What is most important to you?

[darkstar]

Feb 4, 2014 21:30:33 GMT spikus said:

Welcome Rob,

Good luck with the venture .... I agree with the results of the poll so far.

I am interested in your thoughts about starting up in this line of retail in the current uncertain climate with the EU vultures circling .. Did that cause you much concern ?

Me too, It's just a shame that there isn't a feature that allows people to rank them by importance because with hindsight the outcome so far has been very predictable! Good to reinforce the point though at the very least.

Yeah it's been a worry, but my own view on the matter is that the trend towards vaping and the community surrounding it has become too strong for politicians to agree (in large enough numbers at least) to squash it. The backlash would amount to political suicide and I think it's unlikely that any amount of Big Pharma lobbying will cause them to make this trade off. They have too much to lose.

Of course the other factor here is that many of the MEPs may have voted in ignorance if it weren't for the efforts of our community to educate them and voice their concerns. I think a large number of these people will now be better able to make an informed ethical judgement and act on it. Politicians can and have done horrific things, but I don't think enough of them are so far gone as to let something like an ecig ban slide through.

Just my thoughts on the subject. I'm sure many will disagree but that's basically the reasoning that gave me the confidence to become a vendor despite the threat of a ban on my products.

[Deleted]

May i ask are these eliquids made by yourself or are they rebranded for you.

They remind me of the magic juice range by fayeema, just checking as ive been stung in the past buying different types of raspberry etc online only to find they are rebranded juices made by one manufacturer.

Forgive my ignorance if the manufacturing process has been discussed already.

[Greg]

For me quality and consistency ofliquid flavour wins. Having said that I mix my own liquids so I wouldn't buy an eliquid I couldn't easily replicate myself.
So even if people started raving for a particular flavour I wouldn't be tempted to buy it unless I had the option to subsequently buy the concentrate and make my own.
I have lots of Tjuice liquid for this reason, buy 10ml pre made and if it's a winner follow up with 30ml concentrate.

[darkstar]

Feb 4, 2014 22:39:30 GMT @purple1234 said:

May i ask are these eliquids made by yourself or are they rebranded for you.

They remind me of the magic juice range by fayeema, just checking as ive been stung in the past buying different types of raspberry etc online only to find they are rebranded juices made by one manufacturer.

Forgive my ignorance if the manufacturing process has been discussed already.

Good question. We mix and bottle all of the liquids in our small (but well equipped) lab in York. We buy in EP grade VG, USP grade VG, distilled water, USP/Pharmaceutical grade PG/nic solution, and flavourings specifically developed for use in ecigs. All of these are bought from UK suppliers and they are the only things that go into our liquids.

Each or our recipes is completely unique to DarkStar and for the time being I mix every bottle myself using precise lab equipment.

[Perpetua]

Feb 4, 2014 18:08:46 GMT darkstar said:

Feb 4, 2014 7:34:19 GMT Perpetua said:

A proper welcome to you Rob.

I'd also add that within the quality/consistency choice, improved information on websites from all Vendors on PG/VG ratio's and choices would be great. Extra flavour options are also good.

Many of us have PG sensitivies or have definite preferences, so it's helpful to have options over what's considered to be a ' standard ' mix. 

Thank you, I'm enjoying it here. You're all so friendly!

I think that's a good point about offering more options. The problems with this come from added complexity to stock issues and recipes which is why I think more vendors do not do it. For example I have 15 flavours at 7 different strengths which means I must have 105 boxes to store and organise these. If a vendor were to have a similar stock system to mine (which is somewhat necessary for allowing the liquids to steep prior to dispatch), offered the same 15 flavours at 7 strengths, but were to also offer 3 different flavour strength options and 5 PG:VG ratios then that would increase the number of required stock containers from 105 to 1575. That would be with a comparatively small range of flavours too, so the only valid option would be to make up the bottles as they were ordered which would mean that it would be at least a week before they were steeped sufficiently. This would also make the process much messier and would almost definitely require selling at a higher price to customers. That said there is probably a place for such a vendor in the market.

Do you know of any online vendors who offer these kind of customisations? If you do I'd be interested to order from them to get an idea of how they manage their processes. It certainly wouldn't be an easy task if they were putting out large numbers.

Vapology Tailor Made are one that I know of Rob.

www.vapology.co.uk/4-x-10ml-tailor-made-e-liquid-pick-n-mix-2513-p.asp

Not so straightforward for a Vendor to offer I know, but us consumers do like choices especially as there's an increasing awareness/preference now as to what our eliquid is composed of.

[Balllsy]

Received my juice today thanks Rob, now comes the painful wait before trying them

Ohh thankyou for the gift, very kind indeed !

[Deleted]

Feb 4, 2014 23:26:49 GMT darkstar said:

Feb 4, 2014 22:39:30 GMT @purple1234 said:

May i ask are these eliquids made by yourself or are they rebranded for you.

They remind me of the magic juice range by fayeema, just checking as ive been stung in the past buying different types of raspberry etc online only to find they are rebranded juices made by one manufacturer.

Forgive my ignorance if the manufacturing process has been discussed already.

Good question. We mix and bottle all of the liquids in our small (but well equipped) lab in York. We buy in EP grade VG, USP grade VG, distilled water, USP/Pharmaceutical grade PG/nic solution, and flavourings specifically developed for use in ecigs. All of these are bought from UK suppliers and they are the only things that go into our liquids.

Each or our recipes is completely unique to DarkStar and for the time being I mix every bottle myself using precise lab equipment.

Good stuff, i will place an order today.

[fisher]

Made my order...love fruit flavours so looks like my perfect match

[Deleted]

Darkstar, maybe its my phone but i cant see to click on the liquids to get a description of the eliquid ie flavour profile etc.

[darkstar]

Feb 5, 2014 18:11:24 GMT @purple1234 said:

Darkstar, maybe its my phone but i cant see to click on the liquids to get a description of the eliquid ie flavour profile etc.

We don't have product descriptions for each of the flavours yet with it being a new website and due to the order selection system. There are a lot of reviews and posts with customer feedback floating around on POTV that you will be able to find with a quick Google search though. I will add a flavour description page at some point in the near future

[darkstar]

Feb 5, 2014 11:33:33 GMT Balllsy said:

Received my juice today thanks Rob, now comes the painful wait before trying them

Ohh thankyou for the gift, very kind indeed !

Great! Yeah they do benefit from a bit of steeping at the moment. Pretty soon, when we're used to this high volume of orders, we'll get on top of stock and they will have time to steep before being sent out to customers.

Hope they're worth the wait!

Thanks,

Rob - DarkStar

[richvapers]

Thanks darkstar. Put me order in earlier of 5x10mls, and i take it? atleast a weeks steep on these is required?
Do like the layout of your site and any plans to stock larger bottles? 30ml or 50ml.

Cheers Rick

[darkstar]

Feb 5, 2014 23:02:54 GMT richvapers said:

Thanks darkstar. Put me order in earlier of 5x10mls, and i take it? atleast a weeks steep on these is required?
Do like the layout of your site and any plans to stock larger bottles? 30ml or 50ml.

Cheers Rick

Hi Rick,

Thanks for trying our stuff out. I've just dropped your order off at the post office (along with about 50 others that seem to have come from this forum!). You should have it tomorrow or Saturday at the latest.

Yes, one week is the amount of time we recommend to steep the liquids from the 'bottled date' you will find on each bottle. I find that there is some improvement in certain flavours after that period of time but it is much less noticeable than the changes in week 1. Some of them will be be more than a week old already, but because we've had so many orders we had to make a lot of them fresh. In future a large majority of our liquids will be sent out pre-steeped.


Thanks for the feedback on the site. We don't plan to offer 30 or 50ml bottles simply because once the prices are back to normal you will be able to get bulk discounts on larger orders anyway. The good thing about that is you still get a discount on an order of 50ml for example, but that 50ml doesn't need to be all the same flavour or strength; it can be any combination of 5 10ml bottles. I'd not seen anything like that available so I that's why the site is the way it is. I'm not sure if people will catch on or not but we'll see in time

Hope this helps, and if you get time I'd really like to hear what you think about the liquids once you've tried them out .


Rob - DarkStar

[tominmids]

My juices arrived today, thanks Rob. Looking forward to trying them. The Black Fire was bottled 22nd jan, so could be seeing some use this weekend
Thanks for the gift too, its very much appreciated.

[fisher]

Feb 7, 2014 11:14:47 GMT tominmids said:

My juices arrived today, thanks Rob. Looking forward to trying them. The Black Fire was bottled 22nd jan, so could be seeing some use this weekend
Thanks for the gift too, its very much appreciated.

 Mine arrived today as well, looking good and plenty of the 12 bottles I ordered are ready to go judging by the bottle dates.

  Looking forward to trying