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How Do Weed Vaporizer Brands Differ?

It’s very easy to think that weed vaporizers are basically one and the same. They might have different appearances, they might weigh differently, they might even have different brands and logos, but at the end of the day, you know that they are all united in their purpose: to get you high.

Believe me, I understand that. But the problem is, you have to look beyond your conception of the product so you can actually find the very best product as far as your personal set of circumstances go.

Unfortunately, a lot of people think that if a device is going to work the same way as other devices, there’s really not much difference between them.

This is a very dangerous mindset to have because you can blow through a lot of cash if this is your attitude. Seriously. Because there’s a lot more going on beyond the difference in the logo.

These differences in design really reflect their design and philosophy. It also reflects the larger and deeper differences in overall corporate philosophy.

Now, please understand that weed vaporizers are not produced by the same corporate culture as Toyota, Honda or General Motors. It’s a black and white difference.

But whenever you’re dealing with any kind of manufacturing, there are still business considerations involved. And turning a blind eye to these business considerations is going to put you at a serious disadvantage.

Keep the following in mind when you’re in the market for a new weed vaporizer. It can make a big difference as far as you get the most value out of your hard-earned cash.

Years in Business

 

If a company has been around for quite a while, you know that it is more trustworthy.

How come? Well, every year you’re in business, there’s a possibility you’d get sued. Every year you’re in business, there’s a possibility that all sorts of drama involving your consumers might happen.

So, all these years are basically a preparation for you to not only produce high-quality products but to serve the people who use those products.

Industry Awards

Certain brands have a lot of awards. Other brands have absolutely zero awards. Why should you care? Aren’t a lot of these awards rigged?

Well, it depends on the award. If the award is from an organization you haven’t heard of before, it’s probably okay to disregard the award. Look at the brand as if it didn’t win awards.

On the other hand, if it got industry awards, these are awards handed out by other people in the electronic cigarette industry or vaporizer industry, pay attention.

When industries give out awards, they are basically acknowledging industry leaders. They’re acknowledging people who are doing it right all day, every day. They look at these award winners as the ones who set the standards for the industry.

You know you’re in solid footing when the brand that you are considering buying has a long track record of getting industry awards.

Renowned Product Line

If it seems that people that you know can’t seem to shut up about the product line of a particular brand, you might want to sit up and pay attention.

You have to understand that people don’t get excited about a product for no good reason. As the old saying goes, when there is smoke, there is fire.

There’s a reason why people are making all these noises. It’s not like they’re saying all of these things because they have nothing else better to do. There is a kernel of truth in all of this. This all leads from somewhere.

So, the key here is to pay attention to why people are excited. Is it an innovative design? Is it customer support? Is it the overall value that people get? Is it their advertising campaign?

Whatever it is, get to the root of the issue and figure out the reason for the renown or the fame of the brand and if it meets your particular needs.

For example, if people can’t stop talking about a particular herb vaporizer because it doesn’t gum up, you might want to pay attention if maintenance is a big thing with you.

If you’ve been burned in the past with devices that take forever to clean up, you might want to pay attention to that particular brand that has built a reputation for being low maintenance.

Do you see how this works? At the end of the day, it’s all about your needs. So as long as you’re systematic and methodical about this, there’s a high chance you will buy the right product the first time around.

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How to Make Sure You Clean Up Your Weed Vaporizers Regularly

Usually, when people smoke marijuana, the first thing to go is motivation.

This should not be a surprise. I mean, when you’re smoking weed, your number one priority is just to relax, chill out, and possibly listen to some Bob Marley.

There’s nothing like reggae to get the edge off. It’s as if that music was just designed from the ground up to be listened to while consuming some stinky, sticky, good old bud.

But with that said, you have to be motivated enough to clean up your weed vaporizers. Otherwise, you’re going to have a nasty and stinky mess in your hands sooner rather than later.

A lot of weed aficionados think that the equipment that they use is basically just going to take care of themselves. What’s the point? Why overthink things? Why worry?

Well, here’s the problem. If you don’t have an advanced plan going in as you use your vaporizer, again and again, you’re probably just going to make things worse on yourself. Let’s put it this way, you’re not doing yourself any big favors.

I know this doesn’t sit well with a lot of people, especially those who consume a lot of pot but hear me out. A little bit of advanced planning can go a long way.

As the old saying goes, if you fail to plan, you’re really planning to fail. This applies to your career, your education, your relationships, and yes, it definitely applies to enjoy marijuana using weed vaporizers.

So, what’s the problem here? Well, the problem you’re trying to avoid is gummed up and sticky vaporizers.

Now, you may be thinking, “Well, I just spent $50 on my weed vaporizer. What’s the big deal?” Well, if you find yourself in a situation where you’re buying one pot vaporizer after another, those $50 to add up. Before you know it, you could have spent hundreds of dollars every single year on vaporizers.

Maybe you’re misplacing them. Maybe they give out too early. Maybe you just badly maintained them because it got too sticky. It got all gummed up. This is bad news.

So, do yourself a big favor and use one of the following 3 methods. I put a lot of thinking into this so you don’t have to.

By being a little bit systematic and methodical on how you use your weed vaporizers, you ensure that they are in good operating condition.

This means that you buy them less often. This means you don’t have to take a break from your busy schedule, and you’re more likely to keep using them.

The worst reason why you should stop using a particular vaporizer is that it has somehow become too sticky. This really is the worst reason in the world because you’re spending your hard-earned dollars buying a replacement.

You didn’t have to. The only reason is that you just didn’t maintain it well enough, and now you can’t use it.

You’re just not motivated in using it. It’s stinky, it’s sticky, it’s a mess. In other words, your reasons are all psychological.

So, by using the methods below, you can avoid these bad news.

Method #1: Clean after x uses

You can set a hard rule for yourself. After, let’s say, 8 uses, regardless of whether you feel like it or not, and regardless of what day it is, you’re going to go ahead and take apart the vaporizer, dunk some parts in a cleaning solution, put it all back together, wipe everything down, and call it a day.

Now, there’s a lot recommending this approach because regardless of how you feel and regardless of whatever else is going on in your life, you stick to something and you follow through.

This builds discipline. This also ensures that the habits you pick up in this part of your life can be applied to other areas of your life. This can actually apply across the board.

The bad news with Method #1 is that most people who smoke weed are not really all that pumped up about following a certain plan of action. They’re all about enjoying the moment, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So, you’re just going with the flow.

And by you coming up with this plan to automatically clean your smoking implement is kind of a joy-kill and a buzzkill.

Method #2: Clean based on a schedule

This is really not much different from Method #1. The only difference is the triggering mechanism.

In Method #1, what triggers you is the number of times you use your weed vaporizer. In Method #2, you’re looking at the calendar. So regardless of how many times you vaped tobacco or pot, you’re going to have to clean it.

The great thing about scheduling is that you know when it’s going to happen so you give yourself some advanced preparation and you can prepare accordingly. It doesn’t take you by surprise.

It’s not something that kind of happens by the seat of your pants. You’re more likely to be emotionally ready to do it and more likely to follow through with it.

The big disadvantage with this is that it can easily become counterproductive, or at least you might think it’s counterproductive.

What if, for whatever reason, you did not use the vaporizer in that month? What if you were just chilling for the whole month? Does that mean that you’re going to have to clean it?

Yeah, well, that’s what Method #2 is about. It is a commitment. And a lot of people have a tough time committing.

Method #3: Clean based on how heavy your usage is

This is a personal favorite of a lot of people. The key here is the usage. It’s not the calendar, it’s not how many times you’ve used it. Instead, it turns on your experience.

If you use your weed vaporizer with a lot of people and you blew through a lot of weed, it’s probably a good idea to sober up the next day and clean out your equipment.

You know you get a lot of use from your equipment and you know that it’s up to the job. The least you can do is to clean it up the next day because you know that it went through quite heavy-duty use.

This is pretty easy to pull off because it is event triggered. You’re not looking at a calendar. You’re not looking at a fixed schedule of how many times you use the product. Instead, you’re just paying attention to your actual usage of the product itself.

It’s like your kind of rewarding the vaporizer because of the great experience it has delivered the day before.

The downside to this could be the type of person who’s going from one heavy usage day to the next. Once the days blur into each other, they might not have much motivation to clean up their device.

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5 Key Reasons Why You Should Use E-Cig Forums

A lot of people are under the impression that for whatever reason, forums are a thing of the past. I can understand why people think this way. Before Facebook got really big, forums played a vital role in helping people stay informed. 

Whenever people share some sort of common interest, it’s only a matter of time until one of them puts up an online forum. There are all sorts of free software people can install on their servers to create a forum. These message boards used to be the only game in town. 

Prior to the rise of Facebook and Reddit, it seemed that there was a forum for any kind of special interest. It doesn’t matter what you’re into; maybe you’re into miniatures, or medieval art, or a certain type of artist. It doesn’t matter. There’s sure to be a forum that catered to whatever it is you want to talk about. 

Even you couldn’t find a forum that is specifically on point, you can bet that there will be a sub-forum or a forum within an existing forum that caters to your needs. That’s how things were prior to Facebook. With Facebook and its billions and billions of users, it became increasingly clear that people did not need to take the extra step and go to forums. 

You only need to do a search on Facebook for whatever it is you’re interested in, and you can find pages, groups, and specific accounts and content discussing whatever it is you’re searching for. This didn’t catch on immediately, but just like with anything else pioneered by Facebook, once it did catch on, it pretty much sucked out all the oxygen from existing platforms. 

This definitely happened with message groups and forums. Those message boards that used to rule to roost, they’re basically few and far between. A lot of them have died. Now, please understand that a lot of them are still around. 

How can we say that they have died when you can still load them up on your browser? Officially, they haven’t died. When you go to those forums, and you noticed that the last discussion was from two years ago, you can reasonably say that those forums are good as dead. They’re like zombies. 

For all intents and purposes, they have indications of life because you can still load them with your browser, their domains haven’t expired. However, when it comes to the actual value you’re looking for, they’re dead. People aren’t talking on them. People aren’t updating threads. People aren’t pushing up threads. People aren’t bumping. People aren’t doing much of anything. 

This is due to the fact that Facebook has pretty much sucked out all the oxygen that used to fuel these millions and millions of forums. What can you do if you’re looking for electronic cigarette materials? What can you do if you’re looking to research e-cigs? What if you have your eyes set on a particular e-cig product? Are these forums completely worthless? 

 

How to use e-cig forums the right way 

First of all, you have to look for live forums. The good news is that there is a filtration process going on with these types of websites. What I mean by that is for every 100 forums that have basically died, there’s still one that is sufficiently active. 

Now, please don’t get too excited. Don’t think that these websites are so red-hot that there is an up-post almost every second. They’re not that busy. They’re still alive, you can bet that there would be at least several posts per day, but that’s pretty much the best you could expect from these websites. 

Considering what they have gone through, that’s quite a lot. So be happy that you could find a forum concerning electronic cigarettes or e-cigs, or any other type of e-cig product that is sufficiently active. 

The next thing you need to look at is whether they talk about the issues that you talk about. Some e-cig forums just talk about legalities. That is awesome if you are a lawyer, or if you have a business that involves the legalities of electronic cigarette products. 

Maybe you advise Chinese manufacturers looking to set up shop in the United States. Maybe you advise small-time to medium-scale distributors who are looking to get into the electronic cigarette game by importing all sorts of stuff from China. 

All these organizations would need solid legal advice or at least would need to know somebody who can give them access to the right forms. But outside of that, talking about the laws regarding electronic cigarettes probably doesn’t really impact or interest the actual users of these products. 

Their only interest would be if they could sue somebody if something goes wrong with their product. But outside of that, people really don’t want to be bothered. So you should look for e-cig forums that are open-ended enough so that they can support a wide range of discussions. 

In fact, they can be so open that they have a high likelihood of supporting the kind of discussion you want to have. With that said, here are just 5 of the many reasons why you should use e-cig forums. Don’t look at them as dinosaurs. Don’t look at them as relics of the past. Don’t look at them as essentially worthless resources, because there are better and more active resources available on Facebook and other social media platforms. 

Believe it or not, given the long-term cumulative effect of the content posted on e-cig forums, stuff that was posted three years ago may still deliver solid value to your life right here, right now. Don’t be too quick to dismiss these forums as essentially irrelevant. No, they’re not. 

They can give you the solid information you’re looking for to make a fully informed decision, or to avoid losing money. In other words, the information they provide can still be valuable even though the consumer space has definitely shifted away from these online message boards. 

Don’t confuse the format for the value of the content contained in the format. With that said, here are five key reasons why you should bother with e-cig forums. 

 

They post the latest news 

The main problem I have going to sub-Reddits or Facebook groups, to get e-cig news is that a lot of the news is old news. Seriously, it’s as if a lot of these people wait until enough people repeat the same news over and over for them to decide to yet again report that news. 

Tell me something I haven’t heard. Tell me something new. Tell me something that will push the ball forward as far as the extent of my knowledge regarding everything related to electronic cigarettes. That’s what I’m looking for. That’s the kind of mindset I have coming in. 

Unfortunately, a lot of Facebook groups simply don’t police themselves to the extent that they compare their content to other groups. They think that they are floating out there on Facebook all alone, and then they think that they are 100% beneath. 

This mindset insulates them from having to double-check any kind of redundant information, or to police over the repeated or reposted materials. This is why you get a really messed up impression when you join these groups. You think that if you’ve seen one electronic cigarette group, you pretty have seen them all. 

Well, if that is your mindset, you have a lot going for you, because that’s precisely the case in 99% of the time. It’s really frustrating because you’re basically sifting through all sorts of posts that you have found in 1000 other groups. 

When you go to a forum, a lot of that goes away because a lot of forums focus on one hot news item, and it’s featured so prominently on the forum that people would think twice about reposting. They don’t want to look stupid. They don’t want to look dumb. 

So they would look at the top news items and just participate in the discussion thread instead of reposting yet another copy of the same information.

You get actual customer testimonials 

When you spend a lot of time on e-cig forums, you quickly learn to appreciate the tremendous peer pressure exerted on spammers, promoters, and scammers. In other words, there’s such a thing as community pressure. 

When people are doing something that they shouldn’t be doing, community members will sit up and pay attention, and give them a piece of their mind. If enough people are made examples of, negative behavior simply doesn’t get repeated. That’s what is so awesome about forums because it’s so public. 

The problem with Facebook groups and other networking platforms is that it’s very easy for these otherwise public learning opportunities to become private. The spammer just gets deleted. A bad comment just gets hidden, end of story. 

The problem is the story doesn’t end there because people don’t know any better. They can keep repeating that same behavior because they think that there are no bad consequences. So what if they get banned? They can go to another group, and then another group after that. 

You don’t get that issue with electronic cigarette forums or e-cig message boards. Instead, you get actual customer testimonials. These are people who actually use the product. These are people who are very familiar with the pros and cons of a particular product. 

You can tell just by reading these reviews and testimonials that this is the real deal because they don’t give you the impression that the product is somehow, someway perfect. Instead, they paint a clear picture of the product, warts and all. 

If you’re looking for a tremendous amount of honesty, you should go to e-cig forums. You can get the inside dope on whatever it is you’re thinking of buying. 

 

Industry trends 

There are lots of industry trends in the e-cig marketplace. In fact, this marketplace is now worth 1 billion dollars and is going strong. Some analysts believe that the market will double in size in no time. That’s how hot the market is. 

As you can well imagine, industry trends take place almost instantly. It’s as if they come and go in a blink of an eye. The problem of Facebook groups that focus on industry trends is that there is a filtering process. 

You don’t get a full spectrum of all the trends showing up. Instead, you only get notified of the most heavily publicized trend, usually when there is a big company behind a specific initiative in the industry. You can bet people will hear about it. 

On the other hand, if there is something more exciting, that is more grassroots in nature, it usually takes several months for news of that to percolate up to the Facebook group level. You don’t have to worry about that delayed reaction when you visit e-cig forums. Any late, breaking industry trends are actively published by the moderators of these forums. 

They have their ear to the ground, so to speak. They know what’s going on in the industry. They know the movers and shakers and the best part is a lot of them are unbiased. It’s not like they have a dog in the game. It’s not like they’re being paid by one side over another. 

This is what really sealed the deal for e-cig forums for me. A little bit of objectivity and lack of bias can go a long way. 

 

Customer feedback and discussion 

Usually, when a customer gives honest feedback regarding a product, this triggers a massive debate on Facebook groups. Just everybody else, I can tolerate a certain level of (15:00). As long as it clearly identifies the positions on both sides, and enables me to clearly see the pros and cons of their argument, I’m up for debate. 

The problem is debates are neither orderly, clear, nor conclusive when performed on Facebook groups. In fact, in many cases, it’s just a digital shouting match. And what’s worse is that a lot of brands may pay people to just speak up and essentially shout down the other side. 

What if the other side has a valid claim? What if the information that their sharing can actually help the brand that’s being questioned step up its game? Unfortunately, none of those are happening because it’s just a digital shouting match. 

You don’t get that impression with electronic cigarette forums. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that they’re perfect. I’m not saying that there are no pointless shouting matches, but whatever heated exchanges there are, are moderate, to the extent that they create more light than heat. 

 

Coupon codes 

Finally, if you’re looking to save a lot of money on your next visit to your favorite electronic cigarette store? You might want to consider stopping by an e-cig forum first. Whenever product launches, or whatever e-cig marketplaces feel pressure from their competitors, they’re quick to come up with corrective measures. 

One of the most common corrective measures, of course, are coupon codes. Coupon codes are a great way of keeping consumers loyal. It’s also a great way of pushing consumers to try out more products that they haven’t tried out before. 

This leads to greater community interaction around certain brands. This also leads to long-lasting relationships. And the best part of all of this is it’s so public. This is why a lot of manufacturers and distributors would rather coupon codes on e-cig forums because they know this material can get in front of the right eyeballs. 

Compare this with e-cig Facebook groups. There’s so much noise being published on those places that you’d be surprised if you see something as useful as a coupon code show up on your Facebook timeline. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen, but it’s so few and far between that it’s much better to go to a more specialized source of this type of information. 

Keep the five reasons above in mind if you’re still on the fence regarding visiting e-cig forums. I’m not saying that e-cig forums are perfect. They’re not perfect by a long shot, but based on what I know about everything else available, they definitely have a lot more advantages than disadvantages.

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Understanding the risks behind ecig-juices

A lot of the current mainstream media’s fascination with the health risks of electronic cigarettes turn on 2 things. First, they make a big deal out of this almost statistically insignificant chances of ecigs blowing up. This, of course, is due to bad battery design or bad overall construction.

While this does happen, this takes place so rarely that you can’t help but wonder why the media is making a big deal out of such tragedies. Of course, one battery explosion is one too many. But let’s keep things in perspective.

Your chances of suffering serious harm from an electronic cigarette blowing up around you are way less than you getting killed in a car accident. You can take that statistical comparison to the bank. 

The other issue that the media seems to obsess about is the recent reports coming out of the European Union as well as preliminary indications in the United States regarding the overall safety of ecig juices or e-juices. 

These are, of course, the liquids that you put in a cartridge to vaporize using an electronic cigarette. Ecigs create an aerosol water vapor from the mixture of liquids inside these cartridges. The media has distorted the health consequences of using e-juices. 

There are certain problems regarding this media portrayal. Please understand that I’m not trying to downplay the risks. I’m not trying to trick people into thinking that these risks somehow, someway, do not exist. I’m not going to explain that these risks are somehow illusions. They’re not.

There is some statistical reality to them. They have to be confronted. They definitely have to be addressed. But you have to pay close attention to what the media is doing so you can see the risk in its proper perspective.

It is my understanding and my belief that the risks behind e-juices or e-liquids, as significant as they may be currently, is going to be temporary. What do I mean by this? Well, as the electronic cigarette industry continues to grow and evolve over time, the market will start to prefer other products.

Remember that any new product that enters the market is going to have a lot of risks. When the first iPhones came out, they weren’t all that good. A lot of them bent. A lot of them didn’t work properly. But people still kept buying iPhones and the technology finally leveled up.

The same goes for airbags. Did you know that the first generation of airbags had very rough exteriors that when they deploy, they actually cut up your face? Well, now you don’t hear those complaints anymore.

My point is that as markets evolve, consumer expectations, as well as market competition, serve to put tremendous upward pressure on quality. This is going to happen no matter what. Unfortunately, all the hand holding in the world that’s happening now regarding the perceived dangers of e-liquids and ecig juices really do the vaping public a great disservice. How come?

Well, a study from Britain shows that when people are trying to quit smoking, switching to an electronic cigarette is a great first step. You’re subjecting yourself to fewer risks. After all, you’re not burning plant materials. You’re not creating tar when you smoke.

This is a big deal because if you’ve ever seen tar, and this is the black sticky stuff that they put on the road when they’re paving roads, you can see the health issues there. Imagine painting that stuff in the sensitive inner lining of your lungs.

Your lungs are mostly made out of the water. It’s very spongy tissue. That’s how sensitive your lungs are. Can you imagine putting tar into that area of your body? This is why the lungs of smokers look very disgusting compared to the lungs of non-smokers.

When these people are autopsied after their deaths, smoker’s lungs stand out. They’re almost black. That’s due primarily to tar. It’s very easy to see the health risks there. In fact, you can see them a mile away. 

The same issue doesn’t play out when people are using e-liquids. You’re creating an aerosol. You’re not burning anything. You’re definitely not creating tar. This alone should get people to sit up and pay attention to the major health improvements and benefits electronic cigarettes bring to the table.

But unfortunately, the debate about electronic cigarettes has been clouded (no pun intended) by the focus on current formulations of ecig juices.

The problem is the media focus on current e-juice formulations

The problem with looking at products as they exist at a certain period of time is the tendency for people to think that the product will never evolve. If this is our mindset about product dangers, then why aren’t people still obsessing about the Model T Ford’s risk factors?

Why aren’t people worrying themselves sick about the dangers of riding in an old pre-jet aged propeller driven airplane? People aren’t obsessing about these because the technology has changed. The technology has changed because consumer pressures have made sure that the technology keeps up with consumer demand.

A lot of this current hysteria regarding e-juices and e-liquids simple miss the forest from the trees. They think that electronic cigarettes are somehow, someway, immune to consumer demand as well as product evolution. 

Well, as long as a product is being sold in an open market and people are free to make up their minds, you can bet that consumer trends and consumer preferences will play a major roll in how products are formulated, marketed and positioned. 

That’s never going to go away. This is just basic marketing 101. This is also a basic product design. Unfortunately, the media is completely clueless about this. They do a good job of pretending that somehow, someway, the e-liquids being sold now will be the same e-liquids sold a dozen years from now. 

They don’t make any room for product evolution. They don’t make any room for the possibility that consumers themselves would prefer different e-liquid formulations. Granted. It’s very scary. Some of the ingredients in e-liquids are very scary.

After all, it’s the wild wild west out there when it comes to electronic cigarette accessories manufacturing. There are many manufacturers out there. There are many brands and a lot of them have different formulations.

Still, there seems to be an industry standard and some compounds in the typical e-liquid formulation should make consumers want to speak up. This doesn’t mean that they should be panicked. This doesn’t mean that they should head for the hills. They should just speak up and ask questions regarding why certain compounds are used more often than other compounds.

In other words, the consumer and manufacturer dialogue regarding proper product formulation and design is still in its infancy. But keep in mind that ultimately, it’s the consumers that will drive product evolution. Not the other way around.

Media doesn’t get this. If the market simply is not going to react favorably to certain “standard formulations” the e-liquids will change. They have to. Otherwise, people won’t buy them. It’s that simple. 

Sadly, the media is clueless regarding this. They think that just because certain dubious or potentially risky compounds are included in the typical e-juice or e-liquid formulation that this formula will remain the same for all time. 

The idea, of course, is to set up this formula as some sort of permanent market fixture so regulators can step in. The idea is if regulators see certain compounds in e-juice, then it didn’t make sense to ban electronic cigarettes because they’re incapable of vaporizing formulations that may be healthier for you.

But this is the blind spot regulators suffer from. They simply discount market innovation. They simply refuse to see the history of product evolution because as I’ve mentioned above, a lot of the products that we take for granted now in terms of health and safety actually were quite risky when they first came out. 

There was always a risk that the product will blow up, cause injuries or cause some sort of harm. But that didn’t prevent people from buying the product. Instead, when the market expanded, there was massive competitive pressure that built up to reward manufacturer who came up with safer products.

Sure, there were lawsuits along the way and there may have been quite a number of regulatory interventions. Still, in terms of the broad arch of the product evolution story, it really all boiled down to the market.

Let the market work when it comes to e-juice safety

The bottom line is once the word comes out that certain brands of e-juice and e-liquid are less safe or less optimal for people, there will be tremendous pressure on those brands. You can bet that if those companies want to stay in business, they will find a way, any way, to come up with something more natural, something safer and more affordable.

In other words, they’ll come up with a product that would somehow meet the needs of their target market while at the same time, meeting other needs like affordability, taste and scent. In other words, the market will take care of itself.

I know that sounds a bit naive. It may seem overly optimistic. But I have the weight of history going for me. You only need to look at how other products in a wide range of product verticals and industries evolve over time.

It’s not like some group of lawyers came up with this magic formula for an ultra-safe product. That never happened. Instead, these products tended to evolve based on this intricate dance with consumer demand, consumer feedback, and consumer intelligence.

At the end of the day, the customers came. If you come up with a product that you think is the best thing since sliced bread but nobody busy it, guess what? Your product is worthless. You’re better off not making that product.

It doesn’t matter how much time you put in. It definitely doesn’t matter how much labor you put in. Your product is worth exactly $0. That’s how markets work. Don’t underestimate this powerful internal self-correcting mechanism when it comes to new industries like electronic cigarettes.

Sure, our industry is fast growing. We have recently breached the 1 billion dollar sales mark. According to many estimates, the market is set to double sooner rather than later. This is a good sign because this means that there’s a tremendous amount of product maturation, research and development and consumer education and awareness going on.

Eventually, all these factors will line up to produce safer, more affordable and yes, more profitable products for the long term.

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Your Quick Guide to How E-Cigarettes Work

Electronic cigarettes or ecigs have taken the United States by storm. In fact, it’s only been around for a few years yet it is already a one-billion-dollar annual industry. According to some estimates, it’s going to double in size soon enough. That’s how much interest there is in electronic cigarettes.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions regarding what ecigs are and what they’re not. According to some people, electronic cigarettes are not much better than traditional cigarettes. This could not be further from the truth.

If these people only knew how electronic cigarettes work, they wouldn’t make that claim. You have to understand that traditional cigarettes burn stuff. That’s their definition. How do you classify something like a cigarette or a cigar? There’s actually burning.

With electronic cigarettes or vaporizers, there’s something else going on. The liquid in e-cigarettes is turned into an aerosol or water vapor solution and is drawn by the person enjoying the electronic cigarette. In other words, they are not puffing smoke. They’re not sucking smoke into the sensitive, thin, inner linings of their lungs. They’re not doing any of that.

Instead, an electronic cigarette uses a cartridge that contains a liquid which is turned into a vapor by an internal heating device. This aerosol solution is so much healthier than traditional cigarettes.

The Key Difference between Electronic Cigarettes and Traditional Cigarettes: Smoke

Smoke is defined as a gaseous cloud produced by burning. When you burn anything, you heat up all sorts of chemical compounds and this ends up in the air.

The same applies to the tobacco leaf. Whether it’s finely chopped up or in the form of a cigar, you’re still dealing with smoke. When the tobacco leaf is burned, it releases hundreds of chemicals. A lot of these are carcinogenic (cancer causing).

Electronic cigarettes, on the other hand, create an aerosol. This is basically a heated-up water vapor produced when the e-liquid or e-juice loaded in the electronic cigarette is heated up by the internal vaporizer heating coil or heating device within the ecig unit.

This is all powered by a battery. You don’t have to light it up. You don’t have to ask people for a lighter. You don’t have to rub two sticks together. You don’t have to do anything.

You just have to click a button and, depending on the design of the electronic cigarette, you just wait for an indicator light to go on and then you can draw the vapor. Quick, easy, and healthier. There’s nothing being burned and there are no harmful, foul chemicals being released into this aerosol. This is how e-cigarettes work. It’s pretty straightforward.

Educate Yourself

It’s very easy to fall for all sorts of misinformation. Given the panic some health authorities seem to be in regarding e-cigarettes, you would think that they’re looking at an inherently dangerous device.

The truth is compared to traditional cigarettes, electronic cigarettes are so much healthier. Not only do they help people eventually quit nicotine; but they also enable people to enjoy nicotine in a healthier way.

A lot of people would like to say that people shouldn’t be smoking or inhaling nicotine in the first place. I think most people would agree with this, but the problem is we have to live in the real world. The issue is a lot of people are hooked on nicotine. No amount of wishing and hoping is going to make that reality go away. What do we do with these individuals?

Instead of demonizing them or just leaving them to their own devices by cutting off or banning electronic cigarettes, the health benefits of ecigs should be more broadly discussed. There should be an open discussion regarding why electronic cigarettes are a great alternative to traditional cigarettes.

Unfortunately, in certain administrative and bureaucratic circles in Europe, this discussion is simply not happening. It seems that as far as regulators are concerned, the electronic cigarette issue is a black-and-white issue. Either we stick to the devil we know, which is burnt tobacco and its long, sad history of carcinogens or we get scared stiff by the dangers we don’t know.

Admittedly, there are unknown dangers regarding electronic cigarettes. I mean, after all, no device is 100% safe. I’m not talking about the rather isolated cases of electronic cigarette batteries blowing up and people burning themselves, that kind of thing. I’m not talking about that. Those are too rare and too few and far between to be a serious issue. Those are just statistical distractions.

The real issue is how safe is e-juice formulations. Put in another way, are you putting yourself in harm’s way when you vaporize e-liquids? Looking at the current literature, if we were to look at electronic cigarettes as a transition device for people who are looking to quit nicotine, this is a risk worth taking because apparently according to a British study, electronic cigarettes can have a net positive health effect because they make it easier for people to quit.

However, going beyond that, we have to look at the way these devices are set up. If safety is really the issue, then the main point of discussion is the safety of e-juice formulations. It’s not the electronic cigarette itself that’s the problem. It’s the specific formulation of nicotine water and other chemicals that make up the e-juice.

It would not be foolish to say that, at this point in time, there is room for improvement. This is uncharted territory so, basically, there’s a lot of selection out there as far as e-juice is concerned. Some may have a lot more glycerol. Some may have propylene compounds. Others maybe heavier on water. Regardless, this liquid will always have nicotine.

Instead of just saying that the electronic cigarette itself should be banned, maybe it would be better for this fast-growing industry to focus on standards regarding juice safety because this is really where the wild, wild west frontier element is.

Currently, it’s anything goes. One brand would load up on propylene and other compounds. Others would focus on water or other more natural liquids. At this point in time, it’s still an open question of which approach is healthier.

This is why it’s a good idea for the industry to pay attention to not just consumer trends and preferences regarding certain flavor formulations and combinations, but also to what constitutes a healthy e-liquid formulation.

This is still being decided by the market and for the government to say that e-cigarettes should be banned across the board would be like trying to burn down your house because there’s a cockroach infestation. It doesn’t make any sense. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Electronic cigarettes have a lot going for them. Do yourself a big favor. Understand how e-cigarettes work. Compare it with traditional cigarettes so you can be fully informed as to what potential regulatory issues are.

Studying this would also clue you in on your rights as a consumer. Shouldn’t consumers decide? Shouldn’t they be given a voice or at least a seat at the table regarding the regulatory discussions about electronic cigarettes?

It seems that in the European Union, at least, it’s a foregone conclusion that regulators are going to crack down on e-cigarettes. This really is too bad because the market is so fast-evolving that there’s a tremendous amount of innovation.

Maybe by channeling this innovation, the industry could come up with something that is demonstrably far and away so much healthier than traditional old-school cigarettes. Hopefully, this will play out in the United States.

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Exploding e-cigarettes are merely a statistical distraction

I know the title of this article is probably not going to score me popularity points with certain groups of people. After all, if you’ve been reading online newspapers and checking out news commentary on cable TV, it seems that America has a brand new boogie man. 

That’s right. It seems that a lot of people can’t stop talking about how dangerous electronic cigarettes are. It seems that every decade, mainstream media has to find some sort of product enemy. Maybe it’s a particular defective car, maybe it’s a defective hoverboard or some sort of trendy product that has gone horribly wrong.

It’s very easy to see why the media does this. It’s all too predictable. If you’re unsure as to why they’re so motivated to demonize a particular product category, it shouldn’t really be that hard to figure out. It’s all about money.

That’s right! It’s all about the Benjamins. You have to understand that the media is all about hype and whenever a topic gets hyped up, there are more news releases made. There’s a lot more attention paid to that trend and this translates to more eyeballs. 

More eyeballs, of course, translates to higher ad revenues. Again, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist or some sort of brain surgeon to figure this out. You don’t have to have an advanced degree in any of those fields. 

This is why when you look at the numbers, the cases of exploding electronic cigarettes are so pitifully low that you’re left scratching your head. The only question that you can ask yourself that would make sense is “Why is this even a thing?” 

Well, statistically, they’re a distraction. Please understand that according to the latest industry figures, the electronic cigarette industry is worth 1 billion dollars. And it’s slated to grow much faster soon enough.

That’s how big and how hot the market is. And I can see mainstream editors working themselves into a frenzy, trying to come up with some sort of angle on how to capitalize on this strength. Instead of doing the right thing and exploring the real health issues regarding electronic cigarettes, they focus on the quick, the cheap and the easy.

In other words, they’re lazy. They’d rather zero in on the one in a million case of somebody misusing their electronic cigarette to the point that the battery overheats and the whole device blow up. It’s easy to see why this is the case because when you focus on the one in a million case, it’s very spectacular and exaggerated and people can’t help but want to look.

I don’t know about you, but the last time I’ve passed a train wreck, I can’t help but look. There’s just something inherent to the human condition that makes us want to look at these grotesque over-exaggerated disasters.

But if you’re just going to look at the raw numbers, exploding e-cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, and other similar devices are a statistical blip on the radar. No joke! You’re more likely to die in a car accident. You’re more likely to die from other products than malfunctioning or badly used electronic cigarettes.

So give me a break about this explosion of e-cig explosion stories. This is a non-story. But unfortunately, in the age of fake news and viral social media news, the old ideas behind journalism still apply. 

One of the oldest ideas in journalism, of course, is if it bleeds, it leads. It’s all about eyeballs and, ultimately, it’s all about the money.

If the media were honest

If the media were really honest, they would not waste so much digital ink on exploding e-cigarettes. Those are so few and so far between, they’re not even worth talking about. Now, I don’t want to sound like I don’t care about the people who obviously got injured when these things do happen. But let’s focus on what’s more statistically likely.

I am, of course, talking about issues regarding e-juice. That’s the real hot button issue. Well, it should be. Unfortunately, too many people are happily stepping into one rabbit hole after another and they refuse to look at the real issue.

It really is too bad because there are actual legislators and bureaucratic functionaries who are hell bent on regulating the electronic cigarette industry into oblivion or into becoming a shadow of its former self. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is real.

The industry actually has its enemies. Unfortunately, when the conversation turns on non-issues like exploding e-cigarette’s malfunctioning battery, we are distracted from the real discussion we should be having. 

If you’re still unclear of what the real discussion should be, let me clue you in. It’s all about the e-juice. There are lots of scientific research going on regarding the specific health benefits of vaporizing or using electronic cigarettes. 

A lot of this has to do with the additives used in e-juice. When you look at these studies however, they assume that all e-liquid and e-juice manufacturers are operating from the same script. What they don’t understand is just like food, e-juice can have many different formulations.

If you’re baking a chocolate chip cookie, you can make so many substitutions. You don’t even have to make chocolate chip cookies with actual chocolate chips. You can use carob. You can use all sorts of chocolate substitutes and fillers. As far as sugar is concerned, there are many alternatives out there. There are even flour alternatives.

Well, if that works for cookies and baking in general, why wouldn’t it work in e-liquids and e-juice. Ultimately, it all boils down to the customer’s taste profile. If the customer is looking for a specific taste and is looking for a nice, all natural buzz, there are many ways to deliver those things.

You don’t have to use nicotine. You don’t have to use glycol or some other biochemical boogie man that the media keeps blowing up. That is the real issue.

Unfortunately, the more we talk about exploding e-cigarettes and other statistically insignificant events, the higher the chance that bureaucrats and regulators in the European Union and, soon enough, the United States, will crack down on electronic cigarettes. 

This would be an unprecedented disaster. No joke. I’m not exaggerating here. Why? If you’re trying to quit smoking, one of the most effective ways to do so is to pick up an electronic cigarette. You’re not burning stuff. You’re not pumping all sorts of cancer-causing tar into the sensitive inner linings of your lungs. You’re not doing any of that.

Instead, you are using water vapor in aerosol form and, get this, you can use e-liquid that does away with nicotine. While scientific studies have shown that nicotine can cause cancer, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the e-juice you use has to have that ingredient. 

You can choose a nicotine-free product. This is where the discussion should be. Unfortunately, a lot of regulators think that there’s really only one way to bake the “e-cig cookie”.

They think that nicotine has to always be in the picture. They think that nicotine and all its health baggage has to necessarily be part of the picture. What if I told you that the market can evolve away from that? 

What if I told you that there are other more natural and healthier alternatives to nicotine? What if I told you that consumers, in general, have a wide range of preferences and the ones who insist on nicotine all day, every day are actually a minority in the market?

If you put all these factors together, then instead of seeing a very dangerous future for the electronic cigarette industry, one can’t help but think of a golden future. I know that sounds a little bit too optimistic. But if you are able to look past the smoke and mirrors and focus on the actual consumer, this industry actually has a lot going for it.

So keep this in mind and try not to get too distracted by all the scary stories regarding exploding electronic cigarettes as well as the scary compounds that are supposedly being put in e-juice. 

An anti-China bias

I don’t want to overplay the anti-Asian card here. After all, it may seem that this is a bit manipulative or we’re being overly sensitive. But often times, you have to call things for what they are. A lot of this hysteria regarding electronic juice as well as electronic cigarettes, in general, can really be tied to a general uneasiness in certain quarters about things made in China. 

At some level or other, I really can’t blame them. I mean, after all, prior to these stories breaking, we have heard of toothpaste made in China being recalled because apparently, they were putting all sorts of nasty chemicals in those toothpaste products.

Similarly, canned or packaged milk coming from China were recalled because they contained plastic additives and other nasty stuff. But when it comes to any kind of product recall, it’s always a good idea to look at the total picture. When you look at the total amount of food imports from China and how big the industry is, it’s easy to see that the contaminated products or badly made products or even intentionally bad products are a drop in the bucket.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be concerned. I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is that our concern should be in context. Let’s face it. Bad manufacturers are everywhere. They’re not a uniquely Chinese phenomenon. 

In the United States, how many manufacturers have been caught adulterating their products? Well, the list is actually quite long. As robust as the US FDA may be in doing its job, some still manage to slip through. 

Keep in mind that this is domestically made materials. I’m not talking about stuff made in China or imported from Mexico. This is domestic stuff. So if we’re intellectually honest and we want to really look at the big electronic cigarette picture, then exploding cigarettes, e-cigarettes, electronic cigarette malfunctions, faulty electronic cigarette batteries and other hysteria are side shows. That’s the bottom line.

So focus on e-juice and e-liquid because this is where the real innovation and real industry evolution will come from. When handled properly and with the proper coordination between consumers, manufacturers, distributors and government regulators, the industry might end up in a much better place and consumers might have a lot more choice and end up much healthier as well.

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How not to get ripped off by electronic cigarette coupon code sites

If you’ve been buying stuff on the internet, you know full well how helpful coupon codes can be. Maybe you have your eye on a particular brand or model. Maybe you’re excited about buying a particular product. 

Well, it really would be a good idea if you cooled your heels and searched for coupon codes before biting the bullet and buying whatever product you have your eye on from Amazon. This simple decision that takes all of maybe 10 minutes can mean the difference between you spending 50 additional dollars or saving that amount of money.

Now, a lot of people might think that $50 is not a big deal. But if you buy a lot of stuff online, 50 bucks here and there can add up to a nice pile of cash. Last time I checked, most Americans could use the savings. After all, according to a recent survey, most Americans are only $2,000 away from a serious financial emergency.

If you were to save systematically and methodically every time you shop online, you can go a long way in increasing your resistance to financial setbacks. It takes the worst shock for you to face financial ruin.

Sounds awesome? Well, the first place to start is electronic cigarettes coupon code sites. A lot of people are under the impression that if they’re on the market for e-cig or electronic cigarette product or related products like batteries, e-liquids or e-juice that they need to only go to certain websites. They think that as long as they go to those websites and use a code that they can recycle over and over, they will save a tremendous amount of money.

Well, that kind of thinking is precisely what these websites want you to have. The reality is a little bit of effort at comparison shopping can save you quite a bit of money. The truth is, the electronic cigarette market continues to grow by leaps and bounds almost every month.

Recent estimates peg the size of the market at $1,000,000. If you think that’s impressive, you should be impressed. After all, it only took a few years to reach that market size. Well, based on market growth trends, it’s only a matter of time until the market is worth $2,000,000 and maybe more. 

That’s how hot the market is. Well, with any kind of hot market, you can bet that there are more electronic cigarette manufacturers and distributors entering the game every single day. If you find yourself going to the same electronic cigarette website time and time again, you’re putting yourself at a serious financial disadvantage. 

Sure, on the surface, it seems that you’re saving money. But the problem is your saving may not really mean all that much because you could’ve been buying other completely different products. Let’s put it this way, if you keep going to the same electronic cigarette website and you keep getting the same discount, you are forgoing or ignoring greater potential savings had you gone to another site.

This really all boils down to opportunity costs. Since people can’t be at 2 places at once, they’re stuck having to make a decision regarding where they’re going to spend their dollars and regarding how much time they’re going to put into their search for a particular product.

It doesn’t really matter whether you’re looking for e-cig batteries, complete electronic cigarettes, e-liquid or e-juice or a wide range of e-cig accessories. You have to have your wits about you when it comes to the actual dollars and cents that you’re going to be spending. 

You may think that this is just a small case of a few dollars here and there. But let me tell you if you are a hardcore electronic cigarette user or you tend to buy electronic cigarettes that need to be replaced sooner rather than later, all these dollars add up to quite a bit of money.

This is why you have to be mindful of electronic cigarette discount coupon codes sites. There are many coupon code sites on the internet. It seems that many of these sites are actually tricking Google. When people type in the name of a product, these websites would automatically come up with pages that would try to target those searches.

Now, that would be awesome if they actually had something to offer. For example, if I am going to put up a website and I need a domain name for that site, I would go to a place like Namesilo. I would buy a new domain and since it costs anywhere from $6.99 to $8.99, I’d like to shave off a few bucks from my purchase price.

When I type in “Namesilo discount coupon code”, there are tons of websites claiming all sorts of things. Some would claim $1 off, which is actually real. Others pay fast and lose. Since they just want you to click through, they would say, “free registration” or “$5 off”. 

Of course, if you’re new to this kind of thing, you get excited and you click on the link offering the biggest savings. It then turns out that after you click through several pages that the discount coupon code simply doesn’t exist.

Some websites are even worse. At least I’d like to give credit to websites that just tell you to flat out that that discount code doesn’t exist or it’s unavailable. I can understand that. Basically what I did was I just entered my search term into Google and a page showed up. At least it’s believable that they had a discount code in the past.

Well, some websites take it to the next level. They would actually give you a discount code. So here you are, all excited about trying out the discount code of a product or service you’re trying to buy and then when you type it in, right at the check out page, nothing happens.

This happens to me quite a bit with Namesilo and other online services that I use. This also happens with electronic cigarette coupon code websites. Those e-cig coupon codes are simply fake. No joke! Real story. 

You type them in again and again and nothing happens. Well, nothing should happen because they don’t exist. They don’t refer to a real product. In many cases, a lot of the electronic cigarette online stores that you go to don’t even have a promo code or coupon code system.

Even if you were to tell them that they should have a coupon code, they would turn you down. They just don’t do that kind of thing. Yet, don’t be surprised when so many so-called “coupon directory” or “coupon reference sites” on the internet claim to have coupon codes from those businesses.

This is where the thin line between false hope and flat out fraud simply disappears. I can understand the false hope you get when you come up with a coupon code positive result on Google because you’re looking to save money.

You go to the site and they tell you, “Well, the code used to exist.” or “The code has expired.” By all appearances, it’s legit and they had something to offer at some point in the past. I can take that. To me, that’s believable.

But what most people can not accept is when websites just make stuff up. In other words, the coupon code never existed. The online store or service you’re trying to use the coupon code on will tell you to beat it because they don’t know where you’re coming from. They can’t even understand what you’re saying because they never offered that code in the first place.

Do you see how this works? Really messed up stuff! This is why it’s a good idea to make sure you are clear on the specific electronic cigarette or e-cig accessory website you want to use. Check it out. Take a look at their checkout page. Pay attention to their discount program if they have one.

Once you are clear as to what you can and can not expect from that site, then you should search online. If they don’t have discount codes, then it doesn’t make sense for you to search for one because, as I said, there are many unscrupulous websites that would try to trick you into thinking that these codes do exist.

The only thing that you are shaving off is your time. You’re definitely not going to be shaving dollars and cents off your next purchase from those electronic cigarette online stores. I hope this is clear. 

To recap, my advice for consumers so they don’t get ripped off by electronic cigarette coupon code scams is to make sure that the online store they’re thinking of doing business with actually honors promo codes, discount codes or coupon codes. 

This is the best way to go forward. Otherwise, you’re just taking shots in the dark and hoping for the best. It’s so easy to waste a tremendous amount of time. Believe me, a lot of these websites are very efficient in tricking people into wasting their time.

In fact, some websites are geared in such a way that when you’re looking for one type of coupon code, you get excited about another product that you’re thinking of buying. It turns out that that product has a big discount coupon on their website. 

So you check out product after product and you bounce from one website to the next only to end up with nothing in your hands. Talk about frustrating. Talk about infuriating. You could’ve been making money with the time that you’ve wasted. 

You could’ve spent that time with your loved ones. You have to understand that your most precious and most important asset are not those green pieces of paper in your wallet. Instead, your most important possession is your time. Guard it with your life.

Unfortunately, if you just bounce it from one coupon code to the next or from one scam website to another, you are simply just wasting your most important life asset. I know it’s sad. I know it’s pathetic. But people do this all the time because they really don’t have a clue regarding how fake coupon codes work.

Please understand that this whole coupon code scam doesn’t just apply to electronic cigarette coupon codes. These apply to a wide range of products. In fact, if there’s any kind of demand for a product or service, you can bet that there will be an unscrupulous website cranking out all sorts of fake coupon codes to draw eyeballs for those products.

The key here is to draw eyeballs because once they got your eyeballs, they can show you all sorts of ads and if you click those ads, maybe they’ll make money. Another common scam is for them to do bait and switch.

For example, you’re looking for Juul e-cigs. You’re looking for this specific brand because you’re a big believer in the brand. You think Juul is the best thing since sliced bread. Fair enough. So you go to this website and try out one fake coupon code after another.

You go to the online store of your e-cig source and none of these promo codes work. So you go back to the discount site and then you see an ad for a competing brand. Do you see how this works? They get you with the other brand that has a working coupon code.

It turns out that you actually spent more money on the competing brand than on the product you originally had your eye on. This is a very common trick. Don’t become a victim. Just because other people fell for it doesn’t necessarily mean you should too. 

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This Is The First Thing You Should Look For In Herbal Vaporizers

Herbal vaporizers are all the rage. Herbal vaporizers, of course, are very different from e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes use an aerosol system, use an e-juice or e-liquid to create vapor. You plug in your cartridge with your preferred e-liquid flavor, and your electronic cigarette would create an aerosol or vapor from the solution using a heating coil. You draw the vapor into your lungs and then out comes this very beautiful human fog. It looks awesome, right? 

Herbal vaporizers do the same thing, but instead of liquids, you actually use herbal materials. But I’ll leave that to your imagination. Maybe you prefer green, nice-smelling herbal materials that contain nicotine, or you might prefer sticky and possibly even stinky green buds that contain a lot of THC. 

Whatever you’re into, herbal vaporizers should not be confused with electronic cigarettes. It’s really important to make sure that you have a clear focus when buying this type of product. You have to look for this first consideration if you’re in the market for herbal vaporizers. 

Otherwise, it’s too easy to end up with the wrong product. It’s too easy to focus on the looks. It’s too easy to focus on the portability and form factor of the product. I’m not saying that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with these elements, but you have to remember that they are secondary in nature. 

While it’s great to have a nice-looking herbal vaporizer, at the end of the day, you have to make sure that it actually does the job that you bought it to do. That’s the bottom line, it’s all about use value, and unfortunately, a lot of people think of use value as secondary in nature. 

They’d rather look for something that has a nice brand. They’d rather buy something that people can’t seem to stop talking about. They’d rather use something that has a track record of attracting a following. While those are important factors to consider at some level or another, at the end of the day, you have to take care of your personal needs. 

At the end of the day, you’re the only person who can answer whether the products that you have bought have actually served your interests. This takes a lot of honesty. This also takes going against the grain and marching by the beat of your own drummer. You’re going to have to zero in on what makes sense to you. 

Just because other people don’t agree, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Just because it doesn’t make any sense, as far as other people are concerned, it doesn’t mean that you have to turn your back on that particular option. You have to make your decisions based on what works for you. 

With that in mind, here is the first thing you should look for when looking at any kind of model of the herbal vaporizer. It doesn’t matter what you’re going to load into the herbal vaporizer. It doesn’t matter how heavy your anticipated usage would be. It doesn’t matter what kind of circumstances you will find yourself using the vaporizer. 

You have to look at this factor. If you turn a blind eye to this factor, don’t be surprised if you become disappointed with whatever it is you bought. Believe me, I’ve had my fair share of this problem. When I just got into the herbal vaporizing thing, I got all excited about a particular brand because everybody, from my fitness instructor to my college friends, kept hyping up a brand and a model. 

So when I found that product online, I couldn’t wait to click the buy button and I was rubbing my palms in anticipation for its delivery. So when the UPS guy came in and dropped that brown package at my apartment, I was ecstatic. I was in seventh heaven and I tore the box apart, took out the herbal vaporizer, slapped on its batteries, took out my favorite herbal medicine, fed the beast, and guess what happened? I ended up with a mess, seriously. 

Now, of course, I was drawing from that thing like it contained the cure for cancer. To me, drawing my favorite vapor from this amazing herbal vaporizer, was the best thing since sliced bread. I was happier than a pig in mud. The problem is I used it so much that I got a front-seat lesson in the lesson that I should have learned in the first place. 

In other words, I learned right then and there the number 1 thing I should have been looking for when sizing up different herbal vaporizer designs. What is this factor? Look for something that doesn’t gum up easily. I bought something that had a nice brand. 

My friends just kept recommending it, so I bought it, and then I used it so heavily that night, that it gummed up. And I was so lazy I didn’t get around to cleaning it, used it heavily again for several days straight, and guess what happened? I basically had a nasty, sticky, hard mess on my hands. 

At that point, I had to decide, do I have the time, effort, and motivation to disassemble everything and dunk the stuff that can be cleaned in a cleaning solution. Can I do that? Do I have time for that? Do I have resources for that? Or should I just buy a new unit? 

It wasn’t a very easy decision to make. It’s not like I was made out of money. Of course, if I had only kept in mind this key factor, I would have avoided this headache. I would have saved my money and I would have spent that money on something more worthwhile. 

It also helps if the product was easy to disassemble and clean. Keep this in mind, because it can save you a tremendous amount of time, effort and hassle. Please understand that just because people recommend a product, it doesn’t mean that it’s the best product for you. You have to pay attention to your specific needs and your specific usage patterns. 

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What to look for in an online vape store?

If you’ve ever looked for vaporizers online, I really can’t blame you for thinking that they are one and the same. Anybody who’s done any kind of shopping for vaping equipment can easily walk away with the impression that if you’ve seen one online vape store, you have pretty much seen them all.

This really is too bad because this means that people are just looking at the surface. If you were to look at these websites, a lot of them have the same parts. They have an about page and contact page. Everybody seems to employ the same graphic designer. A lot of the websites have the same layout. Many have blogs. What exactly separates them from each other?

Well, you have to look at the details because if you think that all online vape stores are one and the same, you are simply putting yourself in a bad position. To put it unkindly, you are setting yourself up for a rip-off.

And the worst part to all of this is that it’s all your fault because there are problematic online stores out there and if you did any kind of basic diligence, you would see them a mile away. You losing time on the phone and playing email ping pong with these people didn’t have to happen.

You didn’t have to waste your time going through all that unnecessary drama. All you needed to do was to pay attention to the following factors.

They carry well-known brands

The first thing that you need to look for when comparing different online vape stores is their brand selection. If you notice that a store is just trying to pass off generic vaporizers, that should raise a red flag for you.

If they call themselves vaping or vape product specialists, then they should present products that the market demands. A lot of the big brands out there are not exclusive. A lot of the big brands out there don’t sell their own products from their own exclusive online store. They have many different distributors.

There’s really no reason why an online vape store that claims to be a specialist shouldn’t carry really well-known brands. 

They must have a solid and clear return policy

Let’s get one thing clear. Even if you have made up your mind as to which brand and model to get, it’s still very easy to get disappointed. That’s just the way things are in the world of online commerce. You can only trust pictures to a certain extent. 

Great looking images can only take you so far. There will be information gaps based on pictures and it’s nobody’s fault. The online vape store might bend over backward to give the very best high definition high-resolution pictures to their customer base. 

Customers can do their best to check out the product from many different angles and view as many different pictures as possible. Still, at the end of the day, there’s a disconnect. People aren’t happy. Well, thankfully, the customer’s always right.

If you don’t get that impression from the return policy of the vape store you are thinking of doing business with, walk away. It’s that simple. Otherwise, you’re walking into a rabbit hole. It’s not like these companies will take your money and scram. They’re not going to do that. 

They’re not going to trade all the goodwill and brand equity that they have built up over the years for a few measly bucks. But you have to understand that when you start the return or refund process, you’re going to have to spend your most important asset.

I’m not talking about the money in your wallet. I’m talking about something far more precious. I’m talking about your time. Because for every minute you spend playing email ping pong, writing up an email regarding what went wrong, packing up the product to send back to the seller, you could’ve been doing something else that is more worthwhile or puts a lot more money in your pocket. 

Do you see how this works? This is called an opportunity cost. It’s a good idea to avoid opportunity costs from the get-go by looking at the return policy, paying close attention to the terms of sale and making your decision accordingly.

Otherwise, you’re just going to create headaches for both yourself and the seller. This problem did not need to happen.

Shipping transparency 

Another problematic area in online vaping e-commerce involves shipping. You have to understand that it’s a dog eat dog world out there. There are lots of vape stores coming online seemingly every month. It seems like everybody in this dog is getting on the online vape store bandwagon.

Given the competitive climate, you can bet that there will be some unscrupulous people bending the rules and hiding their agenda. One common trick is to get search engines to pull up their ridiculously low prices.

That’s how they get a competitive advantage. When people do a search for a certain type of product and certain brand and model, they pull up these stores and then they pull up the price. The searcher, of course, gets taken in by the low price. So they click buy and by the time they click other pages and they’re ready to check out, they get a nasty surprise.

It turns out that that website is charging pretty much the same amount of money as other sites. They feel cheated, they feel duped, they feel that they just wasted their time. Don’t be one of those people. Go straight to the shipping page or the shipping terms and conditions and see what’s up.

If it turns out that the website is basically just trying to bait people with low prices and then socking it to them with higher than normal shipping fees later on in the checkout process, you’re just wasting your time. You don’t want to play that game so get straight to the answer.

By keeping these tips in mind, you will avoid becoming a victim. Do yourself a big favor. You only have so much time to spend shopping online. Use that time wisely by comparing online vape stores the smart way. 

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When should you use a vaporizer? 

Let’s get one thing clear: There are so many ways you can ingest the nicotine from tobacco or the THC from marijuana. In the case of pot, you can dab, you can use shatter, you can use a vaporizer, you can use a bong or a water pipe, you can use a straight wooden pipe, you can even use an apple core. There’s just so many ways to ingest plant compounds into your body.

You can even get stuff baked into cookies or drop essential oils onto fudge brownies. This ingestion diversity is part of what makes the whole process fun. But with all that said, what is it about vaporizing that has made it the most popular ingestion method for herbal fans in the United States and elsewhere? 

What am I talking about? Well, when you go to any outdoor concert, you really could be easily forgiven for thinking that you are looking into an early London morning fog scene. It just seems that a whole concert field packed tight with people is filled with this foggy mist.

Well, you’re not seeing London fog. You’re seeing water vapor produced en masse by happy vaporizer users. Get close enough and you can get a whiff of the exact biochemical compound of the stuff they’re vaping. A lot of it is herbal in nature. In other words, marijuana in all its glory. 

Why did vaping catch on so hard, so quick on all four corners of the globe? What is it about vaporizing besides the visual display of becoming your own personal fog machine that draws so many people to it? 

It all boils down to tar

If you were to ask smokers what they hate about smoking, I can guarantee you that a lot of their complaints can be traced to the fact that they’re burning stuff to enjoy the biochemical compound they’re trying to get from whatever plant stuff they’re smoking.

Whether you are smoking a bowl full of tobacco leaves, crushed or otherwise, or you’re smoking some good old stinky and sticky marijuana buds, it’s the same thing. You’re burning stuff. And let me tell you, burning is bad news.

Just how bad? Well, first of all, there are several hundred chemicals released by burning. A lot of these are cancer causing. A lot of these are highly toxic and irritate muscle tissue. I’m not just talking about the tissues in your skin or even in your muscles. I’m talking about the tissues in your lungs. Those sensitive tissues. 

Worse yet, when you burn any kind of plant material, you create tar. If you don’t know what tar is, go out on a highway, preferably a black top highway. If you live in the United States countryside, you can see blacktop highways as far as the eye could see. 

In fact, a lot of highways still use blacktop. Well, if you’ve seen that asphalt being laid on the road, you are looking at tar. That’s right! That is the sticky, nasty, stinky material that you are essentially painting into the sensitive, thin and vulnerable lining of your lungs. 

If you still don’t get it, take a look at Google images listings of smoker’s lungs. When you compare the healthy pink lungs of people who don’t smoke to the almost black lungs of smokers, you can see the long term impact of tar. 

Let me break it down for you: tar is bad news. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out. Lung cancer is one of the biggest killers of our modern time. Every single year, like clockwork, year after year, millions upon millions of people die unnecessary deaths because they chose to smoke.

Please understand I didn’t say they chose to ingest nicotine or they chose to enjoy marijuana. It’s because they chose to smoke. In other words, they chose to burn stuff and then ingest that smoke into their lungs complete with tar. 

This is why vaporizing is just going out of control. And that’s a good thing. The more people switch to vaping, the better. Sure, there have been recent reports regarding its health complications and overall safety. I’m sure you probably have heard of e-cigarettes exploding or vaporizers suffering all sorts of short circuits.

There have even been fires reported from time to time. But let me tell you, that is a very small risk to take compared to the almost guaranteed certainty that you’re going to run into some forms of health issues if you continue to ingest tar.

Even if you don’t come down with lung cancer, you still have to dodge the bullet of cardiopulmonary disease and emphysema. Not to mention hypertension and other heart issues connected with smoking. It’s bad news!

So do yourself a big favor. Switch to a vaporizer and eventually, you might want to switch to e-cigarettes. By ingesting e-liquids that don’t have nicotine, you get to enjoy everything about the smoking and vaping lifestyle with none of the health baggage. Yes! It’s possible! We definitely have the technology to pull this off.

Vaporizing is a lot of fun. It’s definitely a lot of fun to watch. But you now have a lot more choices than before. Best of all, people are now choosing to ingest water vapor instead of nasty tar containing smoke. 

 

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