WARNING: Full review here. And I tend to ramble, so consider this fair warning. Not a short post.
Zome zubzcription zervicez zuck. (Not naming names exactly, but I'm sure quite a few of you will read between the lines....and misspelling....to know what I'm suggesting there.)
Let me say, for the record, Craft Vapery does NOT "zuck." Far from it.
For starters, they treat paying customers like customers. Given the way they've treated me so far, I can safely say that they're about running a business, not just hanging out and getting paid to have a hobby. For the money I'm spending on this subscription, since it's significantly more than I was previously spending on e-juice, I have pretty high expectations. I don't see myself as easy to please in this respect. But....CV crushed it. Sure, they charge more than some of the other subscription services out there, but it's worth it. Absolutely. Without even knowing how much I was expecting of them, they turned my expectations on their ears and far exceeded them.
-At least 8 15ml bottles. Check. (Of the 8, all were 15ml, except for one which was 30ml)
-juice selection personally curated to my flavor profile specifications. Check. (One bottle represented one of my "yuck" categories, but more about that later.)
-Shipping box padded for product protection. Check. (Not just two pre-bagged bundles of bottles thrown in a box, leaving whatever may happen in transit to just happen. That kind of goes back into the curating process, but I digress.)
-Box of candy as a side item. Check. (And....it wasn't M&M's, which was a good thing, since they would've melted in the 80-degree temperatures we have here in Florida, much to the chagrin of most of the rest of the US. Yeah, I get it....Heart candies to fit the Valentine's Day theme since I placed the order in February, but still....it was a relief to see that the candy wasn't a bag of melted chocolate. I'm just gonna keep telling myself that the impressive CV staff took the unusual weather into consideration, and give credit where credit's due. Or maybe it isn't due, but I don't care....they get credit for it anyway, as far as I'm concerned.)
-Hand-written card from the curator. Check. (Not only does that clearly indicate that my shipment was assembled with personal attention to detail, specifically with me in mind, but what was written in the card strongly demonstrated the attention to detail even further. More on that later.)
Now, for some things CV did to go above and beyond (things that I either forgot they do or I just wasn't expecting of them as a requirement)...
-Reference cards for each bottle of juice. Very useful information to have when not one bottle in the lot has a generic, unimaginative name like "Watermelon" or "Lemon Meringue Pie." (One bottle didn't have its corresponding description card, more about that later.)
-All the juice was in glass bottles. (I didn't ask for that, because I don't expect that to be the case with every bottle of juice on the market, but I absolutely prefer glass over plastic. Just a quality thing, I guess. Kinda like how you never see sporks in five-star restaurants. Sure, you can accept that with fast food, but that's ok at fast food prices. Nothing "fast food" about Craft Vapery. They market the products they distribute as premium, and everything they sent me looks the part.)
-Two of the glass bottles came with flat caps instead of droppers. That's just how those particular bottles are made. So, CV sees the problem and says, "problem solved." Two plastic exchange bottles included as accessories. That's just good looking out. But then, I noticed that the exchange bottles have measurement lines, so you know how many ml's are in there. And then, upon further inspection, I see that the marcation lines don't go all the way around the bottle, so if you want to label the bottle to know what juice is in it, there's a place you can put the labeling without the grooves getting the way.
-As for the bottle that went against my flavor profile selections, I have to debunk the myth that CV somehow dropped the ball by doing so. Instead, I'm reporting this one as a happy accident. I have a fairly strong sensitivity to caffeine, and for that reason, I list coffee, tea and drinks in the "yuck" side of the list. In their excitement to shine the spotlight on a new juice they just got in, they included a Boba Tea juice in my shipment. After I cringed for a second because they sent me something I specifically said I didn't want, I decided to keep an open mind. Especially after I cracked that bottle open for the smell test, which I do with every bottle I vape before it goes in the tank. And wouldn't you know it? Out of the 8 bottles I got, this "Jazzy Boba" is gonna be in my "best of the box" when I post it, either 1st or 2nd. Doesn't change my mind about moving the tea category from "yuck" to "yum," because I can't open myself up that much to caffeine, but wow....that stuff is REALLY good. Probably 5 out of the 8 in this month's box are better than anything I've ever vaped before, probably 6 are easily all-day-vape level, and this "happy accident" ranks above all but maybe one of them. So, when I said to myself, "Oh crap! They tried to sneak tea in on me! This better be really good, otherwise they just went against me is all" I was beyond right to give them the benefit of the doubt. Gonna steal a line from Ferris Bueller now ans say, "if you have the means, I highly recommend it." Now, because the Jazzy Boba is so new, CV didn't have a card printed to accompany it. That was the one exclusion in the stack of reference cards. But that's ok, it was the one card I didn't need, cause I knew what it was when I saw "Boba" on the label. And it didn't stop the curator from explaining in the hand-written card that they didn't have a card for it because it's so new. (That was the "personal touch" I was talking about earlier in regards to the hand-written card. Sorry to disappoint those of you who may have been thinking I was offered sex or something like that. lol They offer some good personal care with what they do, but not that personal! At least not as far as I know.)
Only one complaint. And it's a minor one. With one of the bottles that didn't have a dropper, the opening is just slightly too narrow to fit a standard-size dropper through. And I don't have any skinny droppers. So, when I tried to fill a dropper out of it, it gushed out of the bottle a little. Way less than 1ml, to be honest. And it ended up pouring nicely into the exchange bottle, so it's all good.
On a scale of 1 to 100, I give CV a 99. This month. Who knows? If I don't spill juice on myself next time just being stupid, that score may change to 100. Either way, I can't wait to see what CV sends me next month. Baited breath and all that.
Zome zubzcription zervicez zuck. (Not naming names exactly, but I'm sure quite a few of you will read between the lines....and misspelling....to know what I'm suggesting there.)
Let me say, for the record, Craft Vapery does NOT "zuck." Far from it.
For starters, they treat paying customers like customers. Given the way they've treated me so far, I can safely say that they're about running a business, not just hanging out and getting paid to have a hobby. For the money I'm spending on this subscription, since it's significantly more than I was previously spending on e-juice, I have pretty high expectations. I don't see myself as easy to please in this respect. But....CV crushed it. Sure, they charge more than some of the other subscription services out there, but it's worth it. Absolutely. Without even knowing how much I was expecting of them, they turned my expectations on their ears and far exceeded them.
-At least 8 15ml bottles. Check. (Of the 8, all were 15ml, except for one which was 30ml)
-juice selection personally curated to my flavor profile specifications. Check. (One bottle represented one of my "yuck" categories, but more about that later.)
-Shipping box padded for product protection. Check. (Not just two pre-bagged bundles of bottles thrown in a box, leaving whatever may happen in transit to just happen. That kind of goes back into the curating process, but I digress.)
-Box of candy as a side item. Check. (And....it wasn't M&M's, which was a good thing, since they would've melted in the 80-degree temperatures we have here in Florida, much to the chagrin of most of the rest of the US. Yeah, I get it....Heart candies to fit the Valentine's Day theme since I placed the order in February, but still....it was a relief to see that the candy wasn't a bag of melted chocolate. I'm just gonna keep telling myself that the impressive CV staff took the unusual weather into consideration, and give credit where credit's due. Or maybe it isn't due, but I don't care....they get credit for it anyway, as far as I'm concerned.)
-Hand-written card from the curator. Check. (Not only does that clearly indicate that my shipment was assembled with personal attention to detail, specifically with me in mind, but what was written in the card strongly demonstrated the attention to detail even further. More on that later.)
Now, for some things CV did to go above and beyond (things that I either forgot they do or I just wasn't expecting of them as a requirement)...
-Reference cards for each bottle of juice. Very useful information to have when not one bottle in the lot has a generic, unimaginative name like "Watermelon" or "Lemon Meringue Pie." (One bottle didn't have its corresponding description card, more about that later.)
-All the juice was in glass bottles. (I didn't ask for that, because I don't expect that to be the case with every bottle of juice on the market, but I absolutely prefer glass over plastic. Just a quality thing, I guess. Kinda like how you never see sporks in five-star restaurants. Sure, you can accept that with fast food, but that's ok at fast food prices. Nothing "fast food" about Craft Vapery. They market the products they distribute as premium, and everything they sent me looks the part.)
-Two of the glass bottles came with flat caps instead of droppers. That's just how those particular bottles are made. So, CV sees the problem and says, "problem solved." Two plastic exchange bottles included as accessories. That's just good looking out. But then, I noticed that the exchange bottles have measurement lines, so you know how many ml's are in there. And then, upon further inspection, I see that the marcation lines don't go all the way around the bottle, so if you want to label the bottle to know what juice is in it, there's a place you can put the labeling without the grooves getting the way.
-As for the bottle that went against my flavor profile selections, I have to debunk the myth that CV somehow dropped the ball by doing so. Instead, I'm reporting this one as a happy accident. I have a fairly strong sensitivity to caffeine, and for that reason, I list coffee, tea and drinks in the "yuck" side of the list. In their excitement to shine the spotlight on a new juice they just got in, they included a Boba Tea juice in my shipment. After I cringed for a second because they sent me something I specifically said I didn't want, I decided to keep an open mind. Especially after I cracked that bottle open for the smell test, which I do with every bottle I vape before it goes in the tank. And wouldn't you know it? Out of the 8 bottles I got, this "Jazzy Boba" is gonna be in my "best of the box" when I post it, either 1st or 2nd. Doesn't change my mind about moving the tea category from "yuck" to "yum," because I can't open myself up that much to caffeine, but wow....that stuff is REALLY good. Probably 5 out of the 8 in this month's box are better than anything I've ever vaped before, probably 6 are easily all-day-vape level, and this "happy accident" ranks above all but maybe one of them. So, when I said to myself, "Oh crap! They tried to sneak tea in on me! This better be really good, otherwise they just went against me is all" I was beyond right to give them the benefit of the doubt. Gonna steal a line from Ferris Bueller now ans say, "if you have the means, I highly recommend it." Now, because the Jazzy Boba is so new, CV didn't have a card printed to accompany it. That was the one exclusion in the stack of reference cards. But that's ok, it was the one card I didn't need, cause I knew what it was when I saw "Boba" on the label. And it didn't stop the curator from explaining in the hand-written card that they didn't have a card for it because it's so new. (That was the "personal touch" I was talking about earlier in regards to the hand-written card. Sorry to disappoint those of you who may have been thinking I was offered sex or something like that. lol They offer some good personal care with what they do, but not that personal! At least not as far as I know.)
Only one complaint. And it's a minor one. With one of the bottles that didn't have a dropper, the opening is just slightly too narrow to fit a standard-size dropper through. And I don't have any skinny droppers. So, when I tried to fill a dropper out of it, it gushed out of the bottle a little. Way less than 1ml, to be honest. And it ended up pouring nicely into the exchange bottle, so it's all good.
On a scale of 1 to 100, I give CV a 99. This month. Who knows? If I don't spill juice on myself next time just being stupid, that score may change to 100. Either way, I can't wait to see what CV sends me next month. Baited breath and all that.
