Like many, I started my eCig voyage with disposable & rechargeable cigarette look-a-like eCigs.
I noticed early on that, with my frequency of use, I would deplete these things quickly; in two days or less, sometimes less than a day! With an average price-tag of $7.99 to $12.99 for the disposables, I was appalled by the thought of how much this new, healthier alternative was going to cost me in the long run. So I immediately switched over to something rechargeable, with screw on cartridges.
*Insert purchase of Blu starter kit here* I didn't do a whole lot of research--I just walked into my local gas station and bought this big black box labeled Blu. It cost me about $40 or so with tax. The rechargeable pack was slightly bigger than a normal pack of cigarettes, and was rather bulky for something I was trying to keep in my pocket all the time. It had storage room for 5 refills, and the two supplied batteries. The instructions came with a lot of warnings about overcharging of the eCig batteries, and the charging pack. To charge a battery, you had to screw it onto a spring loaded connector, which was a pain in the *** for my oddly fat fingers when the rest of the packs storage was filled. I used this kit for about two weeks, and overall seemed rather happy with it, at least in comparison to disposables. The batteries didn't hold *quite* as much of a charge, but, hey, it had this cool little charging pack I'd always have with me, and one would always be charging while the other is in use. The (roughly $15-16 with tax) 5pk refills seemed to last me quite a few days, so I could already start to see some sort of validation for my overall investment in the kit over the disposables. Then the time came when I inevitably lost one of the batteries. Wonderful. Whatever, I still have one. Yeah, that didn't go so well after the first few hours. It was a pain to constantly be pulling this big box in and out of my pocket, unscrewing the cartridge, screwing the battery, charging for 20 minutes or so, then unscrewing the battery, screwing the cartridge--so I wouldn't have to worry about having a dead battery and no quick resolution for my nic-fix. And of course I started to forget to recharge it, or would try to hold out as long as I could to keep from constantly fumbling with everything and screwing things on and off a million times.
At this point I kept ending up with a dead battery, and a heap of frustration. So, I went to a few stores that had the nice little acrylic Blu display case, asking if they sell just-the-battery. No one did. So I went online, and saw how much a replacement was from Blu's website, with shipping... Ugh. That's like half the price of a whole new kit. I'd be better off just buying a second kit if I was going to stick with these things. I was also getting frustrated about buying the 5pk refills, and the range of quality and consistency they had. I'll touch more on that subject in a little bit.
So, I finally broke down and went to a gas station on my way home from work, and asked for a starter kit. What the cashier handed me was a much smaller box, about twice the size of my charging pack. I looked for a second in confusion, and looked up to see the big black starter box that I bought the first time on the shelf. "Lady, I don't think this is the starter kit, it's that big black box over there" as she goes to get the one I pointed out, I take a closer look at what I had in my hands... it was indeed a starter kit. The contents list seemed to contain the exact same things the big black box did, except this one came with 5 menthol refills, as opposed to the small assortment of flavors the last one did. "Never-mind, this I guess is a starter kit too, the only difference seems to be it only has menthol, which is all I like anyway. This will be fine, sorry about that." Made my purchase and left. When I got home, I tore this thing open like a kid on Christmas, wondering how they fit everything into this little box. To my surprise, this one had a charging pack about half the size, with nice round corners (that was easy to slip into my pocket, and didn't jab my thy as I walked). It only holds 3 refills--whatever, no big deal. Oh, wait, another bonus. No threaded spring loaded charging port on the charging pack! Hurrah. It also uses a micro USB cord to charge as opposed to the big charge packs proprietary usb cord with barrell connector (that I misplaced a few times already, equaling more frustration for my Blu experience). Today is my lucky day.
I started using the new kit, and I was 'wowd' by how much better the taste and output seemed. Was I just so happy to have this easier to charge and less cumbersome charging pack that I subconsciously started to enjoy these more? Nope, there was a real reason why these seemed better--again I'll be touching on this tidbit shortly. That initial 5 pack seemed to last me almost twice as long as my previous refill packs. Strange! So I completely ditched the big cumbersome charge pack all together, and alternated my 3 remaining batteries with the new pack. Life is good. I go to pick up a new refill pack after these were depleted, hurried to rush one on to my battery to enjoy a nice fresh new refill. Ick. This tastes bunk in comparison to what I was just using...
So I get home and I take a close look at all of my Blu paraphernalia. I had been throwing all of my used cartridges into the big black retail box for whatever reason (later on was glad I did). I noticed something right away. Some refills had golden connectors, and a few had silver ones. I also noticed the same with my batteries. The new ones had silver threads, the one remaining original one (from the big black pack) had golden threads. I also noticed the refill boxes looked different. They were all black except for one. The one that came with my new starter kit. So it seemed the new starter had all silver connector everything, and the original starter kit, and all the refill packs I've purchased separately up until this point all had golden connectors. I think I'm onto something here...
From searching around on Blu's website, and a few other sources online, I came to the conclusion that black boxes/golden terminal Blu parts were old stock, and haven not been manufactured in at least 16 months to two years... The smaller starter kit, and any Blu products with a colored band around the top and over the lid are what's currently being produced and distributed. This makes sense... The old packs I was getting were hit or miss sometimes. I would get packs that tasted awful, had minimal output, and lasted half the time others did. I also remember getting ones with a brown liquid residue around the rubber caps on the ends of the refills. (Which I started to return after the first time I made that mistake) I noticed with returns, places would be really fussy and have a fit for trying to return them, even if I had just walked out to my car and back in, everything still sealed up. Having the receipt (which almost no gas stations will give you when making a cash transaction unless you specifically ask) helped a bit. I started to make a habit of opening the boxes there on the spot, which I could quickly assess whether the were leaky or not. So I had it all figured out now. Only buy refills at places where they have the newer style boxes, otherwise I'm buying something that's well over a year old, and depending how it was stored, and where it was located in the store (near a window or not) usually left me with a miserable experience. So the inconsistency in quality was because these things had been sitting around for possibly years, and the different environments had different affects (all of which were bad) on what I was going to get out of them.
Ok, I'm a guru at this whole Blu thing now. Finally consistent good tasting, longer lasting refills were here to stay. Wait. No. Because these items have no manufacture or expiration dates, the stock is never rotated, and they sit on shelves indefinately. Many places are hit or miss if there's regular customers who purchase them, and I was starting to find it was a very daunting task to try and find anywhere that had the new packs. I eventually had sourced out 3 stores in a 15 mile radius that had the new refills. Two were gas stations, and the third was a head shop (which charged an 80% markup over the average retail cost--no thank you). Between all of the searching, and the inconvenience of having to drive a town or two away every few days just to get fresher product, I was back to being really frustrated with this whole Blu thing. A few times even breaking down and buying old stock just because I could walk down the block for them, rather than drive 10 minutes.
Tinkering around one night, I found out that I could easily pop the top off of the refills with either a paperclip with a hook on the end, or by twisting a drywall screw slightly into the hole and pull to pop the end off. So, when they're all used up, it's just that wadding has gone dry. EUREKA! While searching online the one day, I saw a website that sold "eliquid" or "juice" or whichever you prefer to call it (apples to apples). Why can't I just buy this big bottle of liquid for the price of 1 refill pack, and just keep refilling my cartridges? I can! Good thing I was a bit of a hoarder, and had accumulated dozens of used up cartridges up until this point. So for a month or so, I went around refilling all of these little .......*** and saved myself a bunch of money, and headaches, and gas. It seemed that I could get 2 to 5 re-fillings out of a cartridge before it wasn't really usable anymore.
Andddd with that months worth of savings, I went and bought my first battery/tank setup--and I'm never going back. Better taste, more output, much longer battery life, stronger nicotine content, in about as many flavors as you could ever imagine... LIFE IS GRAND!
The reason why I'm sharing this long-winded story of my experience with Blu cigs (yes, there is 'good' reason), is because it took me (a self proclaimed 'smart fella') about 2 months, and more money than I care to admit, to realize/learn all of the aforementioned. I know a slew of people in my circle of friends, and my friends circles of friends, who either use the Blu system on a regular basis, or tried it, got really frustrated with their experience, and got turned off to the whole idea of eCigs, and went back to cigarettes. Not one of them that I talked to had figured any of this out. A few had noticed the different colored connectors, or different style boxes, but didn't make much of it. And none of them ever thought about the possibility of refilling their used cartridges.
Now that they are all educated in the matter, they can enjoy their Blu cigs finally (at least, enjoy them them the most you can enjoy a Blu eCig). A few friends eventually moved on up in the world to PV setups, but there's still a good many that just find them large and cumbersome. And the Blu setup is perfect for them, despite it's downfalls. (It's "good enough") They at least now can pick out fresh packs when they see them, or save & refill their used ones. And for those who gave up on the whole eCig concept after a few bad experiences, have since given the idea a second chance, and have stuck with it this time around. The more friends and people I run into that I can convert from analog to digital, or make their digital experience more enjoyable, the better!
I know this website has an extremely knowledgeable user base, but I know there has to be at least a few regular Blu users on here who may not be privvy to this info, or have friends who aren't members who use Blu eCigs who could benefit from this info. So I thought I would share.
My apologies for not making this info 'a bit more' concice in my posting. Sometimes I enjoy narration.
Attached I've included a picture of old product vs new product for reference.
The End.
-JD
I noticed early on that, with my frequency of use, I would deplete these things quickly; in two days or less, sometimes less than a day! With an average price-tag of $7.99 to $12.99 for the disposables, I was appalled by the thought of how much this new, healthier alternative was going to cost me in the long run. So I immediately switched over to something rechargeable, with screw on cartridges.
*Insert purchase of Blu starter kit here* I didn't do a whole lot of research--I just walked into my local gas station and bought this big black box labeled Blu. It cost me about $40 or so with tax. The rechargeable pack was slightly bigger than a normal pack of cigarettes, and was rather bulky for something I was trying to keep in my pocket all the time. It had storage room for 5 refills, and the two supplied batteries. The instructions came with a lot of warnings about overcharging of the eCig batteries, and the charging pack. To charge a battery, you had to screw it onto a spring loaded connector, which was a pain in the *** for my oddly fat fingers when the rest of the packs storage was filled. I used this kit for about two weeks, and overall seemed rather happy with it, at least in comparison to disposables. The batteries didn't hold *quite* as much of a charge, but, hey, it had this cool little charging pack I'd always have with me, and one would always be charging while the other is in use. The (roughly $15-16 with tax) 5pk refills seemed to last me quite a few days, so I could already start to see some sort of validation for my overall investment in the kit over the disposables. Then the time came when I inevitably lost one of the batteries. Wonderful. Whatever, I still have one. Yeah, that didn't go so well after the first few hours. It was a pain to constantly be pulling this big box in and out of my pocket, unscrewing the cartridge, screwing the battery, charging for 20 minutes or so, then unscrewing the battery, screwing the cartridge--so I wouldn't have to worry about having a dead battery and no quick resolution for my nic-fix. And of course I started to forget to recharge it, or would try to hold out as long as I could to keep from constantly fumbling with everything and screwing things on and off a million times.
At this point I kept ending up with a dead battery, and a heap of frustration. So, I went to a few stores that had the nice little acrylic Blu display case, asking if they sell just-the-battery. No one did. So I went online, and saw how much a replacement was from Blu's website, with shipping... Ugh. That's like half the price of a whole new kit. I'd be better off just buying a second kit if I was going to stick with these things. I was also getting frustrated about buying the 5pk refills, and the range of quality and consistency they had. I'll touch more on that subject in a little bit.
So, I finally broke down and went to a gas station on my way home from work, and asked for a starter kit. What the cashier handed me was a much smaller box, about twice the size of my charging pack. I looked for a second in confusion, and looked up to see the big black starter box that I bought the first time on the shelf. "Lady, I don't think this is the starter kit, it's that big black box over there" as she goes to get the one I pointed out, I take a closer look at what I had in my hands... it was indeed a starter kit. The contents list seemed to contain the exact same things the big black box did, except this one came with 5 menthol refills, as opposed to the small assortment of flavors the last one did. "Never-mind, this I guess is a starter kit too, the only difference seems to be it only has menthol, which is all I like anyway. This will be fine, sorry about that." Made my purchase and left. When I got home, I tore this thing open like a kid on Christmas, wondering how they fit everything into this little box. To my surprise, this one had a charging pack about half the size, with nice round corners (that was easy to slip into my pocket, and didn't jab my thy as I walked). It only holds 3 refills--whatever, no big deal. Oh, wait, another bonus. No threaded spring loaded charging port on the charging pack! Hurrah. It also uses a micro USB cord to charge as opposed to the big charge packs proprietary usb cord with barrell connector (that I misplaced a few times already, equaling more frustration for my Blu experience). Today is my lucky day.
I started using the new kit, and I was 'wowd' by how much better the taste and output seemed. Was I just so happy to have this easier to charge and less cumbersome charging pack that I subconsciously started to enjoy these more? Nope, there was a real reason why these seemed better--again I'll be touching on this tidbit shortly. That initial 5 pack seemed to last me almost twice as long as my previous refill packs. Strange! So I completely ditched the big cumbersome charge pack all together, and alternated my 3 remaining batteries with the new pack. Life is good. I go to pick up a new refill pack after these were depleted, hurried to rush one on to my battery to enjoy a nice fresh new refill. Ick. This tastes bunk in comparison to what I was just using...
So I get home and I take a close look at all of my Blu paraphernalia. I had been throwing all of my used cartridges into the big black retail box for whatever reason (later on was glad I did). I noticed something right away. Some refills had golden connectors, and a few had silver ones. I also noticed the same with my batteries. The new ones had silver threads, the one remaining original one (from the big black pack) had golden threads. I also noticed the refill boxes looked different. They were all black except for one. The one that came with my new starter kit. So it seemed the new starter had all silver connector everything, and the original starter kit, and all the refill packs I've purchased separately up until this point all had golden connectors. I think I'm onto something here...
From searching around on Blu's website, and a few other sources online, I came to the conclusion that black boxes/golden terminal Blu parts were old stock, and haven not been manufactured in at least 16 months to two years... The smaller starter kit, and any Blu products with a colored band around the top and over the lid are what's currently being produced and distributed. This makes sense... The old packs I was getting were hit or miss sometimes. I would get packs that tasted awful, had minimal output, and lasted half the time others did. I also remember getting ones with a brown liquid residue around the rubber caps on the ends of the refills. (Which I started to return after the first time I made that mistake) I noticed with returns, places would be really fussy and have a fit for trying to return them, even if I had just walked out to my car and back in, everything still sealed up. Having the receipt (which almost no gas stations will give you when making a cash transaction unless you specifically ask) helped a bit. I started to make a habit of opening the boxes there on the spot, which I could quickly assess whether the were leaky or not. So I had it all figured out now. Only buy refills at places where they have the newer style boxes, otherwise I'm buying something that's well over a year old, and depending how it was stored, and where it was located in the store (near a window or not) usually left me with a miserable experience. So the inconsistency in quality was because these things had been sitting around for possibly years, and the different environments had different affects (all of which were bad) on what I was going to get out of them.
Ok, I'm a guru at this whole Blu thing now. Finally consistent good tasting, longer lasting refills were here to stay. Wait. No. Because these items have no manufacture or expiration dates, the stock is never rotated, and they sit on shelves indefinately. Many places are hit or miss if there's regular customers who purchase them, and I was starting to find it was a very daunting task to try and find anywhere that had the new packs. I eventually had sourced out 3 stores in a 15 mile radius that had the new refills. Two were gas stations, and the third was a head shop (which charged an 80% markup over the average retail cost--no thank you). Between all of the searching, and the inconvenience of having to drive a town or two away every few days just to get fresher product, I was back to being really frustrated with this whole Blu thing. A few times even breaking down and buying old stock just because I could walk down the block for them, rather than drive 10 minutes.
Tinkering around one night, I found out that I could easily pop the top off of the refills with either a paperclip with a hook on the end, or by twisting a drywall screw slightly into the hole and pull to pop the end off. So, when they're all used up, it's just that wadding has gone dry. EUREKA! While searching online the one day, I saw a website that sold "eliquid" or "juice" or whichever you prefer to call it (apples to apples). Why can't I just buy this big bottle of liquid for the price of 1 refill pack, and just keep refilling my cartridges? I can! Good thing I was a bit of a hoarder, and had accumulated dozens of used up cartridges up until this point. So for a month or so, I went around refilling all of these little .......*** and saved myself a bunch of money, and headaches, and gas. It seemed that I could get 2 to 5 re-fillings out of a cartridge before it wasn't really usable anymore.
Andddd with that months worth of savings, I went and bought my first battery/tank setup--and I'm never going back. Better taste, more output, much longer battery life, stronger nicotine content, in about as many flavors as you could ever imagine... LIFE IS GRAND!
The reason why I'm sharing this long-winded story of my experience with Blu cigs (yes, there is 'good' reason), is because it took me (a self proclaimed 'smart fella') about 2 months, and more money than I care to admit, to realize/learn all of the aforementioned. I know a slew of people in my circle of friends, and my friends circles of friends, who either use the Blu system on a regular basis, or tried it, got really frustrated with their experience, and got turned off to the whole idea of eCigs, and went back to cigarettes. Not one of them that I talked to had figured any of this out. A few had noticed the different colored connectors, or different style boxes, but didn't make much of it. And none of them ever thought about the possibility of refilling their used cartridges.
Now that they are all educated in the matter, they can enjoy their Blu cigs finally (at least, enjoy them them the most you can enjoy a Blu eCig). A few friends eventually moved on up in the world to PV setups, but there's still a good many that just find them large and cumbersome. And the Blu setup is perfect for them, despite it's downfalls. (It's "good enough") They at least now can pick out fresh packs when they see them, or save & refill their used ones. And for those who gave up on the whole eCig concept after a few bad experiences, have since given the idea a second chance, and have stuck with it this time around. The more friends and people I run into that I can convert from analog to digital, or make their digital experience more enjoyable, the better!
I know this website has an extremely knowledgeable user base, but I know there has to be at least a few regular Blu users on here who may not be privvy to this info, or have friends who aren't members who use Blu eCigs who could benefit from this info. So I thought I would share.
My apologies for not making this info 'a bit more' concice in my posting. Sometimes I enjoy narration.
Attached I've included a picture of old product vs new product for reference.
The End.
-JD
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