mgmrick]

Rebranding is common practice in alot more places than just the e.cig community.

You guys are asking for too much disclosure....just saying

 

[ThunderPumpkin]

Rebranding is common practice in alot more places than just the e.cig community.

You guys are asking for too much disclosure....just saying

I don't think so. Look at product rebranding in supermarkets -- your store brand of cereal/coffee/detergent/etc. is made by one of the big names in the industry but is relabeled with your grocery store's brand. The net result is you get a quality product cheaper because it's sold as a no-name product.

With e-liquids it's just the opposite -- you get a cheap-o product at a higher price. This is the same as Starbucks buying Walmart coffee (which is decent in the same way Dekang is), relabeling it as Starbucks, and throwing on a 400% mark-up. That's a rip-off!

This doesn't happen because people can tell when they're getting Walmart coffee for the most part, and Starbucks knows it.

With e-liquids, so many people are trying them for the first time that they have no experience and no point of comparison. The vendors who relabel and mark up cheap-o juice are preying on consumers' naivete and inexperience. And that's a business model only true schmucks would use.

 

[mgmrick]

I guess I don't follow you... you said just what I said made by someone else and rebranded ??

I don't think so. Look at product rebranding in supermarkets -- your store brand of cereal/coffee/detergent/etc. is made by one of the big names in the industry but is relabeled with your grocery store's brand. The net result is you get a quality product cheaper because it's sold as a no-name product.

With e-liquids it's just the opposite -- you get a cheap-o product at a higher price. This is the same as Starbucks buying Walmart coffee (which is decent in the same way Dekang is), relabeling it as Starbucks, and throwing on a 400% mark-up. That's a rip-off!

This doesn't happen because people can tell when they're getting Walmart coffee for the most part, and Starbucks knows it.

With e-liquids, so many people are trying them for the first time that they have no experience and no point of comparison. The vendors who relabel and mark up cheap-o juice are preying on consumers' naivete and inexperience. And that's a business model only true schmucks would use.

 

[ThunderPumpkin]

I guess I don't follow you... you said just what I said made by someone else and rebranded ??

My point is the rebranding we're used to means high quality at lower prices -- store brand cereals, detergents, soap, spaghetti, etc. The company that makes Grocery Store Detergent is the same one that makes Tide or one of its name-brand competitors. This is equivalent to e-liquid vendors buying, say, Ahlusion juices in bulk, relabeling them as Jimbo's Discount E-Juice, and selling us Ahlusion for half price. If this were what were happening, we'd all be rejoicing. But it's not.

The rebranding that actually goes on with e-juices is just the opposite -- lower quality at higher prices. Dekang with a premium-looking label and a 200% markup, for example. And it works at present only because most vapers are new and can't detect this like they would with, say, Walmart coffee packaged as Starbuck's.

That's simply scummy.

 

[mgmrick]

That maybe true in some cases but I was just pointing out rebranding has been going on for a very long time for alot of products

My point is the rebranding we're used to means high quality at lower prices -- store brand cereals, detergents, soap, spaghetti, etc. The company that makes Grocery Store Detergent is the same one that makes Tide or one of its name-brand competitors. This is equivalent to e-liquid vendors buying, say, Ahlusion juices in bulk, relabeling them as Jimbo's Discount E-Juice, and selling us Ahlusion for half price. If this were what were happening, we'd all be rejoicing. But it's not.

The rebranding that actually goes on with e-juices is just the opposite -- lower quality at higher prices. Dekang with a premium-looking label and a 200% markup, for example. And it works at present only because most vapers are new and can't detect this like they would with, say, Walmart coffee packaged as Starbuck's.

That's simply scummy.

 

[Mr.Mann]

That maybe true in some cases but I was just pointing out rebranding has been going on for a very long time for alot of products

This is true; if we on the a forum for those other "cases" hopefully the same issue would be brought up. This just so happens to be an eliquid sub-forum. Like I said previously, the same thing happens on supplement forums regarding bodybuilding when one finds out that Muscle juice (B) is basically rebranded Muscle Juice (A) but at a different cost. Sometimes, at least in those instances, people are truly paying for a name or a fancy label with tons of advertising.

 

[Jerms]

When I want to buy something I know I'll like, I buy from vendors I already love. When I'm ordering from a vendor that's new to me, I'm only doing it because I'm EXPECTING something different. Whether I like it or not is for me to judge, but it damn well better be different then what I've already had. If I bought a juice and it turned out to be be a re-labeled juice I've had before, I'd be upset. Doesn't matter if they sell it cheaper or if it's a juice I already like, if they re-labeled a juice and sold it as something different they ripped me off.

I'm also not a fan of vendors that just sell juices made from the same flavorings like FlavourArt, TPA, etc. that most others already are. I'm not against vendors doing that and they definately have their place, but if I already had a blueberry made using TPA I don't want to get another bottle from a different vendor that's the same thing. That's why I really wish vendors would state what company they get their flavorings from. If I already know I don't like apple from FlavorArt, then I know not to buy an apple eliquid from a vendor that uses FlavorArt.

One vendor I've been looking into lately is FuZion. They say under their "about" link.."Be advised… I primarily use TPA flavorings. If you aren’t a fan of TPA base flavors you will probably NOT like my juice!" How cool is that? He's proud enough of his own creations he's not afraid to say what he's using, and from his fans I'm hearing.. yeah it's TPA, but he's mixing them in an extremely original and unique way. THAT I'm willing to spend money on to try.

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[Randy C]

4 years ago bro, look at the join date. Sadly I was one of the vendors just starting out that got caught in the FDA's illegal seizure of shipments.I foolishly rolled all my initial investment and my profit into my third order because "I havent been caught yet" and they seized it, destroyed it and then sent me a bill for destroying my property of all things.

With all my money tied up in that shipment, they accomplished what they set out to do and that was to put the smaller companies out of business. I wasnt the only one to fall prey to their illegal acts. I just didnt have 10k-20k to fight it in New York. A couple of the other e-cigarette companies won in court due to Judge Leons ruling but it was settled on a case by case basis instead of a class-action suit so once again the little guys were screwed.

Im over it now, I consider myself fortunate. I got out cheap...I lost a 5 months of my time and my initial investment but I know Cashmere from Puresmoker said he lost a shipment valued at over 100k and almost walked away himself.

I understand youre only talking about juice but Im offering an ex-vendors perspective and the two kind of go hand in hand unless you would want to pay double shipping costs for some reason The same relabeling also applies to both products.

Zap... Sorry dude, I wasn't trying to throw rocks at you- I apologize if I came off that way. A very interesting story indeed! I hate to see bureaucrats knock down a guy like you who's just trying to make a go of it