Just thougth I'd share for anyone using Lorann flavors in their DIY. Below are my experiences with different flavors (all single flavors made at 10mg nic strength).
- Banana cream 10% - very good (8 out of 10)
- Watermelon 10-15% - very good (8 out of 10). note: at first I really didn't like this, but now I do (it's a very mellow flavor)
- creme de la menth 10% - very good (8 out of 10). It's a bit dry (probably can be fixed by mixing with a sweetner or something... but it's a nice vape... tastes like after eights).
- Cherry 10-15% - bad. (2 out of 10). Cherry just doesn't come through.
- Apple 10-15% - ok (7 out of 10). Like the watermelon didn't like this at first, but then it grew on me. It's a very mellow vape.
- butter rum 15% - excellent (9 out of 10). Tastes exactly like butter rum.
- Cotton candy 10 and 15% - poor (4 out of 10). Hardly tastes like anything, although the vape is incredibly smooth.
- prelines and cream 10% - ok (6 out of 10). It's a very strong flavor, but I'm not a huge fan of prelines and cream. If I was then this would get a much higher rating as the flavor is very accurate.
I'll be testing a few more flavors over the coming weeks. I'll leave additional reviews in this post.
Said it a couple dozen times here before, but I use LA flavoring almost exclusively.
I think you'd be best served to use the cotton candy as a sweetener; that's what I do to keep from having to dissolve ethyl maltol crystals. Most of the stuff above would benefit from about 2% cotton candy added to what you've already made :)
10% LA English toffee with 2% cotton candy was my ADV for more than a year; these days it's 20% LA natural blueberry (the natural flavor line is half-strength but has no PG or artificial color), 3% Cotton Candy and 3.5% koolada :)
Another fun thing to try might be an Andes mint - I ended up with 18% creme de menthe and 11% chocolate. Nice dessert vape.
But - try 2% cotton candy in all the mixes you made above; I think you'll be impressed.
I've had two different versions of Cherry. One clear and weak and the other bright red and strong. The strong one in moderation has been awesome. The Watermelon I can't get to work. Just can't taste it no matter how much I use. I haven't used the Apple on it's own, but it mixes nicely with Butterscotch and Butter Rum.
Also good are Strawberry and Raspberry but full of dye. As are the Root Beer and Grape (strong!). Tasty, but be prepared to clean your coils often. It's a little scary how coloured some of these are. I was surprised how much I liked the Banana Cream, but it's neon yellow in my tank. I've also used Amaretto, Wintergreen and Orange Oil dissolved in vodka in small amounts. There aren't considered vape safe so use at your own risk. I understand many of these are glass only.
I think we're using these to experiment because they're cheap and readily available but I really worry about the colour compared to what I've had from Flavor West and TPA. I think I'm going to start looking for safer alternatives.
I'm not too concerned with the coloring. Although I agree with you, it would be nice if it weren't present.
My view on the coloring is sort of like this...
Let's say you make 10ml with 10% flavoring, that's 1ml of flavoring.
Now for me, it would take me about 5 days to go through that 10ml (in truth more like 10 because I don't just vape one flavor)... so I'd be vaping about 2ml a day (which would contain .2ml of flavoring).
Factor in as well that the vapor isn't colored (so clearly the food coloring breaks down when vaped). Imagine if our teeth ended up stained red or blue from the food coloring :) That would be worrisome.
All in all, while it would be nice to not have any concerns regarding food coloring, I'm not overly concerned about it.
An exposure of .2ml per day is pretty small.
If there were something clearly toxic in the food coloring, it wouldn't be safe for eating either. While vaping isn't the same as ingestion, there is a relative relationship between toxicity and how our body reacts (most things thinks that are toxic to swallow are toxic to inhale as well).
I agree that in the future I will look at other vendors, but I'm not going to sweat over the food coloring for the time being. And for the flavors I really enjoy from LA I'll probably keep vaping them in the future.
further update...
Since cotton candy wasn't great on its own (4 out of 10) and cherry was horrible (2 out of 10)... I decided to add some cherry, maybe 2-5% (not sure, as I just guestimated) to the cotton candy mix (which was 10%).
Long story short, it's not bad now (still not great, but vapable).
So two crap flavors combined to make a half decent one.