Do you ever wonder why we called it the Smax Bible? Looking back, this passion project has always been created to help our friends back home quit smoking so we put a lot of work into our flavors in order to trust that they would kill their temptations with nasty cigarettes. The Smax Bible’s purpose is to serve as a divine inspiration to love one’s lungs and stay away from the poison that pollutes one’s body.
As an adult, I became utterly disgusted by cigarettes but I remember going through a rebellious phase before I started high school and I began smoking in my own bedroom one summer in a household of zero smokers. I would play Korn and Marilyn Manson and smoke cigarettes at night when my parents fell asleep. My poor mom was so pissed off and desperate to cure me that she lit a #DuMaurier up on our porch and mimicked me in attempt to get me to stop. She didn’t even know how to inhale and I will never forget how horrible I felt watching her.
When the flavors were finalized after many months of progress and failures, I decided to call our menu the Flavor Bible because of how much I believed in them. Our goal was to have a profile for every palate so we released an equal selection of fruity, desserty and hybrid for the entire line of 6 flavors.
Today, I helped an older man quit smoking not with Smax but with the Kilo 1K. I wish we had pod devices in the US because we believe in the power of flavors and their success but not every vaper is going to want to drip or use a tank! My dad became a smoker later on in life but he didn’t quit with Smax, he quit with Zoor and as long as they never touch a cigarette again, it’s more than we could ever ask for! We don’t expect everyone to choose our products, we just need everyone to be smoke-free!
FDA E-Liquid Label Information for E-Liquid Manufacturers and Social Media Marketers/Content Creators:
What counts is that you’re smoke-free today! Nothing wrong with a little nicotine, we must say that we are highly addicted to caffeine too and in California, coffee requires a cancer warning. ⚠️
For so long now, tobacco warning labels have been on the packs of smokes and other products containing nicotine that we’ve consumed; in over 100 countries, graphic shock images are forced to be a part of packaging on products containing nicotine. So when you think about our warning statement requirements, is it really that severe in comparison to the rest of the world? Most e-liquids contain nicotine that is derived from tobacco. Nicotine is an addictive chemical and is poisonous if handled improperly and can lead to death if over dosed. Regulations are a process every industry goes through and are meant to protect consumers and businesses in the long run.
It is the manufacturer’s responsibility to make sure all packaging and labeling of their products that contain nicotine pass the FDA checklist and U.S. retailers and U.S. distributors can only sell products containing nicotine that are compliant moving forward. Consumers, influencers/promoters, photographers/film makers, all content producers are not responsible for applying these labels to their published content. It is only when a brand/manufacturer decides to publish the paid work from their contractors/employees, that the warning labels must be applied. It is 100% the manufacturer’s duty to ensure that their advertisements/marketing content is properly labeled and presented.
FDA Warning Label Information for U.S. E-liquid Manufacturers:
Required language must be punctuated, capitalized and centered as shown :
WARNING : This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.
Display Panels : Warning labels must appear on 2 display panels of the packaging comprising 30% of the panels.
Font : 12 point in Helvetica BOLD or Arial BOLD is best recommended.
Text & box color :If black text is on white background, statement must be boxed in black border with thickness of 3PT-4PT. If white text is on black background, statement must be boxed in white border with thickness of 3PT-4PT.
Packaging/Labeling Information for U.S. E-liquid Manufacturers :
1. Indicate origin of product stated exactly as shown : Sale only allowed in the United States.
2. Indicate accurate quantity of product inside package. Example : Contains 1 bottle of 60ML E-Liquid.
3. Indicate name and place of business of manufacturer, co-packer and distributor. Example : Manufactured for & Distributed by Smax Holdings LLC, Los Angeles, California, 90015, United States.
4.Indicate percentage of tobacco inside product. Example : Contains .3% Nicotine by Volume.
**Manufacturers in California must include latest Prop 65 warning.**
⚠️ WARNING: These products can expose you to chemicals including acetaldehyde, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer, and nicotine, which is known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
Advertisement Information for U.S. E-Liquid Manufacturers:
Digital or printed content that includes e-liquids in media requires warning labels. Hardware that is not sold with e-liquid does not.
All marketing content such as photos or videos published on social media platforms, e-mail newsletters, websites, marketing signs or printed ads requires warning label to be applied at the top of content comprising at least 20%.
Required language must be punctuated, capitalized and centered as shown :
WARNING : This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.
Font : 12 point in Helvetica BOLD or Arial BOLD is best recommended.
Text & box color :If black text is on white background, statement must be boxed in black border with thickness of 3PT-4PT. If white text is on black background, statement must be boxed in white border with thickness of 3PT-4PT.
Based on the labeling and advertising guidelines provided by Vapor Technology Association and required warning statements by the FDA, we did not find any information that stated warning labels were necessary when published by photographers, influencers, e-liquid reviewers, bloggers, vloggers and all content creators paid or unpaid.
To our understanding, if a U.S. manufacturer decides to publish content they purchased or have permission to use from a paid or unpaid content creator such as a photographer, influencer, e-liquid reviewer, blogger, vlogger etc. then the U.S. manufacturer is required to precisely apply the warning label wherever the content is displayed such as Instagram, Facebook, e-mail newsletters, Youtube, websites etc.
Feel free to check out Grimm Green's VLOG from 8/16/2018 and watch what Nick Green has to say about WARNING LABELS here :
For now, take care of yourself, keep up the great work staying smoke-free, enjoy the things you can’t live without in moderation and know exactly what you’re putting in your body. All we can do during this time is stay optimistic and continue to fight together through this uphill battle so that the government will do the right thing in the end.
Stay positive everyone! ❤️
For more detailed information, please read Electronic Code of Federal Regulations here, required warning statements provided by FDA here.
***This is a guideline based off of the requirements that we collected from the Vapor Technology Association and Tobacco Warning Labeling requirements from the FDA. We do not guarantee this information to be 100% accurate. If we are missing any important information, please let us know.***
There has been a lot going on this year with the changes of our industry and I'm sure many of us have been overwhelmed. For some time now, we have been aware of the necessary labeling/packaging adjustments that was required of our e-liquid products and have been making the changes as we became informed. After going through the FDA Labeling guideline, we can confidently say that our current packaging has met all of the requirements.
For California Only : Our PROP 65 Warnings have recently been updated so we will have this information updated on our new boxes.
Packaging updates for Fall 2018
• 100mLs (released in 2014) will soon be available in GCC compliant bottles.
• Sixties (60mL) will soon be replaced with new (Stubbies) 30mLs boxed in bundles of 2x30mL bottles.
• Super Tubes (30mL) have been discontinued and will be replaced by Stubbies (30mL).
TFN Nicotine Discontinuation
We would also like to inform you that we have reverted back to using regular nicotine for ALL original recipes created in 2014. Unfortunately, the switch to synthetic nicotine altered some of the flavoring based on our customer feedback and we have stopped using it for all of our Smax flavors.
For retail shops : If you need to obtain any additional information from us such as GCCs for our bottles and other FDA product/facility registration numbers (FEI #, License #, and TPs #), please request them at info@smaxeliquid.com
So many changes, but all for the better and we couldn’t be more than happy to see our industry mature and be apart of all of its phases with you! We look forward to serving you in the future and always hearing from you!
Information on FDA Labeling Guidelines from e-CFR can be found here Additional guidance from VTA can be found here
There’s never enough to go around, so this one is for you guys and gals! Thanks for being the good people that you are and trusting in SMAX!
Sadly, we almost rejected this flavor because one of the extracts from the flavor houses changed and we just couldn’t get it to taste the same as the original recipe again. It was almost trashed for another brand we were working with at the time but I said, “Hey, hold up, NO! Smax needs it!” We adopted the unwanted forbidden fruit punch orphan and named her Good Vibes. It brought so many good feelings to me vaping it the first time and there was no way we could have kept this oldie but goodie from you.
This one is my personal favorite and believe it or not, it currently ranks as our 2nd top seller next to Pony On Acid.
Lick It
What kind of flavors would Smax have that would make us stand out from the rest? The first thing I did was drive to Target, and bought a huge bag of Jelly Bellies in an assortment of 49 flavors. These were NOT just any ordinary jelly beans, they were a nostalgic delicacy of my childhood. My dad used to buy them for us when they came in those fancy little gift boxes as a kid and I’ve never ate candy that tasted so accurate to their descriptions.
Peach wasn’t exactly my favorite but I ended up trashing all of our other attempts of the fruit flavors because they just sucked. We didn’t want to create flavors that everyone else was making, and it was too ambitious to do a juicy pear that didn’t taste like old lady perfume. I was hoping that by eating 49 different flavors excluding black licorice and buttered popcorn that we would find at least a few worthy profiles to recreate and improve.
Lick It was a super basic profile, but that’s when I realized that simplified recipes are sometimes the way to go. We added some cream to it and this was actually the flavor that got me back on nicotine. I remember receiving a Fedex shipping bill from China and it was nearly 9 thousand dollars, I almost fell to my chair realizing I chose the express option and it stressed me out so much that I started vaping nicotine that night. What does one do with peaches and cream? The only thing I could think of was LICK IT and apparently, NIC IT.
Mafia Princess
Priscilla was definitely not about the #vapelyfe but it turned into a mild obsession for me. I kept bugging her to try it but not without me because I’ll never forget how awful my first experience was. We were working on our last album together “Everything and Nothing” and I would just sit there and fog up my tiny room working on our tracks while I overdosed on euphoric sensations.
I told her that I was planning on making a juice line and she didn’t seem so interested. It was never brought up again but I really tried to get her attention so I decided that Smax’s first dessert flavor would be Tiramisu since it’s her favorite dessert. I checked the market to see if there were any decent coffee flavors and the only one I tried tasted like burnt coffee.
She didn’t discover that the flavor was created for her until months later. One day, she walked by a vape shop in Koreatown and spotted Smax through the window. Of course, she purchased a zero milligram pump bottle and saved her vape baptismal date for Halloween night at VapeCon in 2014. Always made with love for people that we love.
Pony On Acid
We kept this flavor the most elusive out of them all because we just didn’t know what to make of it. It was a mistake and a mystery but everything came together in the end. Pony On Acid was the result of many failed attempts of our goal and we had no choice but to run with it after hearing all of the crowd’s shockingly positive response.
A friend of mine recommended this flavor by E-Liq Cube called “Pink Starburst”. I finally got my hands on a bottle from a local vape shop and immediately fall in LOVE . I wanted this flavor to be the inspiration for our first fruit flavor for the Smax Bible. At first, we tried to clone it but it was so wildly far off that we started remixing it and adding a bunch of unpredictable extracts and it just turned out to be this...this....magical medley of berries, pineapple, lime and cream.
Apart of me wishes that I could turn back time and rename this flavor considering how terribly inappropriate the name is for an adult product, but its too late now. I just couldn’t stop thinking of my last acid trip with Mary, Jessica and Ana in the summer of 2001 where all of life’s mysteries were answered through my trippy perceptions of reality. You would have to experience it for yourself to understand and oddly enough, it was the same way I felt about the birth of Pony On Acid, everything just made sense in the end.
Sammie Puffs
It was getting closer to our launch date, July 18th, 2014 and we were running out of time, only having 4 flavors ready to go.
Initially, the plan was to release 6 flavors for the Smax Bible. We had about 6 months to finalize these flavors and it was continuous testing, day in, day out. I was being too damn picky with revisions so we couldn’t get the 6th flavor done before the launch. With the majority of our flavors being fruity and having only one dessert flavor, we needed a second savory one. Something chocolatey, something light and fluffy and full of love.
I thought of Sami, my beautiful golden-skinned, mulatto friend from back home who I had given my last E-shish stick to. I don’t know if you guys remember those but they were fruit flavored shisha e-cig thingies with 300 puffs in them each. Those little guys were the staples of our summer in 2013. What in lord’s name made us think they were so cool? Sammie Puffs became our 5th flavor.
She's A Dime
There was a phase where we used to eat these really sweet cake pops from Starbucks with our coffee. We only bought them cause they were cute but they tasted kinda gross. I couldn’t get this baby photo out of my head of her scrunched up face after her dad stuck a lemon in her mouth for the shot. So there needed to be a Smax flavor that was a lemon/lime cake pop. Nobody had cake pop flavors at the time! But what is a cake pop anyway? There you have it. Plus, dime rhymes with lime and that she was!
TFN or Tobacco-Free Nicotine : What It Is & Why You Should Care
by Felicia Downing
When it comes to nicotine and tobacco, all vapers can agree that there needs to be more distinction between the two. While nicotine is a natural product of tobacco, it can also be found in many plants, including potatoes, tomatoes, and broccoli. Nicotine is widely known to be the substance responsible for tobacco addiction; which is where people start to get their facts twisted. Although addicting, nicotine is not responsible for the health damages caused by smoking tobacco.
So what does this have to do with TFN, and what is TFN anyway? TFN, or tobacco-free nicotine, created by Next Generation Labs is a lab-created nicotine concentrate that is synthesized without using any parts of the tobacco plant. This nicotine is used in e-liquids for vaping devices as an alternative to nicotine which is derived from tobacco.
There are any number of reasons why TFN is a huge development for the vaping industry. First of all, the FDA has the authority to regulate any and all "tobacco products". In terms of vaping, any part of your device which can be "reasonably expected" to be used to consume tobacco can be deemed a tobacco product. So if you're using an e-liquid with tobacco-derived nicotine, everything from the tank/RDA, to the mod, and even the batteries can be considered tobacco products, and therefore can be regulated by the FDA. It could be argued, logically, that use of TFN would no longer constitute any part of your vaping device as a tobacco product. Those of us who vape are already well aware that vaping and smoking are entirely different animals, and that vaping is a valid & valuable harm-reduction tool. We already know how absurd it is to consider a vaping device a "tobacco product", however this is what we are up against. TFN is just another step in the right direction for the vaping industry.
Aside from the science and regulation angles, there is another huge aspect of TFN that many vapers will agree is the most positive: the flavor! E-liquids made with TFN are widely thought to be more crisp and vibrant than those made with tobacco-derived nicotine. Anyone who has been vaping for any length of time has probably tried an e-liquid which tasted bitter or peppery - this flavor is a direct result of the nicotine being used, and is all but impossible to remedy.
So why aren't all e-liquid companies using TFN? Put simply, it comes down to cost. TFN is a relatively new development, and it is likely not feasible for many companies to afford this product. However, when it comes down to it, those companies who can - should. If the vaping industry is going to continue to thrive as an anti-smoking tool, we need to continue to advance our technology, so that what we already know to be true becomes undeniable.
Routine E-Liquid Co. was founded on the basis of how we spend our mornings as creators, so we wanted to share with you some of the routines by the most inspiring people we've met from our vape journey.
We were finally able to meet with Angela, a photographer and social media content creator based out of Los Angeles who caught our attention in early 2015 with her stunning feed filled with essentials of a vape connoisseur's dream.
Her perfectly-lit compositions capturing the beauty in artisan box mods, top choice e-liquids and lifestyle portraits have been featured on honorable collectives such as @vaperazzi and @insivapor. After 4 years of smoking, Angela was able to say goodbye to cigarettes with the help of vaping. Thank-you for doing great things @vaperture! What's your routine? Tag us #myvaperoutine
Be sure to follow Angela on Instagram at @vaperture
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