Spicing Things Up

An innovative mouthpiece enables consumers to enjoy flavor, even from flavorless liquids.

By Timothy S. Donahue

It’s a big question mark for vapor businesses: Will the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ban all flavors except tobacco, menthol and mint? The answer could kill a life-saving industry that many say needs flavors to help keep former smokers from going back to combustible cigarettes. During Vapor Fair, which was held in Miami Beach, Florida, USA, from March 6-7, JuiceeTips unveiled a product that will allow vapers to continue enjoying flavor, even if e-liquids become flavorless.

JuiceeTips, the name of both the company and the product, are a new patent-pending flavored mouthpiece cap for vaporizers, cigalikes, cannabis devices and hookah products. The new technology uses the science of smell and taste to impact how a vaper accesses their flavor without the addition of any liquid flavorings in the e-liquid, according to Steven Landau, the owner and founder of JuiceeTips.

The mouthpiece tips are made by using injection molding with a proprietary blend of FDA-approved, food-grade flavor ingredients infused into plastics that fit most mouthpieces for vapor products, according to Landau. “The flavors are made with our trade-secret formulation guidelines, which make them compatible with plastics,” he says. “The manufacturer also uses our trade-secret methods for making aromatic and flavored parts. This is a process that took us many years to develop. There are no other products on the market that are made like or work like JuiceeTips.”

The flavored tips work on vapor (and cannabis) devices with both 510 and 810 threading, as well as most cigalike products. They also work with hookah and cannabis joints. The cigalike, 510 and 810 tips all share the same mold and have metal fitments that make them fit each specific application, according to Landau.

JuiceeTips amplify the total taste experience. It doesn’t matter what product you prefer; the flavor experience is immediately improved, according to Landau. “Also, changing flavors is as simple as changing the tip. There is no need to carry multiple tanks with various flavored e-liquids,” he says. “Consumers can also make any flavor taste mentholated with our menthol ice tip.”

For cigalikes and vaporizers, JuiceeTips currently offers dessert enhancer (a strawberry cream flavor made to complement most sweet dessert flavors), fruit enhancer (a fruity/sweet flavor designed to complement fruit flavors), menthol ice (which makes any flavor taste mentholated) and tobacco (which offers a tobacco-like taste), according to Landau. “We also have a wide variety of hookah flavors such as double apple, fruit punch, orange, lemon, spearmint, chai, wintergreen, menthol, mint and others for hookah,” he says. “We will continue to release new flavors on a regular basis.”

The JuiceeTips story began in 1996 while Landau was on a ski trip. “After a few runs, I was very thirsty and had dried lips. So, I got off the slopes and bought some cherry lip balm and a bottle of plain water,” he says. “After applying the cherry Chapstick and drinking the water, I had the impression it tasted like cherry. I knew immediately the cherry taste [of the water] came from the aroma of the balm.”

That is how the idea for making flavored plastics to change the perception of taste was born. Fast forward a few years and Landau founded a company called ScentSational Technologies (SC), which is the leading developer of scented products and packaging for the food, beverage, pharmaceutical and consumer products industries.

SC developed methodologies for adding FDA-approved, food-grade flavors directly into plastics that are designed to make products smell and taste better. The focus of the company’s products and technologies was to enhance and improve the aroma, taste, consumer perception and shelf life of foods, beverages, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and consumer products by adding aroma into the product and/or packaging.

“During consumer testing we learned that while most people think things like beverages taste better with added aroma—olfaction—there is a segment of society that can’t pick up improved taste without gustation—the sense of taste,” says Landau. “So we researched, developed and patented drinking devices that add both aroma and sweetness during consumption.”

The product wasn’t ready for vapor industry just yet. The patented method for those types of products involved using a confection material that was not only hard to manufacture but also made it usable only one time and was sloppy to use. Landau headed back to the drawing board.

“I started working with customers to improve their product taste, and we developed a technology to add sweet aroma and taste into mouthguards and other consumer products. With this technology we then started to supply several major brands,” he says. “That’s when a customer came to us asking for aromatic hookah tips, and the lightbulb went off. I came up with the idea of adding sweetness to the tip, and the result was astounding.”

When most people think of as taste, it is a result of their sense of smell. The tongue can only taste five things: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (corresponding to the flavor of glutamates). It is estimated that approximately 80 percent to 90 percent of taste is from the sense of smell. “That’s why if you blindfold a person and plug their nose, they can’t tell the difference between water and wine or an apple and an onion,” says Landau. “But let go of the nose and they know what it is immediately. Humans are built for receiving smell and taste together.”

It’s true. The tongue and mouth have receptors specifically for tasting characteristics such as sweet and salty. The nose and olfactory bulb work together to feed aroma signals directly into the brain. When you combine the sense of taste with the sense of smell, something magical happens: Taste and smell work together to deliver a well-rounded flavor profile.

“That’s why people pour so much salt and sugar on their food. The taste is amplified. Foods without salt and/or sugar are often considered bland or tasteless, and that’s the secret behind JuiceeTips,” says Landau. “You see, vapor, hookah and cannabis rely 100 percent on aroma. Yes, the aromatic taste experience is there, but it is not the full spectrum of taste. But when you add sweetness, the combined effect connects all of the dots and significantly strengthens the total taste experience.”

There is also a strong health benefit to using JuiceeTips. E-liquids and other vapor flavor-delivery systems are inhaled directly into the lungs. Although the flavors used are safe for ingestion, they have not been validated as safe for inhalation by the FDA. An example of this is when workers in a popcorn plant developed a condition called popcorn lung, which comes from inhaling diacetyl, a flavor ingredient proven safe for ingestion but that causes cancer when inhaled. Most e-liquid companies no longer use diacetyl in their products.

“[Some] of the concerns in the vape industry are the unknown hazards of inhaling flavors intended for ingestion that are instead combined with a system to carry those ingredients directly into the lungs,” says Landau. “When people vape, they basically atomize those flavors directly into their lungs.”

Since the flavor in JuiceeTips is contained, bound up inside the plastic, it delivers the same kind of taste experience without sending those flavors into the lungs. “You can even vape propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin with JuiceeTips, and the taste experience is still incredible,” he says. “We are very focused on offering a safe flavor experience to consumers and believe that JuiceeTips offers the best solution in the industry.”

Vapor Fair was the first trade show for JuiceeTips, according to Landau, who added that everyone who tried the product at the event was “blown away” by the difference in taste. “We are in the process of understanding how to best bring JuiceeTips to the market and are very interested in speaking with companies who can help us,” he says. “We are also seeking distributors to work with.”

The suggested retail price for a tin of three 510 or 810 vape tips is $15.99, and Landau says each tip is designed to last approximately one month. “The wholesale price is 50 percent off retail. We believe JuiceeTips offer retailers a great add-on product to help increase per-visit sales in their shops,” he says. “JuiceeTips not only deliver a significant taste enhancement to customers, it offers the opportunity for higher profit margins to retailers.”

Landau said JuiceeTips is focused on delivering a great consumer experience that will fall within the FDA’s regulatory guidelines. JuiceeTips offers many flavors that currently mirror and complement many e-liquids flavors on the market and enhances the flavor experience; however, if the FDA were to ban flavors in e-liquids, JuiceeTips could “fill the gap and deliver a great taste experience” from just the JuiceeTip itself without adding any harmful ingredients.

“If the FDA outlaw flavors, we see JuiceeTips as the leading platform for delivering a safe and effective flavor system for consumers who now have the capability to buy unflavored and nicotine-free products and still have the ability to get a great flavor experience,” he said. “If flavor regulation isn’t as strict as predicted, then JuiceeTips will continue to offer additional flavor stock-keeping units (SKUs), shapes and sizes to fit a large variety of vapor, cigalike and hookah applications. Additionally, if you want to develop custom flavor SKUs for your company, we welcome the opportunity to help you improve your customers’ vaping experience.”