An Introduction to USA Made E-Liquids
Here at EasyPuff, we love the fact that vaping is a worldwide phenomenon. Companies around the world have developed some amazing e-liquids, and different regions of the world have their own unique trends and styles. One of the greatest advantages of running the best online vape store in New Zealand is that we get to test our products! USA-made e-liquids are boldly flavoured. Fruity and creamy flavours dominate many makers’ product ranges, and vapers in the United States can’t get enough of them. After testing the products of the leading e-liquid manufacturers in the U.S., we’ve selected one maker whose products we believe will suit the tastes of New Zealand vapers. That maker is Charlie’s Chalk Dust. We profile Charlie’s Chalk Dust elsewhere on this website. If you’d like to learn more about the USA e-liquid industry as a whole, you’re in the right place! Let’s learn more about the world’s biggest vaping market.
The Beginning of the U.S. E-Liquid Industry Genesis
During its first several years, the vaping industry in the United States had little government regulation. Just about anyone could buy some empty bottles, print some labels and become the owner of an e-liquid company. In those days, product quality could be wildly inconsistent. Some e-liquids didn’t taste the same from one bottle to the next. Others had inconsistent nicotine strengths. Despite the occasional product issues, though, most people agreed that the flavours were infinitely better than what the Chinese manufacturers were producing at the time. To the American palate, the domestic e-liquids tasted more like foods and less like chemicals. Some American e-liquid companies eventually became very big – and the U.S. e-liquid industry was born.
Growth
In the beginning, many e-liquid companies in the United States were strictly small-time operations. Some were local vape shops that mixed juices on demand. Others were individual-run businesses that sold only online. As time went by, though, many of those small e-liquid companies cleaned up their acts. They implemented batch numbers for quality control and began using child-safe bottles. Many companies began mixing their e-liquids in true clean-room environments. Some invested in high-quality label printers. A few companies increased their production capacity so greatly that they realized they could begin making white-label e-liquids for other companies. Today, some of America’s most popular e-liquid companies don’t actually make their own products; they develop the flavours and subcontract the mixing and bottling to outside laboratories. It’s quite a change for an industry in which e-liquid companies’ “laboratories” were once kitchens and utility rooms.
The U.S. E-Liquid Industry Today
The U.S. e-liquid industry has entered a consolidation phase in recent years.Downward price pressure has changed vapers’ expectations of what a bottle of e-liquid should cost. The cost per ml of e-liquid in the United States is now as little as 20 percent of what it once was. Many companies that couldn’t mass produce their products and lower their production costs have gone out of business. There is still room for some smaller e-liquid companies, but the nature of the business has changed. While smaller e-liquid companies once distributed their products primarily online, many now rely on local vape shops to sell their products instead. Since many U.S. cities have multiple vape shops, the local market can be just as lucrative today as the online market once was. Regional distribution has led to a high level of variation in the U.S. e-liquid market. A vaper from Seattle, for example, may not be familiar with any of the most popular e-liquid brands in Miami. Other e-liquid brands have become popular throughout the nation. Thanks to large distribution networks, some very popular brands – such as Charlie’s Chalk Dust – are now available in local vape shops throughout the United States.
Trends in USA-Made E-Liquids
Complexity
If there’s one universal truth in the U.S. e-liquid industry, it’s that single-flavour e-liquids simply don’t inspire people any more. Vapers expect complex, layered blends that achieve their flavour profiles by combining many – sometimes dozens of – flavouring concentrates. If an e-liquid doesn’t have a chef-inspired flavour description, it won’t command a high price and may not sell at all. If an e-liquid has a flavour description such as “hazelnut biscotti dipped in coffee and drizzled with crème anglaise and raspberry coulis,” it’s probably a USA-made e-liquid. Some of the most popular flavour notes in the United States include cream, custard, strawberry, melon, cereal,candy.
Sweetness
While there are still many people – particularly new vapers – in the United States who prefer tobacco and menthol e-liquids, the American vaping community at large strongly prefers sweeter flavours. Once new vapers realize that e-cigarette vapour could never taste like burning tobacco – and a custard-filled pastry tastes a lot better than tobacco smoke anyway – they quickly lose interest in trying to recreate the flavour of their old tobacco cigarettes. Many United States vapers have actually claimed that they would probably return to smoking if they couldn’t buy sweet e-liquids any more.
High VG Percentage
Cloud chasing is the final major trend influencing the development of e-liquid in the United States. When sub-ohm tanks became popular, people began to demand e-liquids with a higher percentage of vegetable glycerine. At the same time, e-liquids with added sweeteners were increasing in popularity. Sweetener is the leading cause of coil gunk, and coil gunk can ruin an atomizer coil in as little as a day. If you prefer sweetened e-liquids and use pre-made coils that cost several dollars each, vaping can quickly become very expensive. To offset the high cost of replacement coils, many American vapers switched from sub-ohm tanks to rebuildable atomizers. As rebuildable atomizers became more popular, tastes shifted even further in favour of high-VG e-liquids. High-VG e-liquids aren’t just best for optimal wicking performance in high-power vaping devices – they also produce huge vapour clouds. The one drawback of high-VG e-liquids, though, is that they don’t work well in small vape pens. Many new vapers with eGo e-cigarettes and other small devices have been disappointed when they visited their local vape shops and found nothing but high-VG e-liquids.
