So, /u/the_perrycox posted in the march recipe thread a mix for his interpretation of Artifact Vapor Widow's Walk ( https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/48gc96/march_2016_recipe_thread/d0jcqpy ). I had grabbed the original when Fizz put up a sale around thanksgiving. It's a great juice, but being a novice DIY'er, and the two clones I've been working on have been a long struggle, there was no way I'd be able to recreate it myself. So props to perrycox.
But, I had exactly 1 of the ingredients. And, I wasn't sure how good the recipe would be (it's pretty damn great, btw). Plus my free time has been short lately. Anyway, mixing up the recipe was not something I really wanted to do. But, I really wanted to try it. So, enter http://vapecrafter.com
Almost every single review here on reddit has said the experience has been not that great. But I figured I'd experiment. So at 10pm CST on March 29th I placed an order. Now, I'm still a DIYer so I went with their flavorbase option. For 30ml of base it was $16, plus $6.65 in shipping.
That's about 2.5 times the cost of the ingredients themselves. So, it's definitely not a cheaper alternative to mixing completely on your own. But, still not too bad. Especially since once you factor in if I were to buy the ingredients to make it myself it would have been $29, $6 more expensive, if I had ordered from BCV. Granted this doesn't take into balance the leftovers I would have from each bottle. But, base cost, to make 30ml of flavor base, it was actually cheaper to go through vapecrafter.
In the long run, it's definitely cheaper to buy individual ingredients. Plus you can experiment with those ingredients in other mixes.
So, how long did it take for me to actually receive my order? 9 days. I did place my order late at night, and there was the weekend. So 9 days really isn't bad. I know there's been horror stories of orders taking 2 months. But, for me, it was a surprisingly good turnaround.
Unfortunately there is 1 thing I can't comment on. The accuracy of the mix. This was my first order of a mix I've never tried before. Only thing I can say is what I received is damn tasty.
Will I be using Vapecrafter again? Maybe. The real advantage of their service isn't premixed juices, but the premixed flavor bases. So, once I have another recipe locked down. And, I crunch the numbers of the break even between vapecrafter vs. bcv or gremlindiy or ecx, I'll decide then. But, my guess is that for experimenting and creating recipes I'll be going the full on diy route, and flavor bases I'll be grabbing from vapecrafter.
This isn't very DIY
It's more DIY than ordering juice. And being completely DIY wasn't OP's point if you'd read the post.
But that's the point of what we all do here.
You're completely right, this isn't very DIY. In fact it's kind of /r/DIFM_eJuice. But, that sub doesn't have as much traffic.
Not every DIY'er creates their own recipes. And not every DIY'er wants tons and tons of ingredients around to make their recipes. So, for those that would like to order their flavor bases premixed I offered up my review/thoughts on the vapecrafter service.
I'm not mixing pure aroma volatiles like abdada or the deeperdiy folks, or creating my own scale out of an arduino. Vapecrafter to me is just another tool.
Nice, thanks for sharing.
I'd have to see if they do international and what shipping is like but I may use these guys in the future. There's been a few times I've wanted to mix a recipe but haven't been able to justify picking up all the flavours, this could be a good alternative for those flavours you know you're unlikely to use again.
I was one of the people early last year that had the 1 month turn around time. I was thinking about shooting an order there again just to test out their turn around time, so thanks for saving me the trouble.
I think it's a great idea for a service for the ultranoobs, and I'm glad to hear they have improved. I'm honestly amazed they stayed in business considering how awful they used to be!