Opening Salvo from CloudyCaptain

They say if you want to throw away money, then buy a boat. Apparently “they” don’t know anything about owning a vape website.

I owe the community a little bit of back ground, and explanation of what motivates me to show up here and keep feeding the wild animals instead of just letting nature take its course. And, I am on vacation right now, and that makes me want to rant, so stand by for a wall of text….

Here it is: I got into vape 2011/2012 by observing some friends use it to quit smoking. I was an officer in the US Marine Corps at the time and started handing out ciga-like devices and hangsen type juice to some colleagues who smoked. Was like magic for them.

Got out of the Corps (I joined later in life after already having worked and started several successful businesses and was never interested in a military career), and was dead set on starting something in Vape. Started visiting shops, testing hardware and juices…

“Double bottom line” was a popular business buzz word back then where you have 1) your financial bottom line, and 2) the social benefit/good that you do for the world, and helping people quit smoking was so obvious and ideal blend of these two. My grandfather died of lung cancer after picking up a cigarette habit in the Army occupying Germany following the War. All the shops I visited were purely marketing to adults helping them quit cigs.

Loyalty programs for turning in your analog, and customer quit counseling was standard. It was great and everyone was so excited about this super accessable and straight forward technology that could help you do things 90% of people failed at over and over.

After visiting about 100 small local vape shops (2012-2013 US Vape shops were essentially a DIYers Mixing room with a bunch of high ohm hardware for sale on a glass table) I realized that nobody was making Flavoring from the ground up for use in vape. It was all repurposed with existing consumer flavors from DIY beverage (Eg, Capellas coffee drops), Candy (Eg Flavor West hard candy supplies), Air freshner/perfume (eg TPA), and baking (Eg, Flavor Art) flavors. As I dug into the “competition” I realized that these companies really didn’t know anything about vape, except that they were the ones buying….

Funny thing, It turns out at the time a good friend was the owner of a third generation Family flavoring house based in the USA and he did extensive work for the big tobacco companies (spray flavoring loose tobacco)… Meaning his chemists knew all of the inhalation toxicology and suitable ingredients for making flavors in a vape as well.

We set out to make a new line of flavors that eliminated as many of the the hazardous inhalation compounds possible that we thought would help us pass over the regulatory hurdles FDA would eventually create. I launched the brand with 20 flavors for feedback to the reddit DIY_ejuice mods, and they let me post on the sub and hand out some samples without getting harassed. And that is how Flavorah was born.

The first golden Era of vape was from 2014-2017. That’s when I really fell in love with the vape community. Everyone was a flavor chaser. Everyone was excited to try the newest juice, and its what helped people break the chains of their tobacco habits. Got a new tank or coil- how does it taste? Got a new VV/VW chip-How does it taste? Got a new drip tip or squonk- How does it taste? Got a new crazy caterpillar basket fusion fishnet coil- How does it taste?

Flavoring was everything, and we (Flavorah) became the secret weapon of thousands of juice brands when everything else tasted like the same cap/fa/tfa. We were hoping that our prior work behind the compounding would result in our customers’ continued success since we were not going to need reformulations and V2/V3 flavors once things started getting regulated.

In 2017/18 salt nic became mainstream and people stopped caring as much about their flavors. 50mg salt nic in the US opened the door to younger people vaping, and its was what started to give vape a bad name (plus a heavy bolus of propaganda). The OGs still chased flavors or quit, but the newbies had a hard time navigating escaping the salt mines out there.

Since the beginning, my own journey and Flavorah’s has been rooted in DIY. Of course when I say that to this audience you know I mean vape, but after our Government decided in 2016 that there was too much tax and control to lose if they let vape progress and become mainstream, we have had to pivot our brand. No longer using the tag line, “Flavorah, the flavoring for Vape,” We now consider every kind of DIY as an in road to where the real money is for a flavoring company (commercial/trade accounts making millions of units of consumer products).

So, it’s the big brands buying our products by gallons and totes that keeps the lights on, but it’s the DIYers who mix stuff, criticize, and complain about everything that makes it better and keeps me motivated. DIYers remind me of the good old days. Most of us/them have not changed really. We are still flavor chasers. Freebase nicotine, or none at all.

I am sad when I think of all DIY resellers who seem to come and go so frequently. I am frustrated by my colleagues in the space who push out the sub-brand flavor lines based on something from a Chinese alibaba-lab or another rebottle of TFA or FA, or V5 inawera…. Whatever. Sadly, they are mostly in it for a quick buck and the tide is falling, not rising so it doesn’t last long. I hope someone committed survives long enough who can be relied on for UK resale of DIY flavoring. And I hope we all survive the race-to-the-bottom that is bar juice.

Notice how everything is always on sale? That means its about to go away… Get some if you want a memento or a collectible. Unfortunately, the culture of producing quality products for the long run is not very strong any more in this space (puff-bar anyone?). And since people have decided that cheap is better than good, that’s just what they prefer now, and its what they will get going forward.

I didn’t think I would ever have to say something like this, but I am actually worried now that some of the device makers (Vaporesso, Oxva, Uwell, etc.) could end up struggling since they are bundling cheap Chinese juice with their quality Chinese hardware. Snakes eating their own tails. What they should have been up to is partnering with indigenous brands and promoting the national ecosystem of craft, artisan and quality local juices to match up with their best new coils and pods. What an old Scot named Adam Smith called specialization, division of labor and opportunity cost.

If it wasn’t for the food and beverage industry anchoring our trade (flavoring), there would not be talented flavor chemists to refine and perfect the products.

And if it were not for national brands taking pride in their recipes and UK based production (think Dinner Lady, Mirage, Flooid, Aromaxy etc.) then there would not be flavor manufacturers like Flavorah offering to distract themselves for a small hostel full of deviants and bottle up their products in itsy bitsy droppers.

Us cheapskate DIYers are the guys who used to rescue half smoked cigs from ash trays. You won’t find a better group of neurotic, obsessive and thrifty scavengers. In fact, that’s exactly how I ended up owning this website and the other one (alltheflavors) … Abandoned early in life, still intact, still smoking, and worth risking a couple drags.

SO, here is what I’d like you all to think about in return for me footing the bills on this site:
• Buy your national brands with proper quality ingredients if you are going to buy commercial ejuice. If the Chinese won’t let their own people buy the latest bar salt, you think they will look out for you when they dump them all on the shops for free sale?

• Pay full price for your diy flavorings because the guy selling them is not making much, if anything hawking them to you. And it is YOU who will drive him out of business with your constant deal/discount shopping and customer service complaints. I miss Chefs Flavors, and they tried.

• Throw every disposable in the trash where it belongs and never stoop to that level again.

• Post your recipes. All of them. Help newbs mix them, and share extra juice you make with the ingredients printed on the label. You think something is so special that it needs to be a secret? Probably not that good then.

• Don’t be a jerk, and don’t get offended. This community has a future if it welcomes and teaches people about how to quit smoking and enjoy their vapes.

Seems like its been doing a pretty good job of keeping this website well run, long before I showed up. Lets make sure together that continues, so don’t be the guy/gal who messes it up. A wise Chinese proverb once said, “even the smallest fart can foul the largest elevator.”

TLDR: Have some respect and start at the top. There’s no shortcuts to a good vape. F-disposables!

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Well said :clap:

I have updated the forum today to the latest version and removed the ads :+1:

Pinned this topic too

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Helluva an opening salvo!

I’m on the other side of the spectrum that started during that Golden age. Started mixing in 2015, 3 weeks after I started vaping and have never had a puff on a smoke since then. I realized ejuice would be the most expensive consumable and with the raw components available, if they could mix it so could I, plus the sweeteners killed me.

Starting with some dude only selling TFA, nic, VG, and PG on kijiji here in Canada I’ve only bought less than 5 bottles of commercial juice. I made friends with a vape store owner and staff, so I still get to sample commercial juice as all vendors give samples so they will get their products promoted. I’d try to talk mixing with that owner who had a personal line and another manufacturer but was met with a deer in headlights glaze. I came to find out most of their lines were white label products from a local lab and the biggest issue was paying $1 for their flashy chrome inspired label.

My first mix was a spectacular flop. I found ECF and joined an all TFA thread, reddit, where the world opened up to me. I clearly remember the greats of the time. Abdada, Skiddlzninja, Fizzmustard, Concrete River, and that other ‘unnamed’ where every recipe starts with sweetener, got all pissy, packed his bag of marbles and deleted his posts on the way out the door.

I have not seen flavor reseller’s going broke up here. Canada’s biggest vape retailer drives a Ferrari, my lowly TFA friend has an expensive Jaguar, the vape store owner was up to 3 stores and retired from his real day job. There’s still meat on that bone where pricing is concerned.

I buy where my money goes the furthest. Inawera and Molinberry in Poland, Flavourart in Italy, and from (used to be) Chefs in England. My first foray into Chefs took 5 days to my door, and mainly due to your Alpine Strawberry at a ridiculously low price. My last order was before the sale to Darkstar and not bought from either since then.

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A huge welcome to you, @cloudycaptain :wave: And, thanks for telling us all a bit about yourself. With your credentials in the vape industry, it’s comforting to know that you didn’t take this place on just for the money…hehe. :smile:

Agreed!

@Grubby has done an excellent job, keeping both the VC forum, and calculator on the cutting edge. Alway’s willing to listen, and tweak the site, he will be missed…unless you can twist his arm into staying close, to help keep us miscreants in line!

And, thank you for your service, Brendan!

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Good Morning All,

Brendan/@cloudycaptain can’t tell you how good it is to hear from you - helluva introduction and welcome to Vaping Community. First and foremost, Thank You for your service. Clearly you’ve been a leader in the industry for quite some time. Your extensive perspectives on the industry shed a great deal of light on the industry, and they were great to hear, particularly:

I find my story similar to @Wayneo. I started vaping in approx. 2019, mainly as part of an effort to quit “other substances,” and I’ve been successful with that, so I’m a success story! I also first bought 4 e-liquids from the Milkman line, then started mixing my own and never looked back or bought another e-liquid. And, oh yeah - I’ve mixed my share of flops.

Two of your final suggestions really caught my attention:

I believe I’ve consistently posted about the sense of polite and respectful help and community that I feel from the folks here, and it’s a feeling I don’t get from one of the other sites that I visit daily.

I believe, in the past, I’ve also consistently mentioned that I’m not a real “mixologist.” Most of the time I use the Cosmic Truth calculator and flavor median values to adapt real mixologists’ recipes for my own use, with the flavors I have (up to about 150 now!) Upon consideration, and from your suggestion, that may change and I may start posting them. The one thing I can promise without compromise is that the originator of any recipe I adapt will get full and total credit if I post a remix. Every time.

I’m sure I’ve also been consistent in offering my sincere Thanks to @Grubby, @woftam, and @Steampugs, and in a large part, @SessionDrummer (and so many un-named others) for creating, curating, and maintaining Vaping Community. In light of your news that it was essentially a money losing endeavor, that effort was clearly the definition of sacrifice in the name of the community. Again Brendan/@cloudycaptain it’s great to have you with us.

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Well @cloudycaptain, I have TWO things to say to YOU Sir. …

Oooorah, and Semper Fi Sir, I had no idea, but now that I do, I’m not surprised.

I just returned into to find this post, and man, it was an OUTSTANDING READ !!!

Very much love(d) the details, info, and back story, which again, I did not know. I am about 150% in agreement with everything you’ve said (plus or minus 1-2% LOL).

I couldn’t agree more.

Welcome to the VC Brendan. You will fit in here more than you know.

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IMG_4704

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Welcome aboard @cloudycaptain! I’ve been mixing primarily with Flavorah since I started following @SmokyBlue many years ago. I believe I have all your flavors, even cucumber and brie cheese… :wink:

Thanks for taking this place under your wing! You never know, you may even like it here… :rofl:

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Great to see you again, @gopher_byrd !

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Welcome to the VC @gopher_byrd.

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Welcome back GB!

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Thanks guys, it’s been awhile.

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It’s not often that a single post has me glued to my screen like this, but damn, what a read! That was an absolute masterclass in both storytelling and hard truths. Hats off to you, Captain.

I’m genuinely glad you came on board and threw this community of misfits a lifeline. Some places fade into obscurity when leadership loses passion, but this place? This place is still standing because of the people who refuse to let it die. And now, with you at the helm, I have no doubt it’ll keep sailing strong.

One thing I’d like to point out—this isn’t just a UK club. We’ve got vape addicts from all over the world here, all bound by one thing: an undying love for this industry, this craft, and this way of life. Whether we’re mixing, tinkering, or just chasing that ever-elusive perfect puff, we all share the same fire.

And speaking of fire, the one thing you said that I could not agree with more—F*** disposables. Seriously. If we wanted to suck on overpriced, underwhelming, landfill-filling garbage, we’d be smoking cigarettes.

Glad to have you here, Captain. This ship just got a hell of a lot stronger.

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The only time I buy commercial is to deconstruct it and remake it as a better DIY product.

Amen brother you don’t save much with the discounts anyway.

Amen again!!!

Sorry can’t post all of them too many legal ramifications. lol :joy:

Agreed this site is for building, creating great e-liquids and helping others to do the same. Threads should be about eliquids, flavorings, mods generally anything to do with vaping.

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Hoping to get some clarification. Not sure what you mean by, National Brands. Been getting my stuff from Bull City Flavors, here in the US. They do have a lot of sales. Am I supporting you’re ideals?

If not, who do you recommend.

Oh, wait, I see you said commercial juice, no t flavors. Sorry, getting on in years, makes it difficult to follow text. I want to support your ideas, as I agree with your logic. How can I support the MFG’s of flavor builders? Besides buying your brand exclusively?

I want to do everything I can to support vaping. My 2 kids quite smoking this way.

Given you spell flavor “Correctly” (Ahem) I’m assuming you’re American? Just curious.

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Ok, It was my intention to let this stew for a little while before I reply.

Firstly, thank you for the warm, generous, and patient reception! I have received several very kind DMs expressing desire to help fund the site. Those are very well received and a testament to the quality people here.

To be honest (TBH) the real cost is not so much the $$ for hosting, but rather the expertise and computer developer time that is needed to keep things operating. There are constant & required “Upgrades” to software like this that are also poison if you do not have the right team managing their implementation. SO, @Grubby has been kind enough to help some of the devs I work with get a grasp of everything going on, and make sure that the site stays up as we figure out new processes etc. Unless you are a dev, I don’t think its possible to understand the constant battle that keeping a sophisticated webapp like this one running is… That said, if you are familiar with JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, or PostgreSQL and want to be part of the management team, you are very welcome and can DM me.

@Wayneo I see you are from the reddit “Old Guard.” Abdada+ the rest of those characters made DIY and by extension proper vaping what it is! I think history should credit them with milliions of ex-smokers saved. Canada has some “big fish” in a small pond. Despite some great successes in the past though, everyone is just a pen-stroke away from going out of business :frowning: The Ferrari driver is a very clever fellow, and more diversified than just Canada as you would expect. Some of the others who you might interact with, such as Kelly Mann at (diyflavors.ca) are among the most honest and dedicated business people I have encountered anywhere in the world.

This is always nice for the first guy, and also the one after you to see the artistic process and progression, I believe.

@SessionDrummer YUTT!

Thanks! If somebody knows SmokeyBlue, then I know they have a very good palate, are probably still using a dripper, and likely a full palette of flavors to mix from. Flavorah is still making new flavors! DM and i’ll send you the pre-release… Glad you are here!

@OldGoat I started to understand this a few years ago when Reddit and then Facebook, and more silently- Google- started to delete our communities and content. That was a big motivation for why I took over All The Flavors Recipe Database as well. Its not the money (if I wanted that, I would sell Chinese disposables) it was the knowledge and GLOBAL community. I view places like this as little life boats of geniuses, tycoons, and priests trying to find land after the mother ship got nuked by mainstream content platforms.

Happy to clarify this…

Point #1, There are several kinds of vaping, and not all are the same or of equal value to society. The category is fraught with confusion, and consumers only have a little bit of discernment, while the public essentially has none. Let me define how I think of them (preaching to the choir here):

  • TradVape aka “Ecigs”- Smoking cessation, health and wellness products based on open system with rechargeable battery, rebuildable/replaceable atomizers and coils meant for PG/VG solvent “ejuice.” Typically starting with nicotine, and often titrated down to zero active ingredients. Users are empowered by diverse flavorings, and knowledge of how to use them in their device.

  • BarVape or PodMod vape - Smoking replacement, typically in a modern “PodMod” where you grab cheap ejuice with max nicotine meant for filling an empty pod with a rechargeable battery and offset your smoking habit. A reality that is embraced by countries where they don’t rely on tobacco taxes to fund political pet projects. I think this is about 20% of the UK market.

  • Disposables A giant category of mass produced products that are sold to impulsive young people by corner shops and band roadies that arrive in an unmarked box from somewhere in The Orient. They are shockingly cheap, and nobody really knows what’s in them, until they are thrown on the ground, run over by a truck and the contents are displayed on the street curb. In the past they have been filled with everything from Vitamin E + Synthetic THC (Spice), to various unreacted acids and nicotine (Chinese Salts), exotic artificial sweeteners, and metals resulting in various forms of head rush and flavor blindness reported in the media. This is sadly 80% of the garbage out there in the wild, and the reason the public knows nothing about “proper” vapes.

  • THC Vapes - A novel scourge to the USA of potentially harmful oil solvent cartridge “vapes” that is lumped in with smoking cessation ecigs in the public mind, and the leverage (along with disposables) that continues to lift the propaganda in order to scare teachers and mothers about the dangers of vape in general.

Point #2

If you are buying flavor concentrates for DIY in the USA, then you are fully within your rights according to the FDA to do whatever you want with them including make nicotine e-juice. If you are in Germany, that might not be the case.

My point is to not buy everything that is made cheap in China if you can avoid it. I’ll limit my rant, but regardless of whether it is Chinese made flavorings, or Chinese ejuice bundled with devices (a recent trend) it will not help maintain our TradVape culture and market in whatever country you reside… In the USA, there were plenty of “national brands” like ProVari, BilletBox, and others who made hardware. And just about every town had its own ejuice brand. That’s no longer the case because most were regulated into bankruptcy. The ones that remain solvent are exporting to other countries, but the Chinese products were never following regulations, so they always remain. Maybe I would have been better off saying “stick with TradVape,” instead of just sounding nationalistic.

Want to fight the man? Then just make your own ejuice.

@Grubby has done an excellent job keeping both the VC forum and calculator on the cutting edge. Thank you all for sticking around, and lets keep this place going!

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Hehe, yes, no hesitation or regrets in saying so.

Yes, he absolutely has.

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Yeah, I’ve pretty much interacted with them all, it’s been almost 10 years mixing for me.

If he were really clever he’d at least stock the Top100 flavors (which used to be shown at ATF) but I don’t go there often. And if you mention Kelly (a dude) you should have also mentiond the lovely Amanda. :wink:

Never bought a single China flavoring, but have bought from U.K, Italy, Poland. North America direct from the mfg. Worst being Inawera who charged VAT but still cheaper than in my own backyard.

Amen to both. :+1:

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Microsoft and Cisco certified, retired in '08. Trust me, I feel your pain! Sorry, hate programming. First saw it in GWbasic. WTF? Forever loop, if this, do that, else do something different?

I DID build a blog for myself, just to learn. Wanted to play with Apache, PHP and MySQL. Had an app called DreamWeaver. GUI. Took the brain work outta things. 30 day trial. Set the date of the PC to 10 years ahead, installed the app, set the date back and it said 3650 days left on your trial.

So, I REALLY wanna help out! I can’t program, but I think the wife will let me help those who help me quit smoking.

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