There are hundreds of vape manufacturers in the industry. They have more than tripled in the last decade since vaping became trendy and popular.
Unfortunately, not all of them produce safe vaporizers. Some make low-grade ones created purely for profit. The industry is expanding so fast that the law can barely catch up to it. This is why you have to be an informed buyer. At this point, nobody can protect you from bad vapes better than yourself.
It’s always important to know how a product is made, especially the ones that you put in your mouth. You need to know everything there is to know about your vape pen. You need to understand how it works if it can truly do all those things that it claimed, and how effectively can it deliver its results. If you’re zero on how and where to start, keep these pointers in mind when choosing a vaporizer.
Remember the word Titanium and understand what it means for you.
If you Google good vape brands and try to read about them, you might notice that plenty of them throw the word titanium around. You know titanium. It's in the periodic table but what should this mean for you as a vaper?
Titanium is an important material in making your vape’s eRig. Although many manufacturers use titanium in their vapes, it doesn’t mean that they’re all equally good. Titanium comes in different types.
- The best ones, grades 1 or 2, would cost you. As they should, they’re a great quality that won’t do your body any harm.
- To cut costs and to be able to sell their vapes at a cheap price, some manufacturers cheat and use titanium alloy, which is a shady material. No study has ever been conducted to prove its safety. It’s affordable, but it could cost you in medical bills in the long run.
Your vape’s coils can also be made of titanium, but that depends on the manufacturer. It could also be made of titanium alloy, kanthal, nichrome, or other alloys. The level of titanium in your vape depends on how much iron is mixed into it. 0-0.30% still fall in grade 2, which is considered high-quality.
There are cases when companies are duped by their suppliers. They really believe that they’re selling good products when, in fact, they’re not. It’s not that easy to tell if you’re holding pure titanium or if its alloy. You can’t test it with one vape pen. You need a lot of it. Of course, it’s a manufacturer’s responsibility to ensure a product’s safety so it would really be ideal if they do safety testings prior to releasing it into the market.
You’re not entirely helpless in this matter. There are small details and little tests that you can conduct yourself to see if you’re holding a good-quality vaporizer or not. Try to pay attention to these details:
Check the batteries.
If the vape has the sub-ohm type of batteries, then you’re good. That’s a pure titanium vape in your hands. Titanium has low resistance. They would never work with any other batteries than sub-ohms. If it has regular e-cigar batteries inside that vape, then put back down and walk away.
Ask to see the composition test results
Don’t be ashamed to ask for certifications and results. Credible vendors that sell high-quality vapes surely have them. If somehow your vendor failed to provide those results, it must mean that the vape you’re holding never went under safety tests. Don’t take chances when it comes to your safety. It’s better to move along and find another vendor.
Understand what temperature control in a vape pen means for you.
Often times you’ll see vape advertisements boasting about temperature control. If you’ve ever held a vape before, you’ll know how important this is. This feature can affect the flavors that you can get from your vape. It will decide how fast or how slow the vape will burn the cannabinoids you put inside it. If it does it too much fast, you won’t get a good result and absolutely no flavor.
Ideally, you’d want the temperature to stay low while you’re vaping. Unfortunately, this feature is rare and expensive. Very few companies successfully manufacture a vape with this much control. The rest just cheats it.
Instead of actually keeping the temperature down, they shock the coil to burn the cannabinoids. This shocking happens when you press the vape’s voltage button. It will keep sending voltages to the coil until you release it. This isn’t what you want to happen. This will always give you hit-miss results when vaping. You’d want a vape that can consistently give you great results.
Don’t go for anything with Teflon
Vapes have a long history with Teflon. In the early days of portable vaping and eNails, Teflon was a material that was present in all types of vape. It serves as a coating to prevent cannabis and other flavors from attaching themselves permanently on the vaporizer.
It wasn’t long before studies were conducted about vaping and everything about it. It turned out that Teflon eventually melts inside the vaporizer and releases harmful chemicals, which makes some vapers sick. It can also cause Teflon flu, which comes from inhaling polymer fumes.
Of course, many companies quickly tried to save their products and scrambled to find alternatives. Unfortunately, some manufacturers were quick to follow. Whenever you’re trying to find yourself a new vape, remember to scan around for Teflon. You never know. It’s better to be safer than sorry.
Understand the different materials used in as atomizers.
It’s important to get to know every single material used to make atomizers before choosing which one to get.
Titanium, which you’ve heard a lot of by now, can give you powerful hits and rich flavors. While Ceramic atomizers are considered one of the safest but the weakest in terms of delivering hits and flavors. Quartz, on the other hand, is considered the best material for coils. They’re more efficient and provide the richest taste of them all. The last type is the titanium alloy. Its effects are different depending on the manufacturing, and the vape pen that it’s placed into.
Choose your attachments wisely
Vape attachments only come in two materials-either copper or stainless steel. Your best choice would always be stainless steel. Although there’s very few of them around, they’re the safest material to use for vapes. Coppers don’t do well with extreme heat. They tend to release harmful smokes that can make people sick. While it’s unlikely that your vape will ever get that hot, it’s not something you’d want risk happening. Plus, with how consumers are, always experimenting, you can never really say that it won’t happen. It’s better to stick to what’s safe and what's sure.
Here are things that you should and shouldn’t do when shopping for a vape:
DONT'S:
- Never buy any product with Teflon
- Never go for the unusually cheap ones. They're probably really just worth their price.
DO'S:
- Look for high-quality titanium (Grade 1 or Grade 2)
- Always ask to see the composition test results done on the vapes