FlavourArt Dusk (FA) Flavour Review
One of the newer tobacco flavours out from FlavourArt, in their description, they say:
> Dusk is a soft and very delicate tobacco, suitable for use all day long. Wisely combines the soft taste of licorice with a background of fine tobacco and wood.
Licorice? Wood? Fine Tobacco? Sounds good to me. Does it deliver?
Testing Parameters
- 10ml samples created
- 5%, 7.5%, and 10% batches created
- each batch given a 10 minute spin on a spinner hot plate at 45C
- tested on a single coil Plume Veil with a .5 ohm coil installed (and a super fluffy wick, if that's important to you).
- At least 2ml vaped from each batch, cold start, chugging away, slow, fast, throat hits, lung hits, catching the clouds, french inhale, the woiks.
- no nicotine added for these tests. As you may know, nicotine can and often will change how a flavour tastes; YMMV.
- no temp control vaping for this test. Again, different percentages may play differently on a .1ohm nickle coil compared to my .5 kanthal in these tests. YMMV.
What I tasted and smelled
So at 5% I really struggled to taste licorice (TBH, it wasn't there at 5%). Got slight woody notes but I also got the most subtle of juicy fruit flavours - specifically, berry flavours. Very very delicate but still what I'd call edge of sophistication. Absolutely no harsh chemically tastes, which I was getting from some other tobaccos, including FA's tobaccos. This is nice at 5%, and very vapable all day at that amount. Got the beginnings of a nice "aroma wrapper" tobacco leaf flavour from Dusk at this percentage.
At 7.5% the licorice started to show itself a bit, and the fruit notes slightly diminished, but were still present. Started to taste chocolate at this level too, which surprised me (along with the berry notes); since they don't mention chocolate or berry in their flavour description. Tobacco and wood starts to show up a bit more, and still no chemically presence like some other flavourings have. This amount might be the top I'd mix it straight at. After taste is pleasing and you get some final cocoa / berry notes on the long after taste.
At 10%, I could get the licorice, but the nice sophistication and delicacy of the 5 and 7.5% amounts was gone and I didn't particularly like the aftertaste much. Woody woody woody, cocoa chocolate notes. Doable at this amount but I don't advise it. However, if you be vapin' at 1.5, 2.0 ohm, try this at 10% to see how it goes for you.
Vape Ideas and Rating
I love fruits and tobaccos together. Also love vanillas and tobaccos together. And I love wintergreen and tobaccos together. And caramels, toffees, chocolates with tobaccos. And fleshy fruits and tobaccos. Well, you get the picture. The best "tobacco flavours" on the market should mix with anything tobaccos normally can go with, and this one definitely does. Because of the berry fruit, slight chocolate, and licorice, this'd be a fantastic base for a berry tobacco recipe, or a berry chocolate tobacco recipe. I'm still fine tuning a berry tobacco recipe I've been playing around with for weeks, and once I'm happy enough with it, I'll post it - but hint: this flavour Dusk is in it.
I haven't tried it yet with fleshy fruits (pears, peaches, apples etc) but I imagine it would do just fine. For mentholating this up, I'd go with Koolada or very slight wintergreen over plain menthol. Tried both Koolada and menthol and really preferred the former.
Since the licorice was very delicate (and undetectable at 5%), maybe adding a few drops of red licorice or licorice flavouring (or anise) would give this a nice boost too. Mmmmmmm koolada and red licorice to this flavouring... damn, gonna try that later today!
NB: if all you vape is creams, cereals, fruits, and desserts, you will most likely not like this tobacco. To me, it's balanced on sweetness vs bitters and such, but if you go from this at 7.5% to, say vanilla bean ice cream at 7.5%, you will definitely notice a huge boost in the sweet tooth delivery on the VBIC. As an example, I was vaping Moon Sugar (the original) a bit, then went to vape Dusk at 7.5%, and the Dusk was like, flat and no tangible sweetness at all. Put both aside, rinsed with soda water, came back an hour later, vaped the Dusk, and there again was the nice, delicate sophisticated taste balance that had noticeable sweets from the chocolate and berry taste notes.
Rated this 8/10. It's probably in my top three tobacco flavourings. Sophisticated taste yet delicate; fantastic on its own between 4-8% depending on your vaping style and equipment. If you're looking for a pure tobacco flavour with nothing else included, this isn't for you. If you're looking for tobacco with some additional elements, all put together in a nice, delicate way, this is the one to get.
Thanks for the review! Very few FA flavours get used past 4%, especially their tobaccos. Try 1, 2, & 3% & see if things like the licorice change for you. What the heck are you even vaping on? Wattage? Coil builds? All you've mentioned is .1 nickel & .5 kanthal, with the potential for TC tests later on.
I know Soho is weak compared to older FA tobaccos. Maybe this one too. I got wide eyed when I saw 10% though.
I initially tried this at 2.5% (approximate, since it's hard to get that percentage accurately even with a .01g scale) and TBH, wasn't getting anything really I could write about: sure, there was stuff to taste compared to just vaping plain PG.VG, but it was hard to single out stuff. So I tried 5% and the flavours started to pop out. Mind you I diidn't do several-days' steep, did a spin / heat (45c) steep, which probably diminished the flavours somewhat as well. But compared to other FA tobacco flavours I've tried, this one is very delicate and light. I felt I was pushing the limits though at 7.5%, and wrote that in my review.
Others are critical of me trying this up to 10%; I did it for a few reasons, first it is delicate, and second, people vaping at 1.5, 2.0ohm probably need that much to get serious flavour hits out of it. But I thought I was reasonably clear that at 10%, it's too much.
EDIT. I sourced this particular FA from a Canadian vendor I no longer order from. The severe cynic in me wonders if it's possible it's been watered down (as it is not in a FA proper bottle, but re-bottled by the vendor); I got a few PMs from people who said even at 5%, they found this flavour just too over the top. I don't want to lay down false accusations, but I think I may have to order FA Dusk from another source first before finding out for sure if I have a watered down sample, or I'm just wanting more flavour out of this than others have expressed.