juul vs vape

JUUL vs Vape Pens: The Ultimate Showdown

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Picture yourself as a first-time vaper. Perhaps you want to quit smoking or maybe vaping is your first foray into nicotine.

You walk into a vape shop and stop in your tracks. It’s wall-to-wall options. Where do you start?

Whether you’re a first-timer or a vaping pro, your vape pen will have a powerful impact on your experience. To help you start sifting through your options, let’s talk terminology.

Chances are that you’ve heard of vape pens and you’ve heard of JUULs. What’s the difference and how do you know which one is best for you? Here’s everything you need to know about JUUL vs vape pens.

JUUL vs Vape Pen: What’s the Difference?

As with anything, it’s fun to experiment with different vaping options to see what you like. To help you decide where to start, though, check out the basic differences between JUULs and traditional vape pens.

A vape pen has three basic parts: a chamber for the e-liquid, a heating element, and a battery. It’s a simple process: the heating element warms the liquid to turn it into a vapor, which you inhale.

A JUUL is a specific brand of vape pen. It works in the same way as a vape pen, but it’s a more “closed” product. In other words, you can only use JUUL brand e-liquid in a JUUL vape pen.

Appearance

Vape pens come in all varieties of sizes, shapes, and colors. There are plenty of brands that make their own styles. However, it’s easy to tell that most of them are vape pens because of the mouthpiece.

JUULs, on the other hand, look more discrete. They’re the shape of a USB flash drive, so it’s not as obvious that they’re vape pens. JUULs are also around the size of a traditional cigarette, making them smaller and lighter than most vape pens.

Nicotine Levels

For the user, one of the most noticeable differences between using JUULs and vape pens is the nicotine level. Most JUUL pods have a high level of nicotine: around the same amount as a full pack of cigarettes. They offer two of their flavors with smaller nicotine levels, but these options are limited.

E-liquids for traditional vape pens, on the other hand, put you in control. You can find them with any level of nicotine, including no nicotine at all.

There are pros and cons to both of these options. The high nicotine levels in the JUUL allow you to get the nicotine you want with fewer puffs. On the other hand, if someone is inexperienced with nicotine, it’s easy to get more than you bargained for.

Ease of Use and Customizability

One reason experienced vapers tend to use traditional vape pens is that they’re easy to modify. You can change the mechanics of them to adjust the effect your vaping has.

It’s the same way mechanics tend to enjoy modifying their cars while people without mechanical skills want a vehicle that’s easy to use.

JUULs, then, are those drive-right-off-the-lot cars. They’re easier to pick up and use than a traditional vape pen and with fewer parts, they’re less likely to have problems. That means that they’re not customizable, though.

Experience

Part of the reason people enjoy vaping is the experience of holding the pen in their hand and puffing away. The experience is different based on the type of vape pen you choose.

A JUUL feels more like a regular cigarette than most vape pens. Its size and weight are similar, so you could hold it in a similar way if you choose. The draw feels similar to the draw of a cigarette too.

A traditional vape pen, however, has a feel all its own. Most have a very different shape from a cigarette and require you to hold them in a different way.

All in all, if you’re trying to transition from smoking to vaping, a JUUL will be an easier transition.

Price

Unless you’re Mr. Moneybags, you need to consider pricing in your decision. After all, vaping can become a long-term habit so the costs will add up over time.

The starting packs for vape pens and JUULs cost about the same. For most people, though, the JUUL pods will cost more over time than e-liquid for traditional vape pens.

Of course, it all depends on how much you vape. If the high nicotine levels in JUUL pods mean you’re only inhaling a fraction of what you’d inhale with other e-liquids, you could save money with a JUUL. There’s no way to know for sure until you establish how frequent your habit is.

Safety

Vaping gets praise for being a safer alternative to smoking. While nicotine itself has some health risks, that dangerous cancer risk is gone with vaping. Still, along with that praise, vaping has drawn some criticism for another health risk: Diacetyl.

Diacetyl is a chemical that makes food and sometimes e-liquid taste like butter. It can be harmful to your lungs if you inhale it. Diacetyl was the cause behind the epidemic of “popcorn lung” in employees at popcorn factories.

It’s important to note, though, that not all e-liquids contain diacetyl. It’s only used to create specific flavors. If you use a JUUL, you can rest assured that there is no diacetyl in the JUUL pods.

With a traditional vape pen, it all depends on the type of e-liquid you buy. You can stay safe by avoiding e-liquids with diacetyl.

Flavors

One of many benefits vaping has over smoking is that you can choose your flavor of e-liquid. It’s important to note that traditional vape pens have more flavor options than JUULs.

With a JUUL, you’re limited to the eight flavors of pods JUUL sells. With other vape pens, you can use e-liquids from countless brands, making your flavor selection as good as limitless.

Choosing Your Vape Pen

Whether you’re starting your vaping journey now or you’ve enjoyed vaping for years already, the vape pen you choose will set the tone for your experience. To compare a JUUL vs vape pen, take a look at the differences above and compare the pros and cons that appeal to you.

For more handy tips about vaping, check out more articles on our vaping blog.

history of vaping

Here’s A Quick Lesson On The History Of Vaping And How It Became So Popular

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Vaping may feel like a well-established part of the culture, but we often forget that vaping, as we know it, is an extremely new invention.

The foundations of vaping and the long path it took to get where it is today, however, is a very old story. We’re going to go through the origin story of the vape and detail how it became what it is in our effort to detail the history of vaping.

So sit down, buckle up, grab your vape, and get ready to learn.

The History of Vaping

The history of using vapor as a way to experience a number of effects dates back thousands of years. While we don’t typically consider a hookah to be a “vape,” it technically falls into the same category.

People discovered the process of heating shisha and smoking or “vaping it” hundreds of years ago, and that process continues to this day. It is, however, much worse for you than vaping a modern vape.

Additionally, Egyptians have used the process of heating stones and introducing herbs to them to create vapors. Further, things like saunas also utilize the power of vapor in achieving health benefits and relaxation.

While these methods aren’t thought of as “vaping,” it’s likely that the usage of these practices opened the door for inventors and enthusiasts to start using vapor in the way we do today. The idea of smoking is also a huge contributor to how we vape today.

Smoking is an ancient human tradition that has come through a number of ways in many cultures. Tobacco, for example, has been in use for thousands of years in the Americas.

The combination of using vapor as a means of achieving an effect in humans and the popularity of smoking cigarettes has melted together to form the base of our civilization’s interest in vaping. But who actually kicked the door down and invented the vape?

When Was the Vape Invented?

While we’ll get to the modern inventor who created our conception of the vape, we need to pay some tribute to those who came before and made attempts to create vapes.

The first patent granted for the electronic cigarette was filed by one Joseph Robinson in 1930. For one reason or another, he was never able to get his product off the ground and sold on a mass scale. If only he knew the market he was missing out on.

The next iteration of the electronic cigarette was created by Herbert A. Gilbert in 1960. Gilbert did create a number of prototypes for the product after being granted a patent, but he, too, failed to commercialize the electronic cigarette.

The term “vape” was introduced to the world in the 1980s by Phil Ray and Norman Jacobson, who created the first legitimately commercialized electronic cigarette. It was an inherently faulty product, though, and it never really took off.

The 1990s probably held the most attempts to bring an electronic cigarette to the market in a real way. Many independent inventors and government groups worked to bring the product to fruition. All attempts either failed or were denied by the FDA as unregulated drug delivery services.

Hon Lik and the Electronic Cigarette

Hon Lik is a man from Beijing who created an alternative to smoking that would help him kick the habit. Lik, a smoker whose father had recently passed away due to lung cancer, needed a way to stop smoking and avoid his father’s fate.

He created the common conception of electronic cigarette. It was a simple, straightforward method of ingesting vapor with nicotine. He made the invention in 2003, and it took several years for him and partners to develop the product to a point where it was ready to be introduced to the market.

In 2006, the electronic cigarette hit Europe and started to pick up steam there. Shortly after, the product was introduced to the United States’ market. The buzz around the product picked up to a point where the World Health Organization took note, making a disclaimer that they did not consider e-cigarettes to be a legitimate quitting aid.

After that disclaimer, Health New Zealand released a study that claimed carcinogens and toxicants in vaporizers are only present “below harmful levels.” That is typically considered to make vaping over 100 times less harmful than cigarettes.

That study, it should be noted, was funded by Ruyan, Lik’s company. This doesn’t change the reality of the results, but it’s something to be considered.

Vaping’s Influence on Culture and Law

A lot of countries banned the use of e-cigarettes after the WHO’s disclaimer about its potential health consequences.

In fact, the United States banned the import of any electronic cigarettes in 2009, claiming that it was an unapproved drug delivery service.

Canada and Hong Kong even banned the sale of these products. In response to these actions, citing the Ruyan study’s conclusions, many electronic cigarette companies started to take action.

U.S. companies were citing the fact that it was beyond the FDA’s rule to control tobacco products outright. 2009 brought President Obama’s signature on the Family Smoking Prevention Tobacco Control Act, which introduced the FDA into its role as tobacco authority.

The illuminated some specifics about the role of government in the creation and distribution of tobacco products. The FDA was not allowed to ban any product altogether, only certain products. Further, if a product met certain FDA requirements, it could be introduced to the market.

Clearly, with these new openings, vaping has become something that nearly everyone does or has tried. The availability of vape products is startlingly huge, and there isn’t a flavor that you can’t find online. There’s bound to be a lot more to come, too.

Want to See Where We Are Today?

Hopefully, our history of vaping gave you some insight into how things progressed to where they are today.

There’s probably a lot happening in the world of vaping that you still have to learn. Visit our site to get more information on current vaping information and products.