Juice Review: Sweet lovin' tobacco by Cheshire Imperium

One of the things I love the most about vaping is the endless selection of flavours. When vapesandjuices.com contacted me and asked if I wanted to do some reviews, I hadn't even heard of the juices they wanted me to try out, so I actually also decided I wouldn't read any reviews or check them out much more before trying them out either, save reading the manufacturers own description, just to kind of dive into this without any idea what to expect. I've already written a review of Potion vape's Caramel Turtle, and now it's time for another one of these juices that I had not heard about, Sweet lovin' tobacco by Cheshire Imperium.

Sweet lovin' tobacco
Tested on: Kanger Subtank (RDA @ 0.4 ohm, 20-25 watts)

Cheshire Imperium describes this juice like this: "Most definitely an all-day tobacco vape!  It carries notes of nuttiness and hay, with a slightly sweet finish." The color of this juice is pretty pale so by looking at it and smelling it, I expect a pretty mild, sweet all day vape like they say... and they're right. It's pretty sweet, pretty nutty but the tobacco flavour still comes across nicely. It's most definitely an all day vape candidate, but also a juice that goes well with a cup of coffee in the morning... or in the evening. Now I haven't tried it with beer but I'm sure that will work too. A proper all-round juice I'd say. It's not that packed with flavour as I've gotten used to lately doing the Djinni range reviews, but it's rather mild and relaxing. All in all a juice I'd recommend trying out both for experienced vapers and beginners wanting a tobacco flavour to get them off the cigarettes.

 
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Disclosure:

• All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product. 
• The juice was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
• This review contains affiliate links.

Norwegian Institute of Public Health completely missing the point

Per Schwarze, Department 
director for Air Pollution 
and Noise, Norwegian Institute 
of Public Health, who published,
the answer to Dr. Farsalinos

Last week the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) published their report on "Health risks associated with the use of electronic cigarettes". The biggest problem with the report is their focus on nicotine and their claims that since the amount of nicotine in the air in an e-cigarette users home and and a smokers home are statistically similar, we can expect that nicotine from passive vaping and passive smoking will cause similar harm. This in itself is actually true. It will cause the same amount of harm: NONE! It is not the nicotine in passive smoking that causes harm, and it does not cause bystanders to get addicted.

Dr. Farsalinos tried to explain this to NIPH last week, and yesterday NIPH published an answer to Dr. Farsalinos. As you can see they are completely missing (or ignoring) the point made by Dr. Farsalinos here, and keep focusing on how the data from different reports are different and that there is a chance that vaping exposes bystanders to similar amounts of nicotine as smoking does. They refuse to retract their report. But this is all completely irrelevant. Dr. Farsalinos did not want the NIPH to retract the whole report, but simply to retract the part where it says that this nicotine exposure causes harm.

I'm glad to see that Dr. Farsalinos does not give up, and that he published another answer to the NIPH on his blog. I think this one makes it pretty clear what he meant the first time, and I hope that the NIPH will have the guts to publicly admit that their focus on nicotine from passive vaping (and smoking) is in fact irrelevant and should not cause any worries. As I've said earlier, the rest of their report is pretty well balanced, even though I do think they use too much time and effort explaining possible harm from substances that they later conclude are probably present at levels so low that they will not cause any harm anyway. So in a way they have shown that they are reasonable people and acknowledge that one has to look at the levels of the substances when you consider the risks associated with them. Hopefully they will be able to see this when it comes to nicotine as well.

Let me make this very clear: There are studies indicating that passive vapers will absorb similar levels of nicotine to those absorbed by passive smokers, but that does not mean it will cause them any harm, or in fact affect them at all.

 
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Juice Review: Djinni Range from Decadent Vapors, Part 3

So I've emptied the 3 last bottles from the Djinni range, which means it's time for the 3rd and final part of this series of reviews. In part one I mentioned that there was one of the flavors I really didn't look that much forward to, and since I told you in part 2 that I'm not that fond of floral flavors it might not surprise anyone that Turkish Delight is the one I was talking about.

Frostbite 
Tested on: Aspire Nautilus (1.6 ohm, 15 watts)

Frostbite is the only menthol juice in the Djinni range. For some reason I haven't vaped menthol for quite some time now. Well actually I've not vaped that much menthol at all to be honest, which is kind of strange when I think about it, cause I really do like menthol. Anyway, with a name like this I expected this to be a really icy menthol, but actually it's not the hardest hitting menthol out there. It is a blend of peppermint and menthol, and I think the peppermint is kind of taking some of the edge off making the juice smoother, and I really think that's a good thing. I mean, even if I do like the really icy menthols as well I don't think I could vape those all day, but the Frostbite is more easy going and actually a menthol that could be an all day vape for me. It is still packed with flavour, as all the juices in this range are, and you get all the delicious menthol aftertaste you'd expect, but again Decadent Vapours have done some really nice balancing work giving this juice just the right amount of punch. As I said I haven't really vaped that many menthol juices, but this is definitely one of the best ones I've tried, if not the best.

Berry Crush
Tested on: Kanger Subtank (RDA @ 0.4 ohm, 20-25 watts)

Berry Crush was one of the juices in this range that I really looked forward too trying out. A blend of blackcurrant, raspberries and other berries sounds like something that I would like. The smell of the juice doesn't make it any less tempting either. And of course, again, it's a juice packed with flavour. It does taste a bit familiar but I can't really put my finger on where I've tasted this before, but it's great. Mixing blackcurrant and raspberries kind of creates a new flavour so I feel I couldn't really taste the individual flavours that much, but that doesn't really matter, cause the "new" flavour is so good. It does also have kind of a candy feeling about it. Definitely one of my favourites from the Djinni range.

Turkish Delight
Tested on: UD IGO-W8 RDA (Tripple-coil 0.6 ohm's, 30-50 watts)

Last but not least I tried out the juice that I had serious doubts about. You see I don't really like Turkish delight, in fact I find it kind of annoying. Cause they look so much better than they taste in my opinion. It's that rose water taste that I think messes the whole thing up. Nevertheless I decided to try it out on a dripper on high wattage, just to really get all the flavour out of it. And to my surprise, I actually don't hate it. Weird. Cause the rose flavour is still there, but not as pronounced as I feared. It's mixed with a bunch of citrus flavour that I kind of like, both on the inhale and on the exhale. I've tried Turkish delight several times, but always get disappointed, but this juice on the other hand was actually getting better and better as I vaped it. I don't think I can say I love it yet, and I'm not sure I'll ever do that, but I don't hate it like I thought I would. As I said, it has got a lot of flavour and I honestly believe that if you're one of those weirdos that like Turkish delight... this would be spot on for you.



Disclosure:

• All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product. 
• The juice was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
• This review does not contain affiliate links.

Juice Review: Caramel Turtle by Potion Vape

I had not heard about Potion Vape before vapesandjuices.com contacted me a while ago and asked me if I wanted to do some juice reviews. And I have to admit, even though I love caramel, I've only tasted a few caramel e-juices that has actually managed to get this taste right. So what about Potion Vape... have they nailed it?

Caramel turtle
Tested on: Kanger Subtank (RDA @ 0.4 ohm, 20-25 watts)

The Caramel Turtle is not a pure caramel juice, but rather a blend of pecan and caramel. To me it seems like mixing caramel with some other flavours instead of trying to make a pure caramel juice is a good idea, cause the pure caramel juices I've tasted have usually been kind too much for me. This juice smells more of the nuts than caramel. Actually I don't get much caramel at all from the smell. When you vape it on the other hand, the caramel is most definitely there. It's actually very well balanced. I'm don't think I can say that any of the flavours are dominating. I'd say it's pretty much 50/50 pecan/caramel, maybe with the nuts a bit more pronounced on the inhale, and the other way around on the exhale. This makes the juice pretty smooth and easy to like... and it goes well with your morning coffee. For me this is more of a winter/cold weather kind of juice than a fresh summer juice. It's kind of... cozy if you see what I mean. Here in Norway we have quite a lot of winter and cold rainy days, so this is also a good candidate for an all day vape up here.

 
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Disclosure:

• All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product. 
• The juice was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
• This review contains affiliate links.

SIRUS and Institute for Public Health in TV debate

Cathrine Skårn demonstrates vaping, live on
national tv.

On Tuesday I wrote about the new report published by the Norwegian Institute for Public Health (NIPH) and the media coverage of this. It was news agency NTB that wrote the misleading article focusing on possible harm to bystanders that would inhale nicotine ... and possibly get addicted and start smoking. Yeah right... so eating eggplant would put you in the danger zone as well then I guess?

The report itself, is not that bad in fact. As Dr. Farsalinos pointed out, it does have some serious errors, and those are of course creating problems in the media, but the report also concludes very clearly that e-cigarettes are a lot healthier than cigarettes, and that they could have very positive effect on public health. The issues we're left with is the gateway theory and nicotine exposure from "passive vaping".

I was hoping that SIRUS and Karl Erik Lund would help us explain to the public and the politicians that these issues are in fact nothing to worry about, and of course they did not let me down. The morning after, one of Norway's biggest TV channels, TV2, covered the case in the morning news. Not only did we get Karl Erik Lund in the studio discussing the report with head of NIPH, Camilla Stoltenberg, but we also got a live interview with Cathrine Skårn, board member of the Norwegian Union of Vapers (NDS). She did a fantastic job explaining what NDS is, what they're working for, what vaping is and that vaping is not smoking. As I've said so many times now, this fight will be fought in the media, and getting this kind of coverage on national TV is a huge step forward.


After the interview there is a debate in the studio with Karl Erik Lund and Camilla Stoltenberg. The whole thing is of course in Norwegian. I'm not going to translate the whole thing, just some important bits. It does indeed seem like the NIPH has a much more positive attitude towards vaping than what has been communicated in the newspapers this week. The first question from the host goes to Stoltenberg:

Host: ... our reporter talked to this woman who is very satisfied with her vaping. The question is: When she sits there vaping, is my colleague, Johannes, exposed to a form of passive smoking?

Stoltenberg: First of all I'd like to say that I totally agree with her that vaping is less dangerous than smoking and that it is much better that people that smoke switch to vaping. This is an important part of this picture. But when it comes to passive vaping, the point in the report is that passive vaping exists, and that one exposes the surroundings to levels of nicotine that in some cases might be comparable to those from passive tobacco smoking and quite a few other substances that it is difficult to say anything about the effects of in the long term. And it is in fact difficult to say anything about the effects of vaping in the long term because we don't have many studies on this.

Host: But how dangerous is it?

Stoltenberg: It is not very dangerous, because we are talking about low levels [of these substances], so if you compare it to tobacco smoking and passive tobacco smoking it is less dangerous. Our point is that it is not risk free, and we don't know enough about it.

After this, Karl Erik Lund agrees that vaping is not totally risk free, and says that no one has claimed that either. He then turns to explain the problem with how this was presented in the media the day before.

Lund: It is not the nicotine that is the dangerous substance in passive smoking for the bystanders, it is the nitrosamines, it's the monoxide, it's the metals and we don't have any of these in passive vaping...

Host: ... but there is nicotine?

Lund: There is nicotine, but the levels are so low that they are 10 times lower than what the The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has defined as a health risk, so focusing on that we can compare the nicotine exposure from these two products is a derailment of the debate about how to regulate these products...

After this Stoltenberg admits that even though they have focused on nicotine there are great uncertainties when it comes to how significant this is. The rest of the debate is mainly about how this should be regulated and whether we should use the precautionary principle. Stoltenberg also says that we will probably see different kinds of regulation in different countries and that we should monitor how these work when it comes to how many that quit smoking. She also claims that we don't know enough yet (yawn), but Lund explains that we actually do know a lot and that we need to regulate in a way that encourages smokers to switch to a product that also the NIPH now say exists. Finally, Stoltenberg say that they're mainly worried about the people that haven't started yet and that vaping might become common, even though she doesn't tell us why she thinks this is a problem.

To sum up, I think this TV coverage partly balanced out some of the misinformation from the day before. Karl Erik Lund does a great job as usual, no complaints there... and thank you again for your great efforts. Stoltenberg and the NIPH on the other hand... well they do seem more positive than ever. They do say that e-cigarettes work and that they are reducing harm and they can't really present any big issues. But it seems like they still want to say that they are worried. It almost seem like they need to be concerned, because they want to regulate. Since they haven't really found any big problems, they say they don't know enough yet. But let's not forget that they do very clearly state that e-cigarettes are a lot less harmful than cigarettes now, and that is another step in the right direction.

 

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