Amanda Chicago Lewis, writing for Rolling Stone, penned a piece on choosing the right vape pen and not surprisingly, it’s quite informative. Here’s somewhat of an overview of what she had to say on the matter.
Right off the bat, Lewis notes that it’s a “buyer beware” world out there when it comes to buying vapes, be it a pen vape, desktop, or what have you. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of dedicated vaporizer reviewers like The Vape Critic and Vaporizer Shark. But for Lewis, she looked instead to a different resource, Chief Scientific Officer at Americans for Safe Access Jahan Marcu, who helped fill in some of the blanks while offering a great deal of insight into the world of vaping.
When it comes to vaporizers, not all vapes are made equal. That much is clear. But did you know that some vaporizers are no vaporizers at all? But rather, they’re devices that are sold under the guise of being vaporizers when in reality, they’re combustion devices. As it turns out, some of the “vapes” out there are actually burning their blends instead of vaporizing them, basically defeating the purpose of the vaporizer. In regards to this reality, which is a difficult one to swallow and a good reason to consult the vape experts before buying, Marcu was quoted by Rolling Stone as having said that true vaporizers are “a great thing” when it comes to reducing one’s exposure to smoke, however, “a lot of these devices are just burning oil, not vaporizing.”
“If you have a true vaporizer, it’s a great thing to reduce your exposure to smoke. But a lot of these devices are just burning oil, not vaporizing.”
So right off the bat, there’s on area of concern that should be taken into account when buying a new vape: the temperature at which it operates. According to Marcu, if it’s running hotter than 400 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s exiting the range at which vaporization occurs and descending into the realm of combustion, which occurs at higher temperatures. Subsequently, vapes that “vaporize” at higher temperatures should be questioned as they may not be what Marcu refers to as “true” vaporizers.
Another notable variable here, which relies on the findings of a new study, found that popular additives some oils are cut with such as propylene glycol release more formaldehyde at higher temperatures. Subsequently, lower voltage vape batteries are significantly safer, Lewis noted in her vape selection guide. As a general rule of thumb here, if it tastes bad, it’s probably best that you do not vape it as something could be wrong and that something could be formaldehyde.
While Lewis doesn’t provide too much more information beyond this, really setting the stage for you, the reader, to go out there and experiment to find what works. We’re more inclined to suggest you take a look a some quality vaporizer reviews. While you can find them all over the place, there are some reputable vape reviewers out there dedicated to their craft who may very well be able to cut out a lot of the experimentation and guess work in finding the right vape for you, which is why we suggest taking a look at their reviews. That way, you’ll at least have a rough idea of what’s worthwhile and what’s not and from there, you can decide which type (portable, plugin, liquid, dry, etc) is right for you. Ultimately, the advice contained within reviews can help you narrow down the field to the vape that’s right for you. And as a general note, it’s not always what’s new that’s best. In this case, one of the most highly rated and widely recognized vaporizers is the Volcano and it is by no means new.
Not sure where to find some reviews? We suggest taking a look at the vape reviews on VaporizerShark.com. They’re packed full of information and seemingly every time we check back on them to see what they’re up to, they have some new reviews for us. While there are obviously others, some of which we’re quite fond of, Vaporizer Shark appears to be one of the most insightful and thorough. They don’t take their trade of reviewing vaporizers lightly and it shows in the methodical nature in which their reviews are laid out. They are, to put it one way, exhaustively long. However, they don’t require that you read through their entirety as they include a “speed summary” section near the top of each vaporizer review that summarizes their consensus on the vape’s adequacy, letting you know whether or not it’s worth buying and why without forcing you to read through what is otherwise an “exhaustively long” (we wanted to say it again) review. When we say that they’re long, exhaustively so, we mean that they’re extremely comprehensive, almost to the point of ridiculous. But this is apparently their nature, as it has become somewhat of a trademark of Vaporizer Shark’s when it comes to their vaporizer reviews. Also, while the Rolling Stone piece by Lewis that we cited in this vape news report is geared pretty specifically towards finding the best vape pen for oil, Vaporizer Shark’s reviews are intended for a wider audience, which includes those who are interested in vaporizers that vaporize dried blends as well as concentrates. This includes vape pens designed for oil, but also plugin vapes intended for home use like the Volcano Digit, water filtered portables designed for dry blend like the Hydrology 9, and so on. So if you want our advice, take some of the guess work out of the equation and look to the knowledgeable reviewers out there to help steer you in the right direction, towards that vape you’re really after and not that human test subject scenario in which you’re otherwise testing what’s out there to find what works through a potentially painful process of trial and error – at least not when there are dedicated reviewers out there who are already out there doing the job for you.
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