Based on the possible MSDS sheets floating around last week, we decided to call Flavor West and confirm or deny if their flavors do in fact contain Fructose. Those MSDS sheets are accurate and they are intentionally obfuscating the information. When asked why they don't list a food ingredient on the ingredients list, the response was: "we list it in the MSDS and that complies with the law". The only way to find the MSDS sheet on Flavor Wests website is to to to Company -> Advanced Search and it is on the lower left hand corner.
It's obvious they don't want their customers to know about what is in their flavorings, yet are geared towards the vaping community.
I told you so. (edit: I never told Blue Dot directly, lol, it's a figure of speech).
I told everyone so and I got downvoted.
Here is my list for public consumption.
I got BITCHED at by a vendor last week for this list. Fsck that guy, lol.
Thanks for going public with this dude. Hope you don't get crucifixions like I did.
Crucify away. We aren't going to tell people what they can do with their bodies, but they sure a shit better be able to at least make informed decisions.
I've been digging into a LOT of stuff the past year and you making this post brings a tear to my eye, because other vendors didn't want to hear about it.
Please try FA Nonna's Cake to replace the FW Yellow Cake. Get back to us lol.
This drives me nuts because it's such an important issue, but the schmucks just downvote me whenever I tell them that we are furthering science by disclosing this stuff. No one wants to believe it.
Seriously, you have my dollars in spending in the next juice cycle, just for being open about it. That means a lot to me.
> ## A.B. Dada's DIY data depository You shouldn't be here. Go away.
...Okay :,(
Name and shame time! Or PM me who it was please. That's fucked up and I don't want to contribute to a company that behaves like that.
I told them to kill themselves and I hope they do.
They're not Redditors though so hopefully they'll just go away. Assholes telling me I'm committing a felony by posting lies on a blog, lolol. Of course, my lawyers made sure I was protected just in case, but I said a year ago that FW Yellow Cake MUST have sugar because it caramelized at exactly 340 degrees when I cooked it. And FW refused to answer my emails then, too.
Thank god for TFA and FA.
Wwhile reading your post I was vaping something I was trying out with Yellow Cake, Strawberry TFA, Ripe TFA, and Sucralose. So I'm reading as I'm vaping Sugar, EM, and Sucralose! Still tasted like moldy strawberries... But really sweet moldy strawberries!
Just a thought: Your section is called "Concerning flavors" - What I take to mean "With regards to flavors", but after reading it, I think it's "Flavors of concern" :)
I have the Cinnamon Churro and actually just ordered the Yellow Cake earlier today. I have seen your list before but completely forgot about it other than "try to avoid FW". I think is what my TL;DR registered that day. I'm still going to make Rhodonite when I get my order, but will switch it out with Nonna's if it ends up being a close taste.
The way that I see it, if I'm fine with diacetyl, I'll bite the bullet on yellow cake. Not putting it in my line, though.
Commented on this below, same comment:
I talked to some chemists about it and they said I'm probably overreacting about the sugar->acetaldehyde because sugar burns at a higher temperature in the presence of solvents and diluents, so it's POSSIBLE that it's totally fine and you just get gunking, not noxious toxins!.
Forgive my ignorance, but what is the concern with the items on that list? I have to TFA Caramel, not sure if it's "original" and just want to be safe. Care to educate a new DIY'er on the concerns with the list you have there?
Where does it say sugar on the msds? I want to double check some of the flavors i use
>Fsck that guy
Are you saying he wasn't consistent?
Blue Dot? Has always been consistent. When they got beat up a bit over their peppery nic, they went ham and got the best nic even though it adds 2-3% to their overhead (minimum, maybe more). That's a huge hit to take for a discount juice vendor. And when the sugar crucifixions came out, he gets on the phone and gets the truth out of the vendor, something they REFUSED to give me.
The other vendor who bitched me out in private? He was inconsistent because he didn't want to believe it. Because he knows he's going to either have to disclose it, or pull flavors and remake them.
Damn, first time I have seen your website. Looks awesome! Looking at all the links and the nicotine research was pretty cool to read through too! Also the extraction methods.
Thanks for that list! Only 2 from TFA? Not bad at all, time to find replacements for these 2. Anybody got suggestions?
Just threw a couple bucks into the BTC address listed at the bottom of your list. Thanks for doing the work.
Well shit, thank you! If you want to be noted on the "helpful supporters" page I'm making, let me know how to title it.
I pay like $120 a month for my research paper access (no PDFs though) so every little bit helps!
Sad. I just went through my shopping list and compared it to your link. After deleting the flavors with sugar I said fuck it and deleted anything FW. I don't want to support shady business practices. Thanks for sharing your findings.
> I told everyone so and I got downvoted.
That always happens , people hate people telling it like it is , it has to be politically correct or you will get downvoted lol.
Yeah, and it's one of those crazy things -- whenever I posted in ECR about any research that discussed POSSIBLE HARM from certain compounds, I was downvoted. So I stopped posting.
I personally vape a lot of the compounds I'm concerned about, but I just like knowing I can adjust what I vape to rotate the concerning compounds.
Hopefully this will be the year where there'll be more disclosure from the top down, but who knows?
We can't just keep removing compounds from flavors. If we did, we'd all be vaping plain VG.
Yeah i know your a big fan of the "so called bad stuff" , i agree about having a choice to vape them or not vape them though .
As an individual i hate that the Gov has the power to make stuff illegal because they don't want you to do it even though much of what they make illegal is far safer than alcohol .
It's our life and body , we should have the right to choose. Anyway , i agree about the downvoting , people shouldn't downvote for something they don't want to hear or agree with but it is what it is .
I never downvoted you for your diketone viewpoint by the way , if i let downvotes/upvotes bother me i wouldn't be able to post anything.
My philosophy is just say what you think and let the chips fall where they may .
Flavor West have a lot of form for this kind of shit.
2-3 years ago a vendor found very high amounts of diacetyl in their butterscotch. shortly after, links to "certificates of analysis" appeared on the site but they were nothing of the sort, they just stated that ingredients were pharma grade or GRAS (diacetyl is GRAS).
Then perhaps a year ago they stuck up what purported to be test results but it wasn't a lab report, just a tabular list with % for D/A/P with some flavours missing. No limits of detection on these 'test results' and the results for diacetyl were implausible given the amount of acetoin. It took months to get them to admit that it was only an ingredients list and that no testing had been done.
They are shady as fuck and I sincerely hope that they end up in court along with Five Pawns, with the juice-makers and customers they lied to lining up on the other side to put that fucker in prison. And I do mean prison. This is a very serious pattern of deception for a company that actively markets to vapers and claims to be free of stuff that people might want to avoid if only they knew it was in there.
This is the kind of company that will take vaping down if we don't take it down first. They have to go.
Out of curiosity, why should Five Pawns end up in court? I know they're overpriced as fuck but are they that sinister a company?
They currently have pending lawsuits over potentially hiding that they knew their eliquids contained diacetyl, but hide that information from the public. Whether that is a case or not is up to the judge.
As answered by BlueDot, they flat out lied to their customers for around a year when they had results but didn't release them until a vendor (Cloud 9, now Creme de Vape) released even worse numbers, at which point 5P set lawyers on them and stuck their own (still bad) results up.
They're not just pretentious wankers, they're rank mateurs who put profits ahead of valid health concerns - many of their customers were going on firm assurances of no DAP. Plenty of juice-makers have been put in a similar position to 5P, inadvertently selling DAP-containing juice because some of their flavour suppliers are shady, but 5P is the only one known to have concealed test results. Several others have 'fessed up and reformulated or continued the juice with clear warnings. Like an actual proper business should.
There''s a class action lawsuit underway. I know someone with COPD whose condition deteriorated rapidly whilst using Five Pawns juice (vapers with COPD are at much higher risk from diketones because they've already got very serious lung damage, likely due in large part to the diketones in smoke). 5P need to be hung out to dry.
Their MSDS sheets in general are crap. You'll find they basically cut and paste the info from one to another.
Example is their specific gravity is always the same: 1.04
Menthol is actually 0.974. Razzleberry is 1.011. Both measured the same day, unless I screwed up really bad, I don't see how either is close to their reported number.
I asked in r/chemistry and got the following response.
> I'm somewhat confused as to why vaping liquid would need to contain fructose or any other sugar. The bulk of all such liquids is either glycerin or propylene glycol, both of which already have a sweet taste. So it is hard to believe that adding a relatively small amount of fructose would make much of a difference to the taste.
> In any case, if the fructose is only present in the flavouring, which is then diluted with bulk glycerin or propylene glycol (or both), then the concentration in the finished vape gravy will be rather small. So even if it does caramelize in your e-cig, the amount of decomposition products you end up inhaling would be similarly small. So I really wouldn't worry too much about it.
> But your chemist friend is probably right. The glycerin or propylene glycol will absorb the majority of the heat from the heating element in your e-cig, being vaporized in the process. So the majority of the fructose present will not be in contact with the heating coil for long enough to cause decomposition - it will probably be atomized along with the rest of the liquid before it can burn.
Yep, I have talked to chemists who have told me this but also chemists who told me that you can't know what might happen to a concentrate when you're only heating up small small amounts. How much eliquid is in a wick? Not even 1ml.
So the response is "probably not burning it, but if there is any residue, THAT is getting burned."
So the sugar you vape? Not burned. The sugar gunking your coils? That's getting burned.
Makes sense. Fuuuck. Nona cake huh? FA North America is cheap but iffy on shipping. 65 for 1 litre, but shipping from Canada.
whoever is in charge of the supplier list should really update blue dot's entry, i had completely skipped over them because under the Diacetyl-free column they are listed as simply "No" while others have additional information clarifying that some do or don't. blue dot puts warnings on the flavors that can contain diacetyl and obviously they are committed to being open about it, i think they need a revision
We had it changed and then someone changed it back. The issue with that list is that any person with malicious intent can just changed it. It's a public doc.
I'd like to be educated as to why the fructose is an issue? I mean obviously it should be listed if that is what is going inside of this juice but is this allergen based or can this cause health issues through smoking it's vapors...
Burn sugar and it can become acetaldehyde, a carcinogen.
The 2 biggest carcinogens in tobacco smoke are Polonium 210 -- which comes from the pesticides used to grow tobacco and not smoke itself -- and acetaldehyde which is because tobacco leaves are 20% sugar by weight.
Blue Dot already jumped over the Polonium 210 concern by only sourcing 99.983% pure nicotine extracted from organic tobacco (no Polonium 210 in organic tobacco).
How much acetaldehyde am i inhaling from a cigarette compared to e-cigs? Does it have more (dangerous) carcinogens than grill marks on a steak?
On the nic issue, I appreciate that you are based in the US but do you know of a UK supplier that has pure nic?
I use pirate vapes based on previous reviews and suggestions but was curious if you knew of anyone in particular that should be used on this side of the pond?
Shouldn't it NOT be allowed in vape liquids? It seems to me that someone should notify an agency.
Thanks BDV, it's good to know if companies are being a little bit sneaky FW could make this information more readily available, and a big thanks to abdada for that list. Not saying I'd never use any of those flavors, just nice to be able to make informed decisions.
I talked to some chemists about it and they said I'm probably overreacting about the sugar->acetaldehyde because sugar burns at a higher temperature in the presence of solvents and diluents, so it's POSSIBLE that it's totally fine and you just get gunking, not noxious toxins!.
Um, there's a link to the MSDS on every category page on FW site. It's right under "compare products" on the sidebar. It doesn't show on the individual product pages, but it's certainly not hard to find. It's certainly not only on Company -> Advanced Search.
How complete and approachable the MSDS itself is is another matter, but saying it's only on some deep-nested page is pretty melodramatic.
sigh, now what to do with that 120 ml bottle of fw yellow cake
birthday cake flavored yogurt for the next year!
Let me clarify: i have no proof that acetaldehyde will be produced by vaping sugar in a solvent. I have no idea. I'm not a chemist nor an accredited researcher.
I personally don't want to vape it, but I'm not saying it's cancerous or dangerous.
That's up to the end individual to decide!
Well not really. How can I decide on something like that without any info? I need potential outcomes to make a decision don't I?
That's one of the reasons why I D_DIY -- I want to know more about what I put in my body.
A lot of these things are added to everything we taste and smell every day. Unlisted volatile compounds are added to infant formula even. There's no mandate for companies to disclose, and I don't even want a legal mandate for them to do it because it's their proprietary information and I'm not FORCED to imbibe, inhale or intake anything.
My long game is different than most -- I want to help be a part of the world's first open source flavor company. I don't want to own it or be financially involved in it, I want to be part of the community that creates demand for someone else to make billions by creating open source flavors for food, vaping, perfume, sodas, infant formula, whatever.
There's no financial incentive for anyone to do this, though. Flavor recipes can't be protected by IP (which is good, I am anti-IP). But if a company DID step forward and say "we are going to release our recipes exactly, and if competitors want to copy them, that's fine", I know I'd give them all my money.
Even if their flavors were lower quality (in taste) than an opaque vendor.
Abdada, you are doing this community a great service! Ever since I saw your "concerning flavors" post, I took heed and cut out those ingredients. Thank you so much!
So let me follow up with, are there any other companies or flavors we need to be wary of?
I am adding more flavors to the page as I find them, or as vendors inform me of concerns. TFA has always disclosed their concerning flavors up front -- I'm hoping to hear back from other flavor vendors next week.
Note that this isn't about anything I did at all! Someone else pushed the MSDS sheets out there, I just theorized a year ago that the concentrates contained sugar. Some people here will admit that they crucified me for saying it, but at least it's out there.
So don't thank me, thank whoever pushed the MSDS sheets to the front of our eyeballs.
Damn haha and to think I felt terrible about being sensationalist earlier on that thread based off of /u/abdada research. Glad you followed through with this and proved us both right! Good work man. Really appreciate the findings.
Well, I didn't release the MSDS, I just provoked my angry theory last year about it.
Whoever finally put them together is the hero -- I never once realized they actually admitted to using sugar in their flavors.
The crazy thing is, I must have spent a good part of 6 months trying to mimic the sweetness of one of their concentrates. Now I know I failed so miserably.
Appreciate it man! BDV almost had my head earlier :) still love all my vape friends though. I might make a post tomorrow in e cig subreddit. It would probably rustle a lot of jimmies. Your page explains everything? Imagine all the people starting to panic who vape mbv, cosmic fog, etc. shit im definitely vaping fw laden juice right now. Theyre basically unavoidable unless you diy
At this point, vendors who rely on FW are going to have to make a decision: disclose the sugar content, or re-engineer it.
As you are aware, there's nothing that compares to Yellow Cake (or some of the other popular flavors, like Cake Batter Dip or Cinnamon Churro). There's no easy replacement.
I think the DIY community can come up with something, though. Not a 1:1 replacement, of course, but that's the fun of DIY.
I can tell you right now that a few of my favorite vendor flavors are going to go away. I know for a fact it's Yellow Cake (and my coils are toast in 2 hours), and it's sad because they are fantastic flavors.
But the Phoenix rises again -- with every dusk a better dawn rises.
Thank you for the good work on this and also to /u/abdada. Seeing that FW Yellow Cake contains sugar could be kind of eye opening to me, being diabetic. However, is there a correlation between vaping a flavor with sugar and an increase in blood glucose in diabetics?
Not sure, but you should be aware nicotines effect on diabetes and talk with your doctor about vaping in relation.
Possibly although only anecdotal.
A diabetic partner of mine used to get a higher a1c post vaping a certain vendor's juice last year.
He switched to a different "all organic" vendor and the problem went away.
FWIW I'm pretty certain the former vendor used FW.
But he is a rabid a1c monitorer (?) and I trust his opinion.
It wasn't a huge swing, though. We're talking 0.20-1g of sugar per ml of juice. Shouldn't have affected his results.
Are there any suppliers that are completely transparent about these things?
Generally speaking, The Flavor Apprentice provides the most information about their flavors. Capella is ok about it, but a lot of flavors test with diacetyl; they have an a/ap/d section with tested flavors. Flavour Art Italy has their clear stream program which is dedicated to testing flavors and their health effects, but does not disclose exact flavor compounds like TFA.
I would quite literally shit a brick if FA released their MSDS.
I'm hoping, and I'm sure /u/bluedotvapors is too, that TFA ends up working on their formulae going forward, knowing what FA is doing to change the flavor potency for juice makers.
TFA has the technology to do so much better. I'm not sure why they're slacking.
Shit flavors, shit concern for their customers. I've been screaming fuck FW since I started mixing.
>Shit flavors
Ahem, might I turn you on to our lord and savior, FW Hazelnut?
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
- [/r/electronic_cigarette] [X-post /r/DIY_Ejuice]FlavorWest on the subject of fructose in flavorings.
^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^(Info ^/ ^Contact)
So will /u/skiddlzninja have to amend his DIY mythbusting post to clarify that FW flavorings are, in fact, bad flavorings?
I'm sure as hell am not vaping fructose considering I don't want to even ingest it let alone inhale it.
I always wondered why Yellow Cake tasted like burnt shit and high temps for me. I'll have to sub it out with Cake Batter for now till I find something closer.
Fructose is not the same as HFCS, if that's your concern.
Oh yeah, I know the difference. I should have clarified.
It's mainly the shady shit from FW that makes me not want to use their products anymore.
So are any of their flavors safe?
We recommend reading /u/abdada list of flavors page here.
I'm gonna give a little bit of info regarding SDS/MSDS sheets...
If something is deemed a trade secret, they do not have to list it.
In other words, if TFA has a bad ass flavor, or better yet ECX with FE Lemon, there's a good chance the SDS is NOT going to contain information that would allow someone to clone that flavor. This is how companies protect their investments required to develop great flavors.
If this concerns you, you should really pull up the SDS for just about EVERYTHING you have purchased. There is a lot of crap out there not listed on the SDS. It does not mean the companies are shady. They are just protecting themselves the only way they can.
Putting sugar in concentrates sold to vaping companies is shady. That's the concern.
Just say on the product page "Contains Sugars". That's all we're asking.
I wasn't sure of the nature of the complaint here other than things not being listed on the MSDS. I can understand that concern.
I just thought the premise behind this was the neglect to list the ingredients as there has been a lot of discussion recently about MSDS sheets and flavor concentrates.
If you sell flavor concentrates, you should disclose sugar content not just for vaping users but for those on diets. I do /r/keto and am pissed they didn't list sugars on there.
What about diabetics? Should they have to read MSDS sheets to check if a FLAVOR contains sugar?
So in other words I should throw away my 120ml bottle of FW Yellow Cake coming in the mail tomorrow :'(
I want to clarify that I don't know if acetaldehyde will be produced by vaping sugar that's in a solvent with a higher burning point. It's possible nothing bad happens but gunked coils.
I don't know. I'm not sure anyone knows.
For my individual choice, I won't do it, but that's MY choice.
As a consumer, I want the freedom to choose. I think FW should keep those concentrates on the market, just disclose sugar content on the consumer page. They would be wise to release a sugar-free SF version, too.
Its a shame they don't reformulate to have sugar free lines. Their flavoring is completely suitable for several applications --- just not vaping.
It's bringing on unnecessary bad press -- albeit on a small scale, but still.
I think it's time we see the 'abdada's exclusive' line of flavor concentrates.
can be used for things other than vaping if you feel the need to not use it for that. yogurt , coffee flavoring , ice cream , pudding , and other things like fudge , chocolates more i'm sure... or none food items like candles.
so no don't toss it.... please note some flavors are just horrible when used in these food applications shudders at bronut coffee
What if I told you these favors were all developed for the food service industry and not for vaping?
What if I told you that it has E-use recommendations and is directly marketed towards eliquid manufacturers/diy'ers? What if I told you that they could also be reformulated if they wanted to?
FWIW I hope they do reformulate it as either a SF version (sugar-free) or even just a sucralose containing version. There's nothing that stops them from NOT adding sugar, unless their extraction process involves in.
Some of the flavors do say "natural extracts" so it is possible that there's no extraction method available for them to pull flavor without the natural fructose.