State of vaping (in my opnion)

[kenetix]

This is a long story, but informative in the eyes of one person.

Of course like anything you read here this is my opinion.

So my story begins back sometime mid 2009. One of the guys I used to play online games with told me about an electronic cigarette he purchased from a kiosk in his local mall. I was interested in the idea of a device that could deliver nicotine without combustion. He was pretty ...... that it wasn't good quality, but what is when you buy it from the mall. So I started reading online about "electronic cigarettes". I ended up finding a site that had a free trial. I think it was the green cig or some ..... I ordered one and it seemed really cool but was very limited. The carts had foil over them and wicked like ..... After realizing my failure to read the fine print and seen a crazy charge on my credit card for this pile of semi-working non-quality tested piece of .... I was on the phone. Long story short I got a refund minus shipping.

I was not satisfied that, that pile of Chinese crap was the best I could get. After more reading I found totallywicked-eliquid.com and purchased a 510 starter kit. I got it in the mail and was excited. Nice professional packaging. Keep in mind this was around October 2009. The batteries were great, the liquid for a newb was great. I was hooked! I needed to find out more. I started ordering from rockymountainvapor.com the coffee VG was the best I have ever had at the time. I started doing direct drips and loved it.

I moved onto more online ordering and found great vendors like Jason from electronicstix.com and Chris from cigtechs.com. They offered this little slice of heaven called RATH juice. 100% VG vibrant flavored, clouds of vaping goodness. To me this was the pinnacle of liquid. Then December of 2009 came and I hurt my back so bad that I needed lumbar spinal fusion. Long story short the doctor told me to stop nicotine (I was a long time smoker/chewer prior to vaping).

Fast forward so after surgery and being out of work on long term disability. Money was tight as with many people, the economy sucks. My wife was a smoker and I ended up going back to cigarettes.. We got into the roll your own smokes. I could roll a whole carton for 17 bucks. Yep 17 bucks for 200 cigarettes. I was bored of it though. I ran across my old stuff and my interest in vaping reemerged.

I was out of juice except this PG liquid I got from zigcigs.com and was not a fan of PG. I quickly started looking online for more RATH juice and found out he did some grimey .... to alot of people. RATH juice was out. God I loved that mtn dewey and waffle juice so much.

This is were the point of this long post comes in. I just wanted to lay a little ground work that I knew what I was doing etc etc.

I placed to orders, one order to a prior vendor (good reputation) and one order to a new vendor. At this time I won't say who they are because I think this point should apply to all vendors now a days.

I received one order fairly fast because the person was only about 45 minutes maximum from me but didn't do local pickups. I cleaned my old atomizers and even went as far on one of them to debridge and dewick it. I drop in some liquid that was supposed to be coffee and it tasted like crap. Ok so maybe I didn't get that atty as clean as it needed to be. I grabbed the new atty I had in the order and blew out the primer and burned it etc etc. Drip drip yep taste like crap. At this point I am pretty ...... (see above about limited income and not working). I just wasted 20 bucks on crap that wasn't even checked for quality. I email the vendor and nicely state that there was an issue with the juice.

This was a portion of the email

"the coffee I got from you is pretty bad... not much coffee flavor at all don't get me wrong lots of sweet and tons of vapor just a nasty taste with the sweet... what can we do about this? I haven't used to much of it but have used it on the new atty from you also on a brigeless wickless direct drip old atty I had"

"coffee we can swap out for another flavor if you like. let me know.."

Ok cool so the vendor is being good about keeping customers and will work it out. Keep in mind I already placed one order with this vendor.

my reply:

"Thanks for the fast reply! I really hate to complain seeing as I have only made 2 orders from you and all. But yeah the coffee taste a little funky. I guess some ry4 24 mg would be the closest match to the coffee."

Long story short days pass and no mail. Had I misunderstood and needed to return the old juice? I had no idea so i shoot out another email. Long story short something somehow was lost in translation we will say.

Now we rewind to the other vendor who sent out some juice and I received it in between all this going on. Once again, all excited new juice and this was mtn dew! I even watched videos of the reviews on youtube! People claimed "it was just like opening a can and vaping the can"! I was EXCITED!! Repeat process clean out attys and drip drip drip puff puff puff...... WHAT THE .... IS THIS? Watered down sprite?? It made me nauseous to even vape the stuff?!?! I was really ...... off... what are the chances 2 vendors 2 bad juices? All I could think was 40 dollars wasted.... really just like I wadded up 40 bucks and flushed down the toilet. I contacted the new vendor politely relaying my disappointment.

This was the response:

" I am so sorry for the problems. I have been testing out a new nicotine base over the last 2 weeks and not sure its gonna work for me over here!
I am sending out a new bottle in the morning. please keep that bottle and vape it the best you can till you get this new bottle!"

Ok now to the point of this GIANT POST. Guys the vaping world isn't like walmart we can't just go make an exchange or refund. Please Please Please for the love of god quality check your products!

I mean at the very least when you are mixing chemicals it could be dangerous? Do we really really know vaping only after a few years being marketed?

We need vendors to be the rule of being excellent not the exception!

Lets take a look at what Toyota went through when they didn't check and recheck their product. Let's not do the same thing in the vaping world and drive away customers or worse have the FDA come in because vendors started killing people or something because of a bad business model of saving money or poor product.

You know as I write this there is a chance these vendors could recognize who they are based on the emails and choose not to do business with me again. That is fine if they choose to do that. But I was respectful enough not to name them.

I love the idea of vaping and the electronic cigarette or personal vaporizer whatever you want to call it. It is better then cigarettes. Let's keep it safe!

Thanks for reading my post!!

Mike

 

[swedishfish]

Welcome to the forum Mike! I have to give that second vendor credit for honesty though. And both seem pretty willing to make it right. You don't see that very often.

I've watched reviews for juices too and ordered something that was less than wonderful (to me). Taste is such a subjective thing. My very favorite juice, my sister said smells like shoe polish. What does she know!

Hope you hit on a juice you love!

 

[kenetix]

I do very much so agree that taste is subjective. That is why there are thousands of cookbooks for food and not just one. The point of the post though is a little deeper then just .....ing because I have had a very positive experience so far. As you will notice I am a member since 2009 but a post count of 2. I don't have a habit of complaining or .....ing. It was more of a "we as a community need to be more careful about how we do business if we don't want such problems as FDA DEA and doctors more involved then they already are". Take example there was one review on youtube of a guy getting a juice that made him nauseous, he seemed rather experienced in vaping. Take that same scenario of a 60 year old woman with health issues and she goes to the emergency room. Multiply that by 100 (yes it is feasible) you now have negative press on CNN "outbreak of poisonous ecigarettes public demands FDA intervention". Just saying vendors need to make sure there product is superior before doing a shipping trial and error.

 

[Standpoint]

I find liquid tastes to be very interesting. I will vape a flavor for a while, and notice that it tastes different to me on occasion than other times. In my case its not the attys or the hardware, but other tastes throughout the day that change the flavor of the vape. So if I eat a pizza then vape, I get a different flavor then if I eat a steak and then vape. This is especially true when drinking beer and coffee. There have been some flavors that when I bought them, I thought they were terrible. I set them aside, and tried them again a few weeks later, and found them to be either much better, or much worse.

What I have done to the flavors I didn't like, is to mix them with a strong menthol flavor. Then I don't waste the juice, and still get a pretty acceptable flavor, as the menthol tends to do a good job of masking.

 

[hillock]

It seems like you have been vaping these juices out of the box. I think vendors send out the juices asap hoping it steps enough by the time it arrives. "testing" it out would add an additional week to your order.

Other option is that vendors can premake the juices but that exposes then to financial loss as it uncertain how long it would remain as inventory.

 

[care]

Just saying vendors need to make sure there product is superior before doing a shipping trial and error.

Totally agree, thanks for sharing your experience!

 

[dormouse]

It does look like a Riva 510. I use a Riva. And the silver-collar Riva 510's are the special edition. What brand is the 510 atty you have? I mostly use Boge cartomizers on my Riva. The Riva can use any of the 3.0 (standard), 2.5 (a bit hotter and uses battery a bit faster), or 2.0 (hottest, uses battery faster) Boges. I just use the standard ones because I move them between the Riva and my manual slim 510's and the little 510's can only use standard resistance.

 

[kenetix]

It seems like you have been vaping these juices out of the box. I think vendors send out the juices asap hoping it steps enough by the time it arrives. "testing" it out would add an additional week to your order.

Other option is that vendors can premake the juices but that exposes then to financial loss as it uncertain how long it would remain as inventory.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/ask-veterans/96738-does-e-cig-juice-go-bad.html#post1450580

Hellen A. Handbasket states that "E-Liquid has a known shelf life of 2 years. After that, I suspect that the nicotine may become less potent, but should be vapable. "

That being said. A 2 year shelf life is a LONG time to maintain inventory and stock. There is no reason whatsoever to maintain a business model like that. So I guess under the current assumption I should order my juice 2 weeks to 1 month prior to wanting to vape it correct?

 

[unkstur]

The latest customer service reply I got from juice I didn't like was to come here and sell or trade it, next...

I agree that it is on their shoulders to keep it safe as they can and use the right stuff, not sure they have to guarantee
we will like the taste.

 

[AaronB]

Lots of good points and views made here that seem to make sense.

 

[kenetix]

Man it's the same response world wide. Good example here kitchenaid mixers used to be the number one product. They used metal gears and gear boxes. When you bought one it was passed down because it was that damn good. I think don't quote me on it but hobart used to own the kitchenaid name and it was a superior product. Then I think GE or sunbeam bought the kitchenaid name they replaced the metal gears and gear boxes with plastic and the quality went all to ..... Go to amazon and read the reviews..... I bought a cuisinart stand mixer.

I guess the best answer would be for me to mix my own and never have to worry about it then.

The few people here who have answered are newer members and I guess didn't know the quality back a few years ago.

I wasn't trying to start a flame war or be judgmental I was bringing an opinion and an observation.

To comment on earlier comment. I bought some limited spice apple something from johnsoncreek long time back. I didn't like it at all but you could tell it was made with quality in mind.

 

[Wil]

I hate that you had a bad experience! Most of the vendors I've dealt with have been great, but it is a cottage industry so it can be tough to know who you can trust.

For what it's worth, it's difficult to guarantee the quality of juices... I think that's been laid out well!

Read around and see who people seem to like. There are lots of vendors with great reputations that are frequently mentioned here...

 

[Higbe33]

Make sure you let a juice steep for a couple weeks before you trade it off. I can remember someone telling me casablanca was very good, so tired it. It tasted like ear wax smells. It was awful! Let it sit for 2 weeks and it was wonderful. Was one of my top ten favorites. Then I tried it at 5v and it now ties Boba's as my top favorite.

Hig

 

[jj2]

Take your own advice and try DIY--that's pretty much what I do these days.
Of course, I'm in your shoes, DH is disabled and I tend to pinch pennies.
Follow the link in my sig and you'll find a bunch of recipes.

 

[VapingRulz]

I don't know about all of this advice re: steeping the juice. Is that urban legend?

I've never done that and my juices from Vapor4Life, MyFreedomSmokes and Nhaler have all been very good right away - never had to wait.

 

[UntamedRose]

I don't know about all of this advice re: steeping the juice. Is that urban legend?

I've never done that and my juices from Vapor4Life, MyFreedomSmokes and Nhaler have all been very good right away - never had to wait.

Depends upon the vender and the juice. Some it does make difference others none at all.
Actually for you and the three you mentioned, I dont think(might be wrong) those are mixed to order juices. So they have likely had steeping time already if they needed it.

 

[VapingRulz]

MyFreedomSmokes was definitely made to order because I did a custom blend.

 

[phonedude]

I agree. I would also like to see merchants offer more information about their ingredients. And some need much better quality control.

I personally will not order again from the little red devil. Twice they couldn't get a simple small order right. It's a good thing a much larger dose of nicotine than I ordered ........

 

[Eddie.Willers]

Some interesting observations from the OP.

My advice (still as a relative noob - although, I guess we all are) is to take long hard look at DIY mixing as it offers the most cost-effective solution. Not only that, you can mix very small batches to try your preferred flavor and trash it if you don't like it. DIY juice costs around $0.15 per milli-liter to make - compared to three or four times that for commercially made juices.

Box-Elder Chemical have 50% off on their unflavored nic juice at the moment and there's lots of places selling LorAnn flavorings at a buck & half or so for 1 dram (which should give you more than 30Ml of juice)

 

[kenetix]

Good to see some people out there at least acknowledging the fact that vendors need to be a little more accountable. Thanks for at least reading the story. I just hope some of the vendors out there had a chance to read it and not be offended but inspired!