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FDA E-Liquid Warning Label & Packaging Info for U.S. Manufacturers & Social Media Content Creators
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.***
FDA Packaging Standards and Product Size Availability Updates
FDA Label requirements effective: 8/10/2018
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
Tobacco-Derived Nicotine or Tobacco-Free Nicotine?
How Did Smax Come Up With Their Flavors?
Good Vibes
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!
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