FuZion Vapor Exclusive Interview
After having the opportunity to vape and enjoy such flavors as Unicorn Blood and Nice Melons, we had the chance to sit down with Fuzion Vapor owner Shane Johnson and manager Jared Davis for an in-depth, no hold bard interview. We had the opportunity to touch on such topics as what goes into making their E-Liquids, what makes Fuzion Vapor such a great choice when purchasing E-Liquids, and what to watch out for when deciding what E-liquid company to use. This interview will give you a glance into one of your favorite E-Liquid companies, while educating you on important issues every vapor should know.
VA: How and why did you start Fuzion vapor?
Shane: About 2 and half years ago I wanted to quit smoking, I saw the gas station E-Cigs and I wanted to try it. It was so bad, and I saw a lot of potential for that, so I started to make my own. I started making some flavors and I was like “oh this is good”. After smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for 18 years and I was like “this is working for me”. There was a community for vaping and there were only a handful of reviewers out there, so I contacted them and sent them some of my juice. They would do reviews and it kind of grew from there. I opened up a website in early 2012, it wasn’t for the money it was more for the community and an alternative to the shitty cigarettes and the shitty electronic cigarettes, that offered only menthol and tobacco flavors.
VA: Was it difficult to make the juices taste good, when you first started?
Shane: At first, I started off with a couple basic flavors. I love to cook so I started taking that kind of passion towards it, I was like “these flavors compliment these flavors”. When you understand the flavors as a whole then you can go from there. On average I would say each juice goes through a minimum of at least two months of testing, some four to six months long, during this time the juices will be tweaked and perfected. You don’t just put it into a bottle, start vaping and have a successful juice, there are a lot of things involved.
VA: Did you start by selling your products locally?
Shane: It started with the website and for the first year it was a couple of orders per day and increased to a couple hundred per day. Around the middle of December 2012 it started to take off and you could really see how the vaping community was starting to pick up and run with it. In the last six months, there have been many new juice companies that have popped up, and luckily we got in and we’re a trusted name and people know who we are. We’ve always been open and honest with our customers, there’s always been that face behind the juice, and that’s us. Us four in the management section of the company, we’ve always been upfront about who we are, and we’ve never hid behind anyone or anything and that kind of sets us apart…unlike the other companies who have the fancy bottles and fancy art and their juice tastes like shit, plus we don’t know who’s making them.
VA: Why do you think people favor your company more than other E-Liquid Companies?
Jared: The best part about our juice and our company as a whole is what Shane touched on, we’re not some faceless company, and we’re very personal with all of our customers. We strive to have that one on one time with each customer whether it’s in our online chat or face to face, emails or on the phone. Now that we’re in the process of opening our first store front in St. Augustine, anyone who has been in here prior to the opening, knows we always have that one on one contact with them. That’s really what draws people in.
VA: Can you tell me about your flavor of the month charity?
Jared: Yes, each month we select a flavor and donate 50% of that flavors sales to a certain charity or organization. We enjoy giving back because we’ve been given so much and we don’t take that for granted.
VA: Jared do you make juices too?
Jared: I can contest that I’ve tried to make my own flavors. I’ve tried to make my own juice, but I don’t know how to get it to that point, its’ really hard. We have a sheet in the lab that’s a list of beta flavors and recipes, under my name there are flavors and in the comment section it says “tastes like shit, start over.” [Laughs]
VA: So you’d say making E-Liquids isn’t an easy process?
Jared: It’s not an easy process in any way, shape or form.
VA: What goes into making a good juice and why do you think people favor your flavors?
Shane: For one, we use the best products that you can get. There are probably a dozen different flavor companies for candy flavoring, nicotine, and glycerin to purchase from. We don’t buy the cheapest, we buy the best. If you’re going to use the best ingredients, you’re going to get the best product. Also with our flavoring, we probably put twice as much flavoring in our juices than anyone else does. Most people flavor their juices 10% to 15% and we’re about 30% to 35%, for just a higher, stronger flavor.
VA: What are your thoughts about the political issues and pending laws regarding vaping and the use of E-Cigarettes?
Jared: That’s a hard subject that Shane and all of us at Fuzion Vapor have talked about it. We’ve been trying to figure out what the FDA is doing and we have our own legal team that has actually been working on that trying to keep us ready, but as far as the political side, the government, the political system, the congressmen, they all need funding for campaigns or whatever. I feel that part of it is just funding from big tobacco because they don’t want this to come out. That means they’re going to start hurting for money. They’re also going to start losing customers so they’re going to start taking more money for congressmen and lobbyists. Unfortunately it’s hard to find true and honest people in this world, which is sad but it’s true especially within the government, I think a lot of it has to do with that. I understand people are hesitant because there is so much on the internet you can read. You can google E-Cigs and the first four or five webpages that are pulled up is stuff condemning it, “it’s terrible” “it’s got formaldehyde in it” “it’s made with antifreeze” these are all myths, you can articulate on things and make it sound worse than it actually is. It’s all untrue because a lot of those products that they’re basing information off of are not made in the U.S. Our juices are made in the U.S., our juices and our ingredients are all USDA, kosher approved. We use probably the highest level of isolation in lab quality settings. When we set up the lab I made sure that the air purification system was comparable to some surgical air purification systems. It’s all in a matter of perspective and how you buy into that stuff. I think a lot of it is just “crock”.
VA: What are some warning signs people can look out for to know if the juice they’re purchasing is unsafe?
Shane: The biggest warning sign is any juices that have a strong custard or a vanilla custard flavor, there’s a lot of them that are popular out there. You cannot make a good custard flavor without using a diacetyl base flavoring which is like the stuff that’s in popcorn butter. Companies were using a flavoring for butter, they were breathing it in and it was causing serious damage to the lungs and that flavor is in a vanilla custard flavoring. It’s okay to digest, but if you inhale the flavoring it can cause damage to your lungs. You really have to watch out for any company that has a vanilla custard juice, and make sure that they’re trusted and have been around for a while as well as making sure that on their website they state that their vanilla custard is diacetyl free. That’s probably the biggest thing that scares me with most companies.
The credibility of the company is also extremely important. Make sure you check out their Facebook, website, pictures, and if it looks like their juices are being made in a kitchen somewhere you might have to think twice. I’ve seen a lot of pictures on Instagram where in the background you see dishes in a kitchen sink and a refrigerator or something like that, so do you really want to be putting this in to your lungs? You should research what company you’re buying from. If they aren’t going to spend the money for a clean room, the money for a building and the money for the equipment then they shouldn’t be making something that you’re going to be putting into your body.
VA: Is vanilla custard flavored E-Liquid with diacetyl extremely common that people should often look out for when they’re buying juices?
Shane: At the beginning of vaping it was a big issue and then it kind of went away but more and more lately I’ve been seeing more juices with that vanilla custard coming out. I even bought one myself to see because it’s really popular. I’ve checked it out, I vaped it and it tastes like vanilla custard. I checked their website and nowhere did it say that it was diacetyl free. I’m just going to assume that if it has that buttery, vanilla pudding goodness flavor then it contains it. My advice to anybody would be to not vape any kind of juices that have a vanilla custard flavor. The natural component of that flavor is diacetyl. It’s not like the added to it, it just is what it is.
VA: A lot of companies use alcohol in their E-liquid, how do you get around that?
Shane: We don’t purchase any flavoring that contains alcohol in it. We have carefully reviewed each of our ingredients and ensured that it meets our personal and professional standards, because we don’t like that taste in our juice.
VA: How does E-Liquid affect diabetics?
Jared: I’ve spoken with diabetics that do vape our juices and I said “have you experienced any sort of ill effects?” they said “no”. Worst case scenario would be with hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic events or anything like that. They’ve told me that their blood sugar has been pretty much the same. I can’t say for sure because I don’t have a clinical station where I can actually do all these tests and say that 100% for sure it won’t affect them but because of it being water vapor and it’s not something that the body is going to metabolize in large quantities like food or ingesting alcohol. It’s a hard thing to say because we don’t actually have any medically based fact on this, so I don’t want to make any statements on that one, but if there’s a diabetic and they want to switch to E-Cigs my strong recommendation would be to consult your physician, monitor your blood sugar and to stay on top of it. If you do see an elevation whether it’s high or low you can figure out whether or not it is linked back to our juices or to E-Cigs in general.
VA: Can you really vape too much?
Jared: There are drastic differences between smoking and vaping because the smoke is absorbed in your lungs differently than an E-Cig. The vapor absorbs a little slower in your system versus when you’re actually smoking a cigarette. As far as over vaping and doing it so much, I’ve never actually had that problem. I vape quite often. I do tell people that if you’re making your first step into becoming somebody who vapes and wants switch from regular cigarettes to E-Cigs, you have to do it continuously. It’s a hard mindset change. It’s different from when you’re like “Ahh! I really want a cigarette!” to just vaping and keeping it in your system because when you keep it in your system you don’t have those ridiculous fits, you’re constantly vaping. If anybody does feel like they’re having side effects, I’ve heard people saying that they feel light headed, and that can be because your nicotine level is too high, and if that happens we recommend that you back it down a little bit. In the morning, usually that first hit off my E-Cig I’m usually like “aww man this feels well” it feels like my first drag off a cigarette without the taste or the harmful chemicals. If anybody starts feeling ill effects from that whether it’s our juice or anybody’s juice, I highly recommend that they back down the nicotine strength and that they probably consult with their physician to make sure everything is okay.
VA: What are your thought about individuals who vape and have PG allergies and how do you address this?
Shane: Since we don’t add any PG to our juices that definitely helps, but some of our juices are PG based. To be honest with you we are working on an active ingredient list for each juice, but it takes a lot of time because you think each juice has a middle of four different flavors, so between four and twelve flavors per bottle of per flavor it’s a lot of ingredients. We’ll eventually have a list of every juice and if you have PG sensitivity you’ll know which ones to watch out for. In general, even those who are sensitive to PG none of our juices would probably-just a guess-wouldn’t have a problem with our juices just because we don’t add any PG to the juices so it’s minimal.
VA: Do you have any new flavors coming out that you think people will be excited about?
Shane: We’re always working on a bunch of different juices. At any time there’s probably a half a dozen to a dozen juices on the table that were just beta testing, the problem is that it takes months to where it will be good enough to where we will release it. We just released a bunch of juices that we’ve been sitting on for a while, so we won’t probably have anything new for another month. We just released a tobacco line and a new menthol called mountain mint.
VA: Is Fuzion Vapor a family business?
Jared: We’re all actually close friends. Growing up I’ve known Shane and his family for quite some time. When Shane’s business began to grow he was looking for people he could trust and people who had good, hard work ethic. He reached out to my brother and me and asked us if we wanted to come down. Shane and his family have actually become a big part of my family as well. It’s pretty much a family run business from the top down.
Everyone here at Vapor Awareness, myself included, can honestly say that Fuzion Vapor offers fantastic E-Liquids for any vaper’s palette, such as Unicorn Blood and Nice Melons. Not only have they produced great products that have established a trusted following throughout the vaping community, but the individuals behind it all, have proven to be both knowledgeable and kind hearted E-Liquid experts. If you are looking for a company to make your next E-Liquid purchase from, look no further than Fuzion Vapor.
Fuzion Vapor Website: http://www.fuzionvapor.com