I bought 13 Real Flavors from Gremlin DIY and made 10 ml batches of all of them. They have been steeping for 6-7 weeks now and I just tried them on my Tsunami, with a dual alien build.
All of them either taste very bitter, very chemical-ish or taste like medicines, esp the lemonade flavors.
I used them at 10% ratio. So 1ml for every batch of 10ml. I've seen people on this sub recommend anywhere between 8-12% so I choose the middle. The juices contain no nic and are 70-30.
How could it be that all of them taste so bad. So bad that I don't even want to take more than 2-3 drags?
These are the ones I tried:
1 x Baja Soda (RF)
1 x Banana Bread (RF)
1 x Boston Cream Pie (RF)
1 x Cherry Limeade (RF)
1 x Cream Soda (RF)
1 x Lemonade (RF)
1 x Root Beer Float (RF)
1 x Strawberry Lemonade (RF)
1 x Strawberry Milkshake (RF)
1 x Watermelon (RF)
1 x Strawberry Pastry (RF)
1 x Strawberry Banana Smoothie (RF)
1 x Chocolate Chip Cookie (RF)
Very much like OOO, they have some golden gems, but a lot of misses. Really bad misses.
but 13 of them bad ??
Well, to put it this way...
When I order some of their flavors, I expect to pretty much be throwing my money away. When I find one that's good, it's like winning the lottery.
Cherry Pie, Cookie Dough, Bread Pudding, and Cream are really the only ones I've liked so far. With the exception of Bread Pudding, they are rather harsh though.
I wish I could say better things about them, but I was really spoiled when I first learned about them and someone told me which flavors were actually good. Little did I know at the time...
I have banana bread and strawberry milkshake, both of them were really good at 10%. I ordered direct from RF though, maybe there's an issue with Gremlin's rebottling? Or there was a bad batch? Can't say anything about the others but those 2 were good, clean, and pretty accurate.
/u/mysticrosell has written pretty much all the RF Reviews in this sub. Maybe ~~he~~ she can shed some light.
I really don't have any clue. There are some duds, and some very authentic in this line. But I've never had a bad or chemical tasting one. The VG do require a 4-8 week steep for best results. I highly recommend the Extracts, the strength is amazing and much reduced steep times compared to the VG version. I would have to say if all 13 had a bad chemical taste, it was either the rebottler or heat/cold extremes in transit? The VG versions need to be shaken extremely well before mixing due to the viscosity of the VG. And I know of a lot of rebottlers don't shake any of them long enough, much less these. However, I would message Walt at Real Flavors and see what he has to say. They have really good customer service. BTW /u/T_Mace He is a she ;)
I said the same exact thing. I tried a few of them at 8-10% and then 12-15% and while I didn't get a chemical flavor from them...I didn't get any flavor from them. Nothing. All of the ones I tried. I was told the PG Extracts are much better and should try those, so I want to hold judgement until I try the PG ones.
Tried 5 of them and found they had no taste at between 8-10% even after steeping for a week or 2. Really disappointing actually. The banana nut bread tastes like really weak banana, no but bread to be had. The Bahama Mama was so faint even at 10% and really just tasted like a very faint pina colada. Waiting to play around with some of the others but have pretty much written them off.
Maybe try less flavor. I make my flavor tests at 5% max. Even that can be too much.
Just ordered 10 of their flavors for black friday since I've never tried them... Fuck.
I hope your luck is better than mine
Try their aged Bourbon cream or cream cheese. Bourbon is just a very sweet cream. Excellent flavor! Their vanilla custard is really good as well.
All 13 of those are def. not very good attempts made my RF, they do have a handful of excellent flavors that I have found to be orgasmic. I will say though they do have a problem with consistency from batch to batch with the few flavorings I keep a steady supply of. I have received 4oz bottles shopping direct that have been completely horrible.
I can only speak for Cherry Pie personally. While it was pretty harsh and a bit weak, I thought it was decent at 8%. Of the handful of people who sampled my batch, I had two people say it tasted soapy, and I figured the 2nd guy only said that because it was suggested to him by the other. Wrote it off and never had any other problems aside from the harshness. Also, I don't use soap to clean my bottles, just really hot water.
Of the RF flavors I have tried, I hate Baja, lemonade, and strawberry milkshake. I agree with you, there are bitter, chemical, ammonia, and acidic notes in there that are just flat out gross. The strawberry milkshake reminds of the way TFA Strawberries and Cream tasted back 5 or 6 years ago when I tried it, and I hated it. But that doesn't surprise me because the owner of RF used to work for TFA. Those three came from ECX labeled as Northwest flavors. I did like the RF Cream flavor, it has a whipped cream quality to it, but it is almost on par with TFA Whipped Cream only you have to use a whole hell of a lot more RF to get it to taste like cream at all.
I have tried Breadpudding -- which flavor wise was pretty good at 15% but it was so freaking sweet, like leaves a super sugar film in my mouth, that I simply couldn't vape it for very long. IT also killed my ceramic coils in about 8 mls worth of juice put through it.
Cherry Pie...well there's a bit of cherry in there, but the flavor almost tasted like it had similar elements as the bread pudding has in it. Didn't taste like pie crust, tasted more bready, like it were a cherry danish, without the cheesy part. Or kind of like filo dough layered with cinnamon and butter with the cherry filling. But again, so sweet it leaves a coating in my mouth and kills my coils..there is also something that makes me wheeze in it, much like FW flavors do.
Apple pie was just friggin gross. Chemical notes that were top note heavy, definitely part of the apple notes that are in it, again no pie crust, more like a bready pastry. Flavourart's apple pie still has first place for me in this category.
Eggnog, tastes almost exactly like TFA's eggnog, and it's gross, both of them are gross.
Dulce, was so so. Elephant ears were mild and not bad, but both of these again killed my coils and were super sweet.
Butterscotch pudding...yeah, no. Just no. It's not pudding or very butterscotch, simply disappointing all the way around.
I may try bread pudding as one of the extracts, rather than the VG version, maybe it won't have that sugar effect to it and won't kill my coils. But overall, not impressed with them. I think I may have liked more of OOO's flavors than I have RF's...and I didn't like that many of OOOs flavors. Maybe RF is about on par with Natures flavors, I haven't really found many of those I'd use regularly.
SO I don't think it is just you...and not liking any of the 13 flavors you got is not surprising.
I've tried Boston Cream Pie, Cherry Limeade, and Strawberry Milkshake from that list. The Bostom Cream Pie I thought was very good at 7-8%, tasted exactly like the dessert to me. Cherry Limeade wasn't great, Strawberry Milkshake is alright but it needs some extra help in the strawberry department and it gets better. Every flavor I've got from them needed to be 7-9% to be good. Don't forget most things from them are VG flavors(they offer some others) so be sure to account for that when adding it in. Most calculators let you change if the flavor is vg or pg.
The best flavor I've got from them was Cookies & Cream. Amazing flavor and I can't do without it. It is such a good oreo taste. The only problem is you have to use 7-8% of it, but I just add in 2-3% of Cap Vbic and it's great. I thought their Monster flavor was also decent.
I tried a few flavors by RF and wasn't impressed. I like VG flavors and have been trying to get up enough money to buy flavors from Natures Flavors to clone a Virgin Vapor recipe that was retired, but because it was so expensive and their website confusing, I gave up...until... a couple of years pass by and I start searching again. I find their sister site bestflavors.com. I was so excited because they have natural, organic and diacetyl free versions of their heat resistant flavors that are especially made for vaping. (This is fairly new, I think). Not a lot of info out there so I hope this post helps some people searching for PG free flavoring (or organic, etc.). They have close to 200 flavors starting from $2.00 for .5 ounces of flavoring! Back then, I was looking at paying more than $8.00 a flavor plus it was hard to figure out which type to use. Bestflavors.com has made it fairly easy. Here is a link to their natural heat resistant flavors but if you want organic, diacetyl free, etc. go to flavors, then other flavorings. P.S. They have something called extreme heat resistant flavors, which was confusing to me, so I called them and they told me that was best for Hookah. Here's the link. http://www.bestflavors.com/flavors/more-flavors/heat-resistant-flavors/c92_238_297/ By the way, their Rum, raisin, custard and plum were very, very good!
I can't speak for any of the flavors you have but I have purchased a couple of flavorings myself. I am confused about the recommendation ratios from the manufacturer as whenever I use flavors such as Honeydew, Super Ice Cream, and lemon cake (all at 10% with the exception of honeydew being at 8%) all give me that burning sensation on the tail end of my exhale while providing little to no flavor. However flavors such as Blackberry, condensed milk, and cream seem to be fine around the 10% mark with decent yet underwhelming flavors. I've spoken to a rep on their website and they told me the company has little experience with ejuice...May just have to play with the flavoring percents and report back.
odd, I have tried about 5 of them, ordered at different times, made at different times, I have found that 10% is too much IMO, Im at 8% or 9% ATM and the taste from ok to great after a week or two of stepping, no idea what happened to you.
What is perplexing is that they all taste bitter and chemical-ish. There is a slight, very slight hint of flavor here and there but that's about it.
Is it possible they're passed their due date? Might want to email the vendor and see. I keep checking in on this thread hoping to find out why they all suck. I kinda want RF to be good but maybe it's just not meant to be.
I have two flavors bought them from ecx. Ones strawberry and the other is blueberry-acai-pomegranate. Both are vg based. The strawberry is very weak I couldn't taste it at all. Only tried it at 5% probably needs to be higher. The other B-A-P is really strong. I have used it as low as 0.25%. It's a really awesome flavor has a nice sharp tartness to it. Have used it in some muffin recipes and it really stands out. I guess they do have some flavors that are strong at low percentages.
I've tried their Butterscotch Pudding, and was thorougly unimpressed.
The flavor itself had a few interesting burned caramel notes, but I could get absolutely no pudding at all. Also, I got a very strong VG taste from it, for some reason. It's a 100% VG flavor, but I'm sure I was not supposed to actually taste the VG in it.
I tried it as a shake and vape and after steeping for nearly a month. It had an unexpectedly aggressive throat hit, no matter how long it had been steeped for.
There is a difference between their raw extracts and their vg based flavors so keep that in mind if you order from them or wal Mart as the raw extracts you would mix at the %s that you would with say CAP or TPA
The Raw Extracts are actually super concentrates. Similar in strength to Medicine Flower. They are best used in the 1-3% range for SF. Not sure what would happen if you mix the extracts near the percentages required by TFA and CAP, but I would guess the results would be unpleasant to say the least.
First of all, they have VERY different batches. Anyway, gems from RF for me: Strawberry Extract, Sugar Cookie Extract (mix it with Cap Vanilla Custard), Graham Cracker Extract, Red Hot Cinnamon Extract, Apple Pie VG (try 12-15℅) as standalone, Cookies & Cream Extract, Watermelon Extract
Also tried many flavors I didnt liked at all. Too lazy to write em all.