Juice Review: Il bacio by Suprem-e

I'm actually not sure if I've tried Italian made e-liquid before, but I do like Italian food. I mean who doesn't? Suprem-e writes quite a lot about their efforts to make safe products on their website, but they were involved in the case where Cloud9 tested some juices and decided to withdraw the whole Five Pawns range. The juice I'm reviewing here was also withdrawn due to detectable DA and AP. Still the amounts found was in this one was not very high and probably not put in there on purpose. I don't know if Suprem-e has taken steps to fix this, and I can't really find any info on it either (feel free to comment if you know anything). However, as I said, the amounts found in this juice is so low that I'm not worried about it, as the levels are around the limits Dr. Farsalinos have mentioned earlier as probably just contaminants in the flavourings used. As I said, personally I feel vaping this is perfectly safe, but I also feel that test results should be published so every vaper can make an educated choice.

Il Bacio

Tested on: Steamcrave RDTA (OCC head @ 0.3 ohms, 30-40 watts)

I don't speak Italian... at all. So when I first saw the name of this juice I just assumed that "bacio" meant tobacco. Sounds reasonable doesn't it? To be perfectly honest I didn't even check it out before I tasted it... and it tasted didn't taste tobacco... it tastes like Hazelnut. So I had to check out what Il Bacio means, and according to google it means "The kiss". Anyway... after this little surprise, I do think this juice is quite good. It is not a pure Hazelnut e-juice, there is also chocolate in there. Kind of reminds me a bit of a chocolate we got here in Norway with whole hazelnuts in it. It's the same flavours, but different balance. This has much more nuts and the chocolate is more in the background. The nuts are pretty authentic with a little bite to it. I have to be honest, hazelnuts and chocolate is not my favourite flavour combo, but it doesn't at all taste bad and I can easily enjoy this juice for days, and for those of you who just love chocolate with nuts in it... try this one.

Thanks to esmokes.se sending me this juice for review. They also provided this code for 10% off: VG2015

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 do not affiliate links.

Juice Review: Kringle's Curse by Halo

Halo has been around for as long as I can remember. I remember considering at their mini tank system when I was looking for a really easy to fill cig-alike starter kit for a smoker I know that I've still not managed to convince that vaping is the way to go. Pre-filled didn't quite do the job and cartos were way to complicated to fill. Yeah, Mum, I'm talking about you again. Anyway, Halo also make e-liquids, and from what I've seen they get quite good reviews. I have to say, however, that even if Halo's website looks pretty good, clean and professional I do have some issues with it. First of all, they call themselves Halo cigs... not e-cigs or vapes or whatever. In their "Why Halo?"-section they also talk about "American Made Smoke Juice". It's not a huge issue, but I do feel Halo should do a better job making sure new users understand that vaping and smoking is not the same thing. Anyway, that being said, let's move on to the review of the e-liquid that esmokes.se sent me :)

Kringle's Curse

Tested on: Aspire Triton (0.4 ohms, 30-40 watts)

Kringle's Curse is part of Halo's Gourmet range. Pure peppermint, according to the description... and it sure smells like it. Opening the iconic blue bottle you get a pretty strong, fresh peppermint smell. The taste... is also very true to the description. Spot on, I'd say. A cool, pretty sweet peppermint. Great balance when it comes to sweetness, just sweet enough without being sickening, which also makes this a great all day vape. No surprises here but a lot of flavour, good throat hit and decent vapour-production. I can really see why this one has gotten very positive reviews. Great juice that I've got no problems recommending. Halo have also tested their juice for Diacetyl and Acetyl Propionyl, and published the results, which is a big plus in my opinion. Now if they would just stop using the word smoke on their website I'd be really happy with them :)

Thanks to esmokes.se sending me this juice for review. They also provided this code for 10% off: VG2015

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 do not affiliate links.

E-cig April Fools' jokes becomes reality?

Seems to me it's in the UK all the fun is happening at the moment. While most of the European vapers, Norwegians included, are struggling hard with stubborn, clueless, greedy public health officials and politicians, eager to make sure their sin taxes are not lost, the UK probably has the strongest public health support in the world right now. Since Public Health England did a U-turn, publishing their famous report concluding that e-cigarettes are at least 95% safer than smoking cigarettes, it seems to me that things are moving in the right direction. I'm not saying they're there yet. There are still some pretty big obstacles in the way, the TPD being by far the biggest one in my opinion, but when they're discussing whether e-cigs should be provided on the NHS they're obviously miles ahead of the rest of us. Back here in Norway we're still fighting our Health Minister that wants plain packaging... on snus(!). Great article on his failures here by the way (Google translates "snus" to "snuff", and you should be aware that "Sats" is a well known fitness center chain in Norway).

This morning I read the Ashtray blogs' post on E-cigarette Summit III, which I think will be an extremely interesting event. The one thing that really caught my attention was the paragraph on "The tobacco endgame":

Perhaps the most controversial presentation will made by the Royal Society of Public Health.

The society will ask if we should encourage all smokers towards safer nicotine products, making cigarettes as we know them today illegal.

The reason for this?

They feel that now we have e-cigs, there’s no need for tobacco cigarettes.

The funny thing is that I ran this post on the April 1st 2014. In my April Fools post I had our prime minister stating that "With the new electronic cigarettes there is no need for the deadly tobacco cigarettes any more". Pretty much the same that RSPH now suggests. A lot of people actually believed that post by the way, some French forums went all crazy about it. Now I do realize that there is quite a long way from RSPH calling for a ban on tobacco cigarettes, replacing them with e-cigs, to a government implementing it, but it's still quite interesting to see that someone is actually suggesting it. I don't believe the WHO has ever done that. They instead want to ban what could lead to the tobacco endgame. For this reason, Margaret Chan will now receive "Winston Man" David Goerlitz' medal "World Health Medal of Honor" back with instructions to "put it where the sun does not shine". Great gesture, David!

I have to admit I do think it will be a while until we see an actual tobacco ban. I'm not sure it would really be the way to go either, at least not yet. But who knows. Since April 1st 2014 quite a lot has happened, at least in the UK. The things we believed back then would never happen... well have a look at the Ashtray blog's post from April 1st 2014: Massive EU About Turn on Ecigs. Quite far fetched back then, but the U-turn that UK Public Health have done isn't that far away from what James' joked about back then.

Use discount code "vapingiraffe" for 5% off

Worth Reading this Weekend (October 16th)

WHO Director General Margaret Chan 

This week I've spent some time discussing e-cigarette regulation with my friends Sanner and Grimsrud in  the comment section of an article on tidsskriftet.no, which is kind of the official journal for the Norwegian Medical Association. I couldn't really get google to translate the comments in any other way than copying it and paste the whole thing into the text-field on google translate, but if anyone have a better idea please let me know. Anyway, the discussion has been going on for quite a while now, and I've been pointing out errors in their article, their documentation and their ability to draw logical conclusions. The last two answers I've gotten from them has been more or less attacks on my sources (which have basically been the same as theirs) or me personally. They don't even try to go into the topic any more, just blabbering about conflicts of interest, how little I know about toxicology and in their latest post they strongly suggest I'm stupid. I won't sink to their level but they'll get an answer, that's for sure.

Anyway, in this discussion there has been quite a lot of talk about conflict of interest, which leads me to some of the posts and articles I wanted to share with you today:

• James at the Ashtray blog has written an excellent article on who you can trust in the vape debate. A lot of interesting stuff in there, exposing where some of the most famous anti-vaping advocates get their funding from. (Actually the Ashtray blog also had an interesting article this week on E-cigs, Water vapour and The Lungs that's worth reading as well)

• Although Clive Bates don't mention conflicts of interest in his article on WHO’s Director General Margaret Chan’s casual irresponsibility, one can certainly start questioning how the WHO is funded.

• David Sweanor has been speaking on a C3 Breakfast Seminar this week, and Richard Smith writes about it on thebmjblogs. Some really interesting angles here as well, that might come in handy when discussing with the ANTZ.

• Dick Puddlecote writes about Simon Chapman (or Simple Simon if you'd like): Aussie Tobacco Control Worse Than North Korea. Always amusing to read Dick's well targeted posts.

• Finally, I'd like to ask everyone to have a look at this. Apparently, Facebook is censoring Aaron Biebert and his upcoming movie, and Aaron wrote this letter to Mark Zuckerberg & the Facebook team. Please take a moment to help share this info.

Juice Review: Mother's Milkshake by Yaeliq

Yaeliq is the only Israeli e-juice maker I know of and they say they're a "family owned business that began as a hobby and the desire to vape quality e-juice, made from the world's finest ingredients". They've got this slogan as well... "Premium liquid from the holy land". Kind of big words don't you think? Let's see if they can live up to them, shall we?

Mother's Milkshake

Tested on: Steamcrave RDTA (Dual coil @ 0.5 ohms, 30-40 watts)

This juice aims to be a strawberry milkshake flavoured juice based on ripe, fresh strawberries and cream. Smelling the bottle it sure smells like strawberries, but I do feel it's got kind of an artificial, candy kind of strawberry smell to it. Not that promising if I'm honest. Vaping it however, does not taste artificial at all in my opinion, I get more of a fresh, natural strawberry taste from it... and cream... loads of cream. Tastes like a really thick strawberry milkshake, so their description is not at all off. It produces a lot of thick, creamy vapor that you almost feel you can chew. You almost get the feeling you'll gain weight just by vaping this stuff. It is pretty sweet so for me it's not an all day vape, it's more of a dessert vape... I mean a vape that I'd actually have for dessert, and dessert is my favourite part of the meal. Really a great juice this one and, judging by this one, I'd say Yaeliq's big words that I mentioned in the beginning are justified.

Thanks to esmokes.se sending me this juice for review. They also provided this code for 10% off: VG2015

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 do not affiliate links.