Neon Vapors – the Juice is Loose
This blog is in no way a commercial endeavor. I have no ads, make no money, and everything I’ve posted about has been paid for by me (I’ve gotten very generous gifts from Coastal.com and shave following positive comments about their wares, but my objective wasn’t to get free stuff, and the posts leading to said free stuff were in no way an attempt to be compensated for my words or opinions.
I write this stuff for a few reasons. It’s an outlet for my creativity, sarcasm and cynicism; it’s a bit of an ego boost knowing my nonsensical ramblings are read by tens of people; I like being able to give my honest opinions about things and not having to put on a happy face all the time. Anything I opine about on here has been fully funded by me. I can’t afford to buy things just for the purpose of writing about them, so I buy what I like (or expect to like) and post about the things that give me a strong feeling, good or bad. The reason most of my review-type posts are positive is that I buy things I expect to enjoy. Sadly, I won’t buy something I expect to dislike just because it could give me some entertaining new material. If vendors want to send me samples and whatnot to write about, I’ll gladly accept.
There’s a point here somewhere…oh yeah…in addition to purchasing carefully, I also look for every possible discount, coupon or other means by which to reduce costs. This is apparent in my orders from Vape Dojo, ecblends, my unusual excitement over the Bloog 4-pack, and my entire order history from Vapor4Life. Anyways, while looking to fortify my liquid stocks, I came across a deal that was just too good to pass up.
While deal hunting on the ECF, I found a post from Neon Vapors offering buy 1 get 1 free on all their liquids, along with a 20% off coupon code. After perusing their flavor menu, I realized there was a lot to like…order up.
The standard BoGo parameters applied of course – freebie must be of equal or lesser value, but still pretty damn cool. Given that Neon was to be a new addition to my vapertoire, I thought it best not to go nuts with big bottles, so I stuck to the small (6ml) and medium (10ml) in a nice variety.
For the smalls (regularly $5 each), I ordered:
Black Coffee
Cinnamon Coffee Cake
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup
Vanilla Cupcake
On the mediums (regularly $7.50 each), I stuck with tobacco flavors:
Caranilla “No” bacco
Neon 555
Neon RY4
Owners Choice
Grand total, after a 20% coupon, was $20.00. For 64ml of liquid in 8 different flavors, that’s pretty outstanding. Even better, they offer free shipping for orders over $20, without the “either or” deal other places have, where they make you choose between a discount code or free shipping (resulting in unnecessary mathematical work to determine which option is better).
Inexpensive liquid shipped for free is always a good thing, as long as said liquid arrives within a reasonable timeframe and the product itself doesn’t suck.
I ordered late on a Thursday night (same time as Bloog), and had my vapemail in hand on Tuesday. The first criteria has been satisfied! The liquids were packaged very well, with no leakage during shipment (also important). There was also a nice little handwritten note thanking me for my order and praising the virtues of steeping. Having learned from the ecblends mistake, I opted to heed this advice and put them in my vape drawer for a few days.
Of course, impatience got the best of me, and I squirted a bit into a cartomizer on Wednesday morning. It was OUTSTANDING. Despite this positive first take, I vowed to let the others sit for a few days, and I’m glad I did. There isn’t a true loser in the bunch…
Neon 555 – I’ve tried a handful of 555s, and have not been a fan. Most vendors describer their blends as a slightly sweet tobacco, or sweet tobacco with a hint of hazelnut. Some have other flavors thrown in as well, and it ultimately doesn’t make for a great flavor experience. Looking at the plain 555s, the sweet flavor tends to be missing, and there’s an overpowering nuttiness which, when combined with the tobacco, becomes a little unpleasant. Neon’s 555 is the best of this particular variety I’ve had yet. There’s a decent tobacco flavor, a subtle sweetness and enough of a nut flavor that it doesn’t overpower. It’s still not a favorite, but it’s pretty darn good.
Neon RY4 – The flavor with which I have the most experience, by far. Fundamentally, they’re all the same…a mild tobacco, caramel and vanilla, but it’s truly amazing how widely the flavor varies from vendor to vendor. I have yet to encounter a bad RY4, and the subtle differences from one brand to another makes it a bit of an adventure. Neon’s RY4 was particularly interesting – it had the tobacco, while the caramel and vanilla flavors were less pronounced than others I’ve tried. What really set this one apart though was a sort of “cool” flavor. It’s not a menthol or a minty flavor or anything like that…it’s just a nice, slight cooling sensation in the vapor. It’s different than the other RY4s I’ve tried, but in a good way.
Caranilla “No” Bacco – They advertise this as Neon Vapors’ unique take on the traditional RY4. It’s good, and in my completely unqualified opinion, more of an RY4, or at least what I would expect from one, than their actual RY4. It didn’t have the cool taste that the other one did, but had a pleasant tobacco flavor with caramel and vanilla. All three were pretty well balanced, no single flavor overpowered the other…it was harmonious, and it worked.
Owners Choice – they describe it as a complex blend of natural extracts and man made tobacco flavors. Also contains a touch of vanilla and caramel along with other flavors. Can you detect the theme here? I didn’t taste vanilla or caramel really, and to be honest, I have no idea what I’m tasting, but it’s good. There’s a nice, subtle tobacco flavor, a little sweetness, a little bitterness (coffee, chocolate???). It doesn’t have any real, identifiable flavors to me, but it’s tasty.
Black Coffee – simple enough as far as preconceived notions. When I think black coffee, I think overly bold, somewhat burnt Starbucks shit. Based on that assumption, it failed. When basing it on a different standard though, namely “do I like it,” this one is a much bigger success. It does taste like coffee, and rather distinctively so, but it’s not overpowering at all. I wouldn’t say it’s coffee with milk and sugar or one of those crotchapinno things, but it’s also not a strong burnt coffee flavor. One of the reasons I ordered, despite expecting something too strong, was the thought of mixing this with things like the caramel jutsu, cinnamon roll and vanilla ice cream. I haven’t tried any of those combos yet, because this just tastes good on its own. While this surprise hampered my ability to play mad scientist, it was damn good.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup – this is my second experience with the two great tastes that taste great together. My last one wasn’t a total abomination, but it wasn’t great either. Despite this, I gave it another shot, and this one was a vast improvement over the other. It wasn’t a Reese’s by any means, but it was good. It had distinct but not overpowering chocolate and peanut butter flavors, but it’s very different than the uber-sweet, slightly crunchy taste in the orange and brown wrapper. I’d describe it more as a gourmet peanut butter cup. Instead of the milk chocolate, it’s more of a subtle, dark cocoa taste. In the “middle,” it’s not the peanut butter and sugar combo so many know and love. It’s more like the type of PB you’d overpay for at Whole Foods, with a nice roasted peanut flavor, a little bit of sweetn-
ess and maybe even a hint of salt. While the kids are tearing open the wrappers and throwing the brown papers on the floor after licking the residue off, the parents are in another room, eating “grown up” candy from a fancy box. This version of peanut butter cup came from that grown-up box of chocolates.
Cinnamon Coffee Cake – this was the only one I wasn’t a huge fan of, for the same reason as the cinnamon roll from Vapor4Life. It’s not a bad flavor, but the cinnamon is overpowering and it’s more of a “red hot” than the subtle cinnamon-y baked good its name implies. Again, not bad, but not really my thing.
Vanilla Cupcake -those who follow my adventures in blogdom know that, despite my efforts to get healthy, I love me some junk food, especially baked goods. While I’ve tried my hand at creativity with things like the cake balls and cookie cake (and triple crumb cinnamon coffee cake, which didn’t make it to these pages), sometimes simple is best, and it doesn’t get much more simple than a good vanilla cupcake. This definitely smells like something that would be coming out of my oven. When I opened the bottle, the vanilla, butter and sugar scents were very strong, and quite nice. As for the taste, it’s basically what I expected from the Twinkie-flavored liquid I tried from ecblends – deliciously artificial. There’s a very strong fake vanilla flavor and other stuff. I’d equate it to cake batter ice cream, and that isn’t really a bad thing. It’s not something I’d puff on every day, but it’s nice for an occasional treat.
One other thing I noticed with Neon Vapors is their bottles, especially the small ones, are a bit tighter than others. This isn’t a major thing, but when using a syringe to fill cartomizers, the extra tightness is actually quite nice as it reduces leakage and bubbling in the syringes. Again, not a huge selling point, but a little added bonus. As an aside, it looks like they’re still running a buy one get one free deal, along with a 20% coupon. I don’t really need more liquids right now, but may not be able to resist…
Healthy for the Wedding 