Natural Flavour E-Juices

[Tazling]

After some disappointment with mainstream e-juices (I don't find artificial flavours convincing) I have been on a search for juices flavoured with actual fruit and plant extracts rather than synthetic chemical compounds. Some find the artificial flavours tasty, but I don't -- I can tell the difference and ee-yew! -- hence the quest for "real" taste/smell.

So far I have found the following (not tested any myself yet, just placed sample orders):

Velvet Vapors
KAI's Virgin Vapor
KIND E-Juice
Atomic Vapor (no order yet)
VapeGreen (UK) -- vendor for several brands
ECblends -- sells flavourings for DIY

I read rave reviews of Papillon, but they seem to be OOB. Their web site is gone.

I was wondering if others might contribute to the list of "hippie juice" suppliers -- all-biotic and/or organic ingredients. Was hoping to start an archivable thread that would turn into an index of nat/org e-liquid sources.

When I get my samples and have time to play with them, I'll try to write some reviews.

 

[Tazling]

@Walter great link, thanks. They offer a whole page of real tea extracts -- from basic Earl Gray to really delicate specialty teas like Moroccan Mint... I'll have to give those a try one of these days!

 

[bombastinator]

You’re running into a fundamental problem of physics as well as a problem of legal definition here.

The legal definition problem:
The term “natural flavoring” is something of a legal fiction. A “natural apple” flavoring doesn’t actually need to be made from apples. It just has to be made out of something “natural”. In practice this means most “natural” flavorings contain the same stuff as artificial flavorings they just come from different, usually much more expensive, and often more environmentally damaging places as one of the favorite chemical donors is the bark of exotic endangered tropical trees.

The physics problem:
Flavoring creation is an act of reduction. If you took all the chemicals in an apple in the same ratios as an apple you’d have, well, an apple.

Taste happens at the molecular level. When you taste “apple” you taste the presence of a set of chemicals which your brain defines as “apple”. These chemicals can be different for different people, which is why not everyone likes the same flavors and there is no “best juice”. When they make a flavoring they take just a few of the chemicals that most people generally identify and use those for the flavoring. At the molecular level though the source of a chemical no longer matters.

Fruit and plant extracts sound in theory then like a better idea. It doesn’t always work out that way though. The way an extract is done is the plant in question is soaked in a solvent. Water, alcohol, oil, something that chemicals can dissolve into. Then that solvent is rendered down, hopefully (but not always successfully) leaving chemicals sufficient to taste like the original item.
There are issues though. Not are chemicals are soluble in the same thing, and some of them aren’t really soluble at all. Some things are much more soluble in a given solvent than other things and the ratio gets messed up. An extract of a given item using a given solvent won’t necessarily taste any more like the original item than an artificial flavor will. Sometimes less.

 

[newyork13]

I like both RTE and NET.com. Depends on the flavor.
But, Black Note Sonata is great. Nicely flavored and minimally gunky. Not too tobaccoey

 

[stols001]

Look there are some FEW (very few) true natural extract vape things and yes, many aren't manipulated that much. They are all manipulated SOME.

"Natural" just means "derived from the seed of an apple" for example, not "derived from chemical compound 4596uBH."

They ALL get jacked with, to an extent, and by that I mean turned into something NOT found in nature.

Your placebo may be telling you they "taste" more natural and that is why there is a higher PREMIUM cost on "natural" flavors because some folks are all suggestible like that.

If you want to join the ranks, by all MEANS do so, but many "natural" flavors go through MORE chemical manipulation because you can't just shove peach juice in a bottle and vape it. It doesn't work like that.

I absolutely don't mind if you do and by all means go for it. Placebo is a powerful thing and someone has to keep the natural extracts market going.

I guarantee you however, in a blind taste test with a LOT of flavors, your results would be oh, about 50%. Maybe 49 or 51%, but somewhere thereabouts.

I don't mind if you like the natural "label" and it works for you. I harness placebo whenever I can, it's a POWERFUL force. I just don't do it when it doesn't make sense and actually COSTS me money.

So yes, I agree they are MUCH better tasting.
Anna

 

[bombastinator]

Regarding Real Extracts - That being said I should state that I am neither a physicist, a lawyer nor a chemist. What I know is that these extracts appear to be a very different chemistry than what is typical in the vaping world. They don't stink in the bottle or in the room. They don't give me vaper tongue or nauseate me. I can (and do) vape some of them everyday without the need to change flavors. They TASTE like what I expect - They taste real and natural which is the point. RealExtracts.com has been my sole supplier of juice for a few years now for these reasons. Who cares about the quibbling over legal word definitions - maybe English needs more words to describe an experience?

Hmmm... well, if you like them you like them. Whatever works for you works for you.

I guess I am just relating how such things actually work, and warning people that just because something says it is “natural” or “an extract” doesn’t necessarily endow it with automatic magical properties of “betterness”. I saw this repeatedly amongst homeopathic and natural foods fans growing up. There’s at least as much pseudo science and obfuscated chicanery in that crowd as there is anywhere else.

If they work better for you they do. That one is easy.

Perhaps the particular extraction process they are doing in this case extracts the particular chemical or chemicals that your particular taste receptors identify. Perhaps the company in question is merely doing a better job of choosing which chemicals to use and which work better in your particular case. You seem to make the point that it doesn’t really matter, and you’re not wrong. I’m just relating how it works.

 

[Mazinny]

All "natural" means, is that the molecule is found in nature. There are instances where a particular molecule has been classified as "artificial" for decades, and overnight has been reclassified as "natural" after someone discovered it in a fruit or plant. Some of the vendors listed by OP don't use "artificial" flavors in their liquids, but the liquids aren't extracts either. They just don't use "artificial" flavors.

Some of you may find this article about flavorists and flavors fascinating:

The Taste Makers

 

[bombastinator]

All "natural" means, is that the molecule is found in nature. There are instances where a particular molecule has been classified as "artificial" for decades, and overnight has been reclassified as "natural" after someone discovered it in a fruit or plant. Some of the vendors listed by OP don't use "artificial" flavors in their liquids, but the liquids aren't extracts either. They just don't use "artificial" flavors.

Some of you may find this article about flavorists and flavors fascinating:

The Taste Makers

Wow. That was... terrifying.
They’re not looking to see what the chemicals do to the human body at all. Let alone what happens when you mix them with other chemicals and heat them which is what we do.
People aren’t even allowed to know what they are. The whole “vape unflavored only “ FDA recommendation is starting to make a whole lot of sense.

 

[stols001]

They're ubiquitous I'm afraid. In everything. That's why I don't find it particularly terrifying. Life expectancy continues to rise.

I was shocked when I started mixing how I would say encounter one of "my" flavors in say, youghurt.

Unless you are on an all natural whole foods diet, you are getting flavoring from everywhere.

I try to not worry. I mean, it's pointless. I'm not going to live on all fruits vegetables and whole, unflavored raw foods the rest of my life.

But yes, sure, many of them are probably mutagens.

My whole pregnancy I was handling mutagens every day. Course, I was swaddled in plastic with no fine motor tremor. But the kid turned out fine.

Of course, I did not eat the polymerase gel. Etc. But the quantities are pretty minute.

Anna

 

[mac-nutty]

flavour west have a range of terpenes