Introduction
/u/Boomdog07 found himself in possession of many gallons of flavors. He asked me to come up with a contest to help him give it away to newer mixers. This is that contest. It’s not a mixing contest, it’s a recipe review writing contest, because I’ve wanted to do one of those for some time. I’ve press-ganged two friends, flavor review savant /u/ConcreteRiver and the inimitable /u/mlNikon to help with the judging.
Prizes
Per Boomdog:
1st Place: 720ml of random flavors
2nd Place: 600ml
3rd Place: 420ml
Honorable Mention: 300ml
Concentrates will be broken into 60ml bottles and domestic shipping within the United States will be paid for by Boomdog. Mixers from other countries are still welcome to participate but would have to pay the additional cost for international shipping.
In addition, I’ll chip in a $20 Bull City Flavors gift certificate for 1st place and $10 gift certificate for 2nd place.
Who can participate?
Boomdog asked that the contest be limited to newer mixers, to give them a leg up. The contest is open to people who have been mixing for six months or less as of today. Obviously that can be difficult to prove or disprove. Be honorable, folks. If anyone is caught cheating, they’ll be disqualified and publicly shamed.
But anyone can participate by voting. Contest mode is enabled here and in the event that there’s a tie in top four, your upvotes will be used to break it.
How do I enter?
Post as a comment for this thread a link to a recipe that has a new review written by you on ATF, ELR, or this subreddit. You may also post a link to a review of a one-shot (such as the ones at Chef’s Flavours) or recipe pack (BCF). If you want to do a review of a one-shot sold at a place that carries nicotine (such as Liquid Barn, ECX, or Wizard Labs), post a screenshot here rather than a link, as posting links to nicotine sellers’ sites may run us afoul of new Reddit rules.
- New review means a review written between today and the close of this contest, which will occur one month from today.
EDIT: You cannot review your own recipe. The whole point is to encourage community members to give quality feedback to each other. Nice try, though
Judging Criteria
Each review submitted will be given a score by each judge in four categories. These scores will then be averaged to create an overall score and determine a winner.
Category One, 0 to 10 points:
Description. Describe your experience with the recipe. Just describe how it tasted. Talk us through the vape. What did you taste first, second, third, and how did it finish? How did it feel? In detail.
Category Two, 0 to 10 points:
Persuasion. Convince someone to do something. Could be the mixer, in the form of constructive criticism. Persuade the mixer to improve the recipe and offer helpful advice in doing so, or persuade anyone reading the review to try an altered version. Give solid reasons, rooted in experience rather than just opinion when possible. Back up your reasons with examples, if any come to mind. If the recipe is amazing and there does not seem to be any room for improvement, convince us to mix it up. Or let us know who in particular might find the the recipe appealing (“Fans of ...” et).
Category Three, 0 to 10 points:
Narration. If you have made any substitutions in the recipe, didn’t steep it as long as was recommended, or did anything at all that was different than the creator advised, it is vital to include that here. Note any changes. And factor those changes in to your evaluation of the quality of the recipe. If you didn’t follow it verbatim, and you think it’s awful, is it really the creator’s fault? You might note your setup as well, as it makes a huge difference in the vaping experience. Any interesting events involved in discovering the recipe or obtaining the ingredients? Did anything happen while you were mixing and evaluating it? A little exposition never hurts, especially if you’re mindful about clarity and concision. Tell me a story about why this recipe reached out to you.
Category Four, 0 to 5 points:
Creativity. Demonstrate your creativity. Set your review apart from the others. Express yourself.
Man, and I’m saying this because hells yeah I want to be included, I bought my first flavors last October but just recently started mixing recipes (last few months). I’ve got a bottle mixed last night that is a 28 day steeper!
kicks rocks
There should be an Intermediate category for us almost little guys!
Oh and this is awesome. I love every bit of this!
If we don't get enough entries for the six month cutoff I'll have to ask our benefactor about opening it up.
If we're allowed to do such a thing, I vote to include /u/isuamadog.
They may be slightly older than the cut off, but they are a passionate and involved member of our little community, and always engage in discussions with helpful and valuable comments. :)
Damn, I appreciate the support. I think the spirit of the contest is amazing: get new people involved and provide them with the means to expand where they may be reluctant to invest (time, energy, money) on an off chance something will work for them. With that in mind, I’m not exactly a beginner.
When I first started considering tobaccos, I got curious about NETs. There were a couple of cool threads about them and tobaccos in general and I (again) randomly bought flavors on bcf thinking I was getting what’s available for everyone. Got to talking with u/chemicalburnvictim and he was all about giving a brother advice and even sent me some sample NETs from his latest batch. When that came in the mail, I really felt like wtf a total stranger just hooked me up to see if I liked it. This launched me into feeling a part of the community and fuels my current desire to leave something lasting to this Reddit sub.
This was pivotal (among other moments with users who made me feel welcome) for me to want to be a part of this community and feel like I could do this whole mixing thing when it felt really daunting. So I’m cool with being included only if the rules change due to a lack of entries and leaving the prizes for the next little guy to catch the ‘bug’. Especially since leaving reviews is one of the best ways a new mixer who may not have recipes to give can contribute to the greater online community leaving a piece of popcorn for the next guy/gal to follow the trail to the land of milk and honey.
Can I be included in this because my recipes are indistinguishable from a new mixer?
The recipes might be indistinguishable from some noob stuff but the notes are clearly by an old hand.
https://alltheflavors.com/recipes/107253#carnival_juice_roll_upz_remix_by_bulldogirish13
Thank you for for pointing out a horrible omission in my write up... you can't review your own juice. Will edit to include that.
Aww but I worked so hard on trying to get someone to try my ishh out 🤣
Fell off a truck, eh? Lol.
Good luck to new mixers. Get out there and get your single flavor test on. Even if you don’t win, you’ll have some valuable information to use when mixing in the future!
Just to clarify, if we aren't paying members on ATF, we can link the recipe and give our review here?
Was the timing a coincidence? Just checked and /u/vape_escape's recipe review contest was posted exactly 1 month ago but according to the post it ends in a few days. Should be interesting to see how many people were actually incentivized to write reviews.
Just a coincidence. I've been wanting to do a recipe review writing contest on Noted for several months but I've had trouble getting sponsors, or rather, finding the time to seek sponsors. ECX offered some money but I was greedy and wanted more. I mentioned this in the recipe review FAQ Friday I wrote some time ago.
Then Boomdog comes a long with his gallons and gallons of flavors and asks for help giving it away. He didn't specify what kind of contest, but this one was on my mind. And it makes more sense to do it here rather than on Noted because Cheebasteeba now goes off the grid for six days at a time every week.
Pretty sure we talked about doing this more than a year ago but the timing seemed too on point to be a coincidence. Hopefully /u/vape_escape got enough entries to make a good contest.
Honestly I don't think Cheeba is ever fully plugged into the grid...
Yeah, I haven't received a single PM or anything from anyone about the contest so I guess since this one is up and there were just a couple days left on mine I'll just go ahead and call it a flop. Thanks for offering to sweeten the pot. I would have thought that would have gotten more people to participate but like I said I haven't had a single entry. /u/ID10-T I hope yours has better luck than mine did.
Damn, I remember this contest but it got totally sidelined. I think I wrote two that day and then forgot about it. I think I'll add some coming up since I have some free time and a new shipment to sort through that should open me up to a host of recipes.
Edit: Turns out, I didn't write those reviews afterall. I think I remember getting distracted and then mixing up a bunch of stuff and then posting my thoughts on the what are you vaping thread instead. Gonna commit to throwing in my two cents next week when I'll have some more time. I could theoretically game the system and crank out a few to steal the pot, but I'd rather give back and contribute in my own way! Maybe repost reminders in the weekly discussion threads?
Sorry, but I’m still a little hung up on how close press-ganged is to gang banged and if I would want that from my friend...🤔. Oh, and admittedly my review skills SUX, I am an excellent judge and in case one of the current judges meet an untimely demise and cannot fulfill their judging duties I would like to offer mine. 😬
Thanks for doing this! I got a quick question if you don't mind: if I write a review and then at some point in the next month before the contest is over I either update or totally change my review can I have the new one be considered instead? I just got most of the way through writing one up and realized that I was speculating a lot with how I might alter the recipe to adjust for different things but I haven't actually tried any of the changes I am suggesting, so if I do mix it up with those changes and it alters my opinion can I update my original review?
Hello everyone,
I started mixing my own eliquid last week and have been enjoying it immensely so far. I am probably not qualified to be leaving in depth reviews yet, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try it for this contest. I also should have reviewed a recipe that is less popular than the one I chose, however I felt strongly enough to choose it for my entry. The recipe I chose to review is Sad Lad Toast Crunch, by Rageisalotofwork - https://alltheflavors.com/recipes/23772 . I look forward to any feedback and will try to improve my palette as quickly as possible.
Edit - This is my full review.
Here's my entry (be gentle!)
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/93jkgl/review_of_the_best_damm_strawberry_from/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/93qxgd/diy_reviews_strawberry_milk_and_placid_clone/
Reviews posted. Thanks for doing this. I've been mixing for less than 2 months.
This one too https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/93eyyo/sometimes_this_flavor_of_the_week_is_apollen_but/e3ddfhp/
8/9 - Working on adding all the review to ATF and ELR
My entry for the review contest
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/96dcy7/review_of_strawberry_overdose_by_sodakdave_on_atf/
Good Luck to everyone who enters.
Here's my entry: https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/96ec2t/review_for_prickly_victory_by_hashslingingslashur/
Also posted on ATF but I don't see a way to link to a specific review on that site.
Thanks for doing this! It was fun writing it and I've had a good time reading all the other entries. Good luck to everyone who wrote a review!