One on One (OOO) - Concentrate Reviews
- Thread starter Patrick
- Start date
Thanks to @Richio for the flavours for these reviews.
OOO Coconut Milk
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @.22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Coconut Milk@ 4%, 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 16 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: Dry, desiccated coconut off the bat, like the stuff I would use to make Crunchies. No evidence of the coconut ‘milk’ though.
Flavor Description: A pleasant coconut. Wetter than the SNV but still a relatively dry coconut. Not particularly strong—I would say 4-6% as a dominant note or 1-3% as a filler for other coconuts or a backdrop. A touch synthetic perhaps but no suntan lotion and a nice depth; that would be the milk part of it. But it doesn’t leap out as coconut milk, but rather coconut hitched to a subtle milkiness. More prominent than FA’s version—which for me is more a coconut texture than a real flavour—but not as invasive as TPA’s normal version. Not to mention the evil that is Extra.
Throat Hit: 0/10.
Uses: Intuitively I don’t think it is a bakery coconut unless you keep it under 0,5%. It does put its hand up for the cocktail side of the coconut spectrum. Try subbing it in any of your pina colada mixes and I think it will do a good job; it reminds me of Coco Rico liqueur or Malibu a bit. I think it could work well with TFA Malted Milk to goad the milk out of it. Maybe FW Sweet Cream to create a more rounded composite coconut. As easily, go with Polar Blast or Koolada for a Zanzibar morning swim.
Overall: Well worth giving it a bash in a tropical vape. Not a coconut killer by any means but has any number of uses in the general proximity of palm trees and the ‘milk’ part does add another interesting layer of texture to the flavour. I think that with a bit of something else it could offer a welcome relief from those overwrought recipes that just taste muddled rather than layered (I’ve made lots of those).
OOO Coconut Milk
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @.22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Coconut Milk@ 4%, 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 16 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: Dry, desiccated coconut off the bat, like the stuff I would use to make Crunchies. No evidence of the coconut ‘milk’ though.
Flavor Description: A pleasant coconut. Wetter than the SNV but still a relatively dry coconut. Not particularly strong—I would say 4-6% as a dominant note or 1-3% as a filler for other coconuts or a backdrop. A touch synthetic perhaps but no suntan lotion and a nice depth; that would be the milk part of it. But it doesn’t leap out as coconut milk, but rather coconut hitched to a subtle milkiness. More prominent than FA’s version—which for me is more a coconut texture than a real flavour—but not as invasive as TPA’s normal version. Not to mention the evil that is Extra.
Throat Hit: 0/10.
Uses: Intuitively I don’t think it is a bakery coconut unless you keep it under 0,5%. It does put its hand up for the cocktail side of the coconut spectrum. Try subbing it in any of your pina colada mixes and I think it will do a good job; it reminds me of Coco Rico liqueur or Malibu a bit. I think it could work well with TFA Malted Milk to goad the milk out of it. Maybe FW Sweet Cream to create a more rounded composite coconut. As easily, go with Polar Blast or Koolada for a Zanzibar morning swim.
Overall: Well worth giving it a bash in a tropical vape. Not a coconut killer by any means but has any number of uses in the general proximity of palm trees and the ‘milk’ part does add another interesting layer of texture to the flavour. I think that with a bit of something else it could offer a welcome relief from those overwrought recipes that just taste muddled rather than layered (I’ve made lots of those).
OOO Blueberry (Juicy)
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Blueberry (Juicy) @ 3%, 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 14 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: The strongest of all the flavours that I’ve tested from OOO. Not only that but it doesn’t want to leave the train station. It will hang around through all the farewells, final, final farewells and I swear it even lingers as a palpable taste on the lips.
Flavor Description: I think that many of the OOO flavours head straight to the sweet section of the traditional corner shop/cafe. This is a Skittles berry flavour, or maybe those artificial tasting hard boiled sweets. Incredibly evocative of youth but difficult to pin down to one flavour. It calms down nicely after 2 weeks but it’s still a candy rather than an authentic blueberry. A little dry on mouthfeel and may need something to moisten it up again.
Throat Hit: 3/10. Some kick at the back of the throat but nothing too harsh.
Uses: If you go ‘kid in a candy store’ with this one, I think a lot of fun could be had. It shouts out to become the basis for a bubblegum, a skittle or maybe a sour sweet. It’s decidedly evocative of childhood and that is its final charm. I would reckon that 2-4% is the sweet spot after a steep.
That said, I'm tempted to add it, at smaller percentages (0,5-0,8%) to the other Blueberry combinations like TFA’s Extra and Wild just to see what would happen. It might confuse the hell out of them but it could well bring that something extra that so many Blueberries seem to lack for me.
Overall: Definitely has potential in certain candy vapes. I actually went off and bought Skittles to see if I could replicate it. It’s close to their overall flavour profiles but I couldn’t find their Blueberry version.
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Blueberry (Juicy) @ 3%, 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 14 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: The strongest of all the flavours that I’ve tested from OOO. Not only that but it doesn’t want to leave the train station. It will hang around through all the farewells, final, final farewells and I swear it even lingers as a palpable taste on the lips.
Flavor Description: I think that many of the OOO flavours head straight to the sweet section of the traditional corner shop/cafe. This is a Skittles berry flavour, or maybe those artificial tasting hard boiled sweets. Incredibly evocative of youth but difficult to pin down to one flavour. It calms down nicely after 2 weeks but it’s still a candy rather than an authentic blueberry. A little dry on mouthfeel and may need something to moisten it up again.
Throat Hit: 3/10. Some kick at the back of the throat but nothing too harsh.
Uses: If you go ‘kid in a candy store’ with this one, I think a lot of fun could be had. It shouts out to become the basis for a bubblegum, a skittle or maybe a sour sweet. It’s decidedly evocative of childhood and that is its final charm. I would reckon that 2-4% is the sweet spot after a steep.
That said, I'm tempted to add it, at smaller percentages (0,5-0,8%) to the other Blueberry combinations like TFA’s Extra and Wild just to see what would happen. It might confuse the hell out of them but it could well bring that something extra that so many Blueberries seem to lack for me.
Overall: Definitely has potential in certain candy vapes. I actually went off and bought Skittles to see if I could replicate it. It’s close to their overall flavour profiles but I couldn’t find their Blueberry version.
OOO Carrot Cake
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Carrot Cake @ 3%, 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 16 days. I suspect that it would benefit from a longer steep. Say a month. I’ll report back after that period just to confirm my suspicions.
Initial SNV thoughts: Doughy with a sour exhale. No real signs of carrot, but definite cakiness.
Flavour Description: After 2 weeks, the cake has come more to the fore. And it’s not a bad cake. There’s something else going on here and that must be the carrot. But it’s not instantly discernible as such. Unlike the RF version there’s less of the spices—no nutmeg, cinnamon etc. going on. The sour note is still there but has receded somewhat. Not as bad as rotten feet, but slightly off-putting all the same. I guess OOO went for the cream cheese icing part of the cake and that’s what it’s giving off.
Throat Hit: 1/10. Even as single flavours these are generally very smooth and develop clouds for days. A little bit like coconut.
Uses: A good carrot cake should be a fascinating vape, but I’ve had no luck with either of these versions. I guess in the interests of science you could build around this. Add (LO) CCI to disguise the sourness and bring out the creaminess, Pound or Yellow cake to flesh out the sponge, pecan or hazelnut for more nutty texture and then maybe (TFA) Holiday Spice and (CAP) Gingerbread. In essence though, you can go at 2-4% and then layer the cake around that, hoping that with a substantial steep, the carrot might burrow its way to the light of day.
Overall: It has limited potential but I personally think it requires too much work to coax it to where you would want it.
Recipe:
That said, I’ve mixed the following and will give it a month:
Carrot Cake
1% Butter Pecan (FW)
1.5% Cake Batter Dip (FW)
3.2% Carrot Cake (OOO)
1.3% Cream Cheese Icing (LA)
1% Holiday Spice (TPA)
0.9% Nonna's Cake (FA)
3% Pound Cake (Flavorah)
0.9% Whipped Cream (TPA)
Flavor total: 12.8%
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Carrot Cake @ 3%, 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 16 days. I suspect that it would benefit from a longer steep. Say a month. I’ll report back after that period just to confirm my suspicions.
Initial SNV thoughts: Doughy with a sour exhale. No real signs of carrot, but definite cakiness.
Flavour Description: After 2 weeks, the cake has come more to the fore. And it’s not a bad cake. There’s something else going on here and that must be the carrot. But it’s not instantly discernible as such. Unlike the RF version there’s less of the spices—no nutmeg, cinnamon etc. going on. The sour note is still there but has receded somewhat. Not as bad as rotten feet, but slightly off-putting all the same. I guess OOO went for the cream cheese icing part of the cake and that’s what it’s giving off.
Throat Hit: 1/10. Even as single flavours these are generally very smooth and develop clouds for days. A little bit like coconut.
Uses: A good carrot cake should be a fascinating vape, but I’ve had no luck with either of these versions. I guess in the interests of science you could build around this. Add (LO) CCI to disguise the sourness and bring out the creaminess, Pound or Yellow cake to flesh out the sponge, pecan or hazelnut for more nutty texture and then maybe (TFA) Holiday Spice and (CAP) Gingerbread. In essence though, you can go at 2-4% and then layer the cake around that, hoping that with a substantial steep, the carrot might burrow its way to the light of day.
Overall: It has limited potential but I personally think it requires too much work to coax it to where you would want it.
Recipe:
That said, I’ve mixed the following and will give it a month:
Carrot Cake
1% Butter Pecan (FW)
1.5% Cake Batter Dip (FW)
3.2% Carrot Cake (OOO)
1.3% Cream Cheese Icing (LA)
1% Holiday Spice (TPA)
0.9% Nonna's Cake (FA)
3% Pound Cake (Flavorah)
0.9% Whipped Cream (TPA)
Flavor total: 12.8%
OOO Strawberry Milk
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Strawberry Milk @ 5%; 6%; 7%; 8% 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 18 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: Initial taste at 5% is reminiscent of sweet allure of plain VG. Nada.
Flavour Description: It could well be that I’m strawberry deaf on this one. It’s not that I don’t find daily happiness from Shisha Strawberry and that I often cuddle up to Strawberry Ripe and menage with both (often). But this one has me strawberry steri-stumped. By day 14, still nothing much apart from a milky exhale. Upped to 6, overnight steep, then 7 etc. Finally at 8% there’s a little something but even then it’s just a whisper and not a particularly alluring one. I know where it wants to go and that’s towards the artificial Nesquick flavour, but it doesn’t get there.
Throat Hit: 0/10.
Uses: Sure, you can try and use this at high percentages to get towards Nesquick but you would still need to fill in a lot of the blanks. Other strawberries, creams, malted milk would all assist, but then I’m not sure why anyone would bother when other concentrates (especially strawberry orientated) do such a good job.
Overall: Damn expensive as a concentrate. And a thin flavour, overall. 8-14% would start getting you somewhere. I might return to this sometime, chuck in 14% and build around it. But not any time soon.
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Strawberry Milk @ 5%; 6%; 7%; 8% 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 18 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: Initial taste at 5% is reminiscent of sweet allure of plain VG. Nada.
Flavour Description: It could well be that I’m strawberry deaf on this one. It’s not that I don’t find daily happiness from Shisha Strawberry and that I often cuddle up to Strawberry Ripe and menage with both (often). But this one has me strawberry steri-stumped. By day 14, still nothing much apart from a milky exhale. Upped to 6, overnight steep, then 7 etc. Finally at 8% there’s a little something but even then it’s just a whisper and not a particularly alluring one. I know where it wants to go and that’s towards the artificial Nesquick flavour, but it doesn’t get there.
Throat Hit: 0/10.
Uses: Sure, you can try and use this at high percentages to get towards Nesquick but you would still need to fill in a lot of the blanks. Other strawberries, creams, malted milk would all assist, but then I’m not sure why anyone would bother when other concentrates (especially strawberry orientated) do such a good job.
Overall: Damn expensive as a concentrate. And a thin flavour, overall. 8-14% would start getting you somewhere. I might return to this sometime, chuck in 14% and build around it. But not any time soon.
OOO Bavarian Cream
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Bavarian Cream @ 3%; 4% 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 18 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: Nondescript cream. Taste test suggests strands of authentic vanilla.
Flavour Description: Steeping does something interesting to this, because under the cream is a rich, dark caramel, maybe almost a maple flavour. There’s no custard notes that I can pick up, just a medium cream, followed by an interesting caramel and then vanilla. Not sweet like FW’s version. Needs 2 weeks to wake up, maybe more.
Throat Hit: 1/10.
Uses: At 3-5% I think it would be great with dark tobaccos because it wouldn’t confuse the mix but rather blend deeper in. For me, I find so often that creams in tobaccos create a muddled mix as if the cream is there as a compromise for those who dislike overly tobacco notes. Smooth famous tobacco is an example of a recipe that is interesting and complex and intended for those who cannot stand tobacco. Here though, RY4 type recipes, FLV Red Burley, Gold Ducat, AM4A etc. could work well. Obviously it will work in bakeries and desserts, especially where you would like a caramel/vanilla note.
Overall: My immediate thought is that I’d like to play with it in a creme brûlée recipe. I can see it working well with the two hander of INW creme brûlée and custard and giving additional depth to the burnt sugar of the INW brûlée. And then tobaccos. Its specialist appeal makes it a useful addition to the bavarian cream quiver.
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Bavarian Cream @ 3%; 4% 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 18 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: Nondescript cream. Taste test suggests strands of authentic vanilla.
Flavour Description: Steeping does something interesting to this, because under the cream is a rich, dark caramel, maybe almost a maple flavour. There’s no custard notes that I can pick up, just a medium cream, followed by an interesting caramel and then vanilla. Not sweet like FW’s version. Needs 2 weeks to wake up, maybe more.
Throat Hit: 1/10.
Uses: At 3-5% I think it would be great with dark tobaccos because it wouldn’t confuse the mix but rather blend deeper in. For me, I find so often that creams in tobaccos create a muddled mix as if the cream is there as a compromise for those who dislike overly tobacco notes. Smooth famous tobacco is an example of a recipe that is interesting and complex and intended for those who cannot stand tobacco. Here though, RY4 type recipes, FLV Red Burley, Gold Ducat, AM4A etc. could work well. Obviously it will work in bakeries and desserts, especially where you would like a caramel/vanilla note.
Overall: My immediate thought is that I’d like to play with it in a creme brûlée recipe. I can see it working well with the two hander of INW creme brûlée and custard and giving additional depth to the burnt sugar of the INW brûlée. And then tobaccos. Its specialist appeal makes it a useful addition to the bavarian cream quiver.
Let me know how this goes @Patrick - I've been playing with Carrot Cake for months and still no joy...
I used the RF version - I have brought the RF Carrot Cake down to 0.3% in on this recipe - still too overpowering.
What about a touch of RF Carrot Cake in your recipe to bring the spicy notes from the RF Carrot Cake? Perhaps 0.1%?
I reckon that would work well. And I'm with you on the ultra low percentages for the RF version. My last attempt to use it was at 3.1% and it was ghastly.
OOO Cheesecake
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Cheesecake @ 4%, 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 14 days. I suspect that it would benefit from a longer steep. Say a month. I’ll report back after that period just to confirm my suspicions.
Initial SNV thoughts: Nothing much going on upfront. Getting cream cheese, maybe a bit of mascarpone. Slight sour effect and a cream supporting it.
Flavour Description: Much more balanced after 2 weeks of steeping. The cheese has largely dropped into the background mise-en-scene. It’s there but not as prevalent as the cream cheese in the Carrot Cake. There’s a juicy cream flavour up front, with the cream cheese hint and a general sweetness on the exhale. I think people will either find it intriguing or off-putting. There’s no granular texture to this one, unlike the TFA Cheesecake Grahamcrust and I don’t think it has the big personality of the CAP New York, but I think it will be best as a supporting actor.
Throat Hit: 0/10. Nothing noticeable.
Uses: I don’t see any use for it as a stand alone or even as the backbone of a mix. It’s too narrow in what it can do and not a particularly strong flavour. But that said, I think it will work very well with other Cheesecakes, maybe 1-3% addition for any existing Cheesecake recipes. I also think that it has a sweet cream element that might be interesting for anywhere one might use Sweet Cream (FW in particular) in a mix.
Overall: I can see this one as having lots of uses. While it’s not a must-have Cheesecake, it has nuances that would possibly enhance recipes that have nothing to do with cheesecakes. I’m thinking of the way that some use a marshmallow to add sweetness and texture to a recipe where, otherwise, marshmallow would never belong. I’m thinking 1,5% to Krispy Kreme or Fruit Loops kinds of recipe might add that ineffable something.
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Cheesecake @ 4%, 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 14 days. I suspect that it would benefit from a longer steep. Say a month. I’ll report back after that period just to confirm my suspicions.
Initial SNV thoughts: Nothing much going on upfront. Getting cream cheese, maybe a bit of mascarpone. Slight sour effect and a cream supporting it.
Flavour Description: Much more balanced after 2 weeks of steeping. The cheese has largely dropped into the background mise-en-scene. It’s there but not as prevalent as the cream cheese in the Carrot Cake. There’s a juicy cream flavour up front, with the cream cheese hint and a general sweetness on the exhale. I think people will either find it intriguing or off-putting. There’s no granular texture to this one, unlike the TFA Cheesecake Grahamcrust and I don’t think it has the big personality of the CAP New York, but I think it will be best as a supporting actor.
Throat Hit: 0/10. Nothing noticeable.
Uses: I don’t see any use for it as a stand alone or even as the backbone of a mix. It’s too narrow in what it can do and not a particularly strong flavour. But that said, I think it will work very well with other Cheesecakes, maybe 1-3% addition for any existing Cheesecake recipes. I also think that it has a sweet cream element that might be interesting for anywhere one might use Sweet Cream (FW in particular) in a mix.
Overall: I can see this one as having lots of uses. While it’s not a must-have Cheesecake, it has nuances that would possibly enhance recipes that have nothing to do with cheesecakes. I’m thinking of the way that some use a marshmallow to add sweetness and texture to a recipe where, otherwise, marshmallow would never belong. I’m thinking 1,5% to Krispy Kreme or Fruit Loops kinds of recipe might add that ineffable something.
I'm a bit late to the OOO party but I've now got most of the flavours to the point where I doubt they'll improve further so my reviews will commence anon. Before I start, just a few general observations.
First up, big thanks to @Richio for providing the OOO flavours for review. OOO have an interesting and varied range of dairies and bakeries so I focused mainly on those. The ten flavours I chose for review are:
Cream (Milky Undertone)
Milk Shake Vanilla
Vanilla Cupcake
Powdered Sugar
Milk Tea
Vanilla Custard
Cake Batter
Pop Pastry
Rice Milk
Vanilla Frosting
The concentrates arrived in 10ml PET bottles with child-proof caps. I understand the need for the industry to show responsibility towards safety but, man, I loathe child-proof caps. These are much the same as others, i.e. I need to take pliers to about half the bottles just to get them open initially. I'm also not a huge fan of PET as it is much stiffer than HDPE and harder to squeeze. The upside is that the needle nozzles make very small drops which helps with small precise measurements. The bottles came with the swish new Blck branding. Although the new labels are slightly smaller than the old, the print is a bit larger which is a bonus for my rubbish eyesight.
Concentrate colour: most of the concentrates are either clear or the slightest tinge of yellow. Only the Vanilla Custard has a medium amber hue. So these concentrates should be light on your coils. The Rice Milk and Milk Tea are both slightly cloudy, the other flavours are transparent.
Flavour potency: OOO flavours are not Inw or Flv, don't expect to get prominent flavour from 1-2%. I wouldn't even give an average flavour as the concentrates vary widely in potency. I notice that @Patrick has experienced the same thing so I'm relieved it's not just me. You really need to experiment a lot with these to find your sweet spot.
Steeping: if you only take one thing from my reviews, let it be this: do not Shake-n-Vape these flavours! Give them a minimum of two weeks, and even that might be too little. There are some really gnarly off-notes straight off the rip which happily abate over time.
Methodology: there is little by way of flavour notes and recommended percentages for OOO, being that it's such a new brand. So I played it conservative and started all my testing at 1%. As will become apparent in my reviews, I tested over quite a range of percentages. Mixing up a tester for each percentage and flavour would have required somewhere around 50-60 bottles. Instead, I did my "all in one bottle" method of drawing off samples in precise increments of 1ml and then adding more concentrate to the remaining liquid in the bottle to boost to the next percentage level. While this is very efficient, it also means that the mix never steeps completely as I'm adding fresh concentrate regularly. It is seed steeping of a sort and the already-steeped liquid does help the fresh concentrate to homogenize quicker. But it's not the same as an extended steep. I will however be keeping the samples and re-testing later. If any major changes occur, I'll come back and edit my reviews accordingly.
Throat hit: I don't get TH from anything so giving it a rating would be pointless. As ever, YMMV.
First up, big thanks to @Richio for providing the OOO flavours for review. OOO have an interesting and varied range of dairies and bakeries so I focused mainly on those. The ten flavours I chose for review are:
Cream (Milky Undertone)
Milk Shake Vanilla
Vanilla Cupcake
Powdered Sugar
Milk Tea
Vanilla Custard
Cake Batter
Pop Pastry
Rice Milk
Vanilla Frosting
The concentrates arrived in 10ml PET bottles with child-proof caps. I understand the need for the industry to show responsibility towards safety but, man, I loathe child-proof caps. These are much the same as others, i.e. I need to take pliers to about half the bottles just to get them open initially. I'm also not a huge fan of PET as it is much stiffer than HDPE and harder to squeeze. The upside is that the needle nozzles make very small drops which helps with small precise measurements. The bottles came with the swish new Blck branding. Although the new labels are slightly smaller than the old, the print is a bit larger which is a bonus for my rubbish eyesight.
Concentrate colour: most of the concentrates are either clear or the slightest tinge of yellow. Only the Vanilla Custard has a medium amber hue. So these concentrates should be light on your coils. The Rice Milk and Milk Tea are both slightly cloudy, the other flavours are transparent.
Flavour potency: OOO flavours are not Inw or Flv, don't expect to get prominent flavour from 1-2%. I wouldn't even give an average flavour as the concentrates vary widely in potency. I notice that @Patrick has experienced the same thing so I'm relieved it's not just me. You really need to experiment a lot with these to find your sweet spot.
Steeping: if you only take one thing from my reviews, let it be this: do not Shake-n-Vape these flavours! Give them a minimum of two weeks, and even that might be too little. There are some really gnarly off-notes straight off the rip which happily abate over time.
Methodology: there is little by way of flavour notes and recommended percentages for OOO, being that it's such a new brand. So I played it conservative and started all my testing at 1%. As will become apparent in my reviews, I tested over quite a range of percentages. Mixing up a tester for each percentage and flavour would have required somewhere around 50-60 bottles. Instead, I did my "all in one bottle" method of drawing off samples in precise increments of 1ml and then adding more concentrate to the remaining liquid in the bottle to boost to the next percentage level. While this is very efficient, it also means that the mix never steeps completely as I'm adding fresh concentrate regularly. It is seed steeping of a sort and the already-steeped liquid does help the fresh concentrate to homogenize quicker. But it's not the same as an extended steep. I will however be keeping the samples and re-testing later. If any major changes occur, I'll come back and edit my reviews accordingly.
Throat hit: I don't get TH from anything so giving it a rating would be pointless. As ever, YMMV.
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OOO Milk Tea
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3 and 4%
Notes: this is one of the more potent and stable flavours of those I tested. The whipped cream test delivered a quite sharp, strong tea flavour with a pronounced spice note that doesn't translate fully into the vape. It is a chameleon flavour that changes character depending on percentage used. At 1% and 2%, I got a discernible moderately strong black tea with just a drop of milk and very light sweetening. At 3%, the 'milk' aspect suddenly becomes apparent, blooming into a creamy full-milk note that actually suppresses the tea somewhat. It reminds me of the little plastic milk/creamer tubs that you get in hotel rooms. At the same time, the level of sweetness increases although it never registers as more than light sweetening. The spice note from the cream test either steeped out or doesn't translate to the vapour but it is still there faintly in the background. It's a base note as I picked it up more in the Recoil than either the Hadaly or Velocity. I cannot hazard a guess as to what spice it is, it's not prominent enough. Suffice it to say, the result is slightly more exotic than plain Ceylon tea but not a chai. It is close enough to plain tea that I will accept it as such. At 3-4%, it gives me a full-bodied flavour. This is also one of the shorter steepers, 4-5 days should be adequate as the flavour didn't change much after that.
Application: tea isn't the most versatile profile. This one already has that faint spice note so you could possibly bend it towards a chai. With milk and sugar already added, the most you could do is tweak these elements slightly although I can't see anybody wanting to add more milk. The other option is to add fruit for a bubble tea. Interestingly, the graphic used to illustrate the flavour on the OOO website is of a boba tea so that application is perhaps what OOO had in mind.
Conclusion: I'm not ordinarily a fan of standalone flavours but I found this one surprisingly satisfying and soothing, giving almost a camomile effect. I'll give a boba tea a try but I'm inclined to use this as a one-shot. Sometimes you want a subtle and undemanding flavour to give your palate a rest and OOO Milk Tea ticks that box for me.
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3 and 4%
Notes: this is one of the more potent and stable flavours of those I tested. The whipped cream test delivered a quite sharp, strong tea flavour with a pronounced spice note that doesn't translate fully into the vape. It is a chameleon flavour that changes character depending on percentage used. At 1% and 2%, I got a discernible moderately strong black tea with just a drop of milk and very light sweetening. At 3%, the 'milk' aspect suddenly becomes apparent, blooming into a creamy full-milk note that actually suppresses the tea somewhat. It reminds me of the little plastic milk/creamer tubs that you get in hotel rooms. At the same time, the level of sweetness increases although it never registers as more than light sweetening. The spice note from the cream test either steeped out or doesn't translate to the vapour but it is still there faintly in the background. It's a base note as I picked it up more in the Recoil than either the Hadaly or Velocity. I cannot hazard a guess as to what spice it is, it's not prominent enough. Suffice it to say, the result is slightly more exotic than plain Ceylon tea but not a chai. It is close enough to plain tea that I will accept it as such. At 3-4%, it gives me a full-bodied flavour. This is also one of the shorter steepers, 4-5 days should be adequate as the flavour didn't change much after that.
Application: tea isn't the most versatile profile. This one already has that faint spice note so you could possibly bend it towards a chai. With milk and sugar already added, the most you could do is tweak these elements slightly although I can't see anybody wanting to add more milk. The other option is to add fruit for a bubble tea. Interestingly, the graphic used to illustrate the flavour on the OOO website is of a boba tea so that application is perhaps what OOO had in mind.
Conclusion: I'm not ordinarily a fan of standalone flavours but I found this one surprisingly satisfying and soothing, giving almost a camomile effect. I'll give a boba tea a try but I'm inclined to use this as a one-shot. Sometimes you want a subtle and undemanding flavour to give your palate a rest and OOO Milk Tea ticks that box for me.
OOO French Toast
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO French Toast @ 3% 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 21 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: Burnt sugar flavour or caramel that’s gone past the golden phase and into the bitter, dark realm.
Flavour Description: It reminds of my early days in DIY where I automatically assumed a 1:1 equivalence between things I liked in the real world and concentrates. English toffee, CAPS Fudge Brownie… how could they not be great together in a recipe? This French Toast takes me back there. In fact it is reminiscent of any number of awful caramel, toffees, RY4 Asians that beleaguered my early days. Three weeks later and its pretty much the same profile as it was SNV. Horrible. French toast should be: doughy brioche, touch of an eggy custard underneath, a little caramelisation of the toast in the pan, cinnamon sugar and/or maybe a hint of honey. OOO went for burnt sugar or drag car tyres after a close semi-final. Neither of which should be anywhere near a pan. There’s nothing much else here, no bread texture that I could pick up, just this acrid over-caramelisation that fills the room and lingers in the air. I actually went back to my unused TFA RY4 Asian and it’s damn close.
Throat Hit: 2/10. There's a bit more than most.
Uses: For me, the best place for this to be used is in a quiet spot in a land-fill. I’m sure there are others who may get this flavour and it’s definitely a brother to one of those early Skyblue shooting in the dark concentrates. Maybe 0,5-0,8% in a caramel tobacco if you like this bad interpretation of the goodness that should be dissolved and browned sugar. Or maybe at 1-2% if you use and like TFA RY4 Asian.
Overall: Nah, not my kind of breakfast.
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO French Toast @ 3% 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 21 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: Burnt sugar flavour or caramel that’s gone past the golden phase and into the bitter, dark realm.
Flavour Description: It reminds of my early days in DIY where I automatically assumed a 1:1 equivalence between things I liked in the real world and concentrates. English toffee, CAPS Fudge Brownie… how could they not be great together in a recipe? This French Toast takes me back there. In fact it is reminiscent of any number of awful caramel, toffees, RY4 Asians that beleaguered my early days. Three weeks later and its pretty much the same profile as it was SNV. Horrible. French toast should be: doughy brioche, touch of an eggy custard underneath, a little caramelisation of the toast in the pan, cinnamon sugar and/or maybe a hint of honey. OOO went for burnt sugar or drag car tyres after a close semi-final. Neither of which should be anywhere near a pan. There’s nothing much else here, no bread texture that I could pick up, just this acrid over-caramelisation that fills the room and lingers in the air. I actually went back to my unused TFA RY4 Asian and it’s damn close.
Throat Hit: 2/10. There's a bit more than most.
Uses: For me, the best place for this to be used is in a quiet spot in a land-fill. I’m sure there are others who may get this flavour and it’s definitely a brother to one of those early Skyblue shooting in the dark concentrates. Maybe 0,5-0,8% in a caramel tobacco if you like this bad interpretation of the goodness that should be dissolved and browned sugar. Or maybe at 1-2% if you use and like TFA RY4 Asian.
Overall: Nah, not my kind of breakfast.
It's a mystery to me too, @Silver. As you say, you don't find Moirs flavourings with child-proof caps in the supermarket. I fail to see the risk to children, it's not like concentrates are poisonous. But if it's going to satisfy the powers-that-be that we are responsible, it's probably a small price to pay.
OOO Blue Raspberry
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Blue Raspberry @ 3%; 4%; 5% 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 22 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: Nicest of the flavours that I tried off the bat. Very candy like, but complex mix of blueberry and raspberry.
Flavour Description: Less pronounced after a steep and less candy like. Reasonable balance of the two berries with a touch of cream as well. The raspberry has much of the same profile as the INW (Melina) Raspberry and can tend to overtake the blueberry if you are attuned to the INW version. The blueberry, although mild, is sweet. I don’t recall ever pairing these individually but they do work well together. The OOO site talks about a sour note and I guess it is there if you look hard enough for it. Either that or it’s the convincing taste of placebo sour.
Throat Hit: 0/10.
Uses: Bit of a transvestite here. It would be equally happy in bright candy/milkshake/bubblegum mixes as it would with bakeries and the like. It would also make for an interesting yoghurt: 5% Blue raspberry, CAP Creamy Yoghurt and then the other bits and pieces. Because of the similar profile to INW, it might be useful to sub it out and see what it brings to existing recipes. It’s a weaker flavour and so one would have to raise the %. Sweet spot is 4-7%.
Overall: I like this a lot. It might take a bit of experimentation to find where it fits best but the brightness of the raspberry and the sweetness of the blueberry (not to mention the placebo sour) could prove killer in a recipe.
Setup: Velocity, Dual Alien Claptons @ .22 ohms. 60w power. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: OOO Blue Raspberry @ 3%; 4%; 5% 70/30 VG/PG, Steeped 22 days.
Initial SNV thoughts: Nicest of the flavours that I tried off the bat. Very candy like, but complex mix of blueberry and raspberry.
Flavour Description: Less pronounced after a steep and less candy like. Reasonable balance of the two berries with a touch of cream as well. The raspberry has much of the same profile as the INW (Melina) Raspberry and can tend to overtake the blueberry if you are attuned to the INW version. The blueberry, although mild, is sweet. I don’t recall ever pairing these individually but they do work well together. The OOO site talks about a sour note and I guess it is there if you look hard enough for it. Either that or it’s the convincing taste of placebo sour.
Throat Hit: 0/10.
Uses: Bit of a transvestite here. It would be equally happy in bright candy/milkshake/bubblegum mixes as it would with bakeries and the like. It would also make for an interesting yoghurt: 5% Blue raspberry, CAP Creamy Yoghurt and then the other bits and pieces. Because of the similar profile to INW, it might be useful to sub it out and see what it brings to existing recipes. It’s a weaker flavour and so one would have to raise the %. Sweet spot is 4-7%.
Overall: I like this a lot. It might take a bit of experimentation to find where it fits best but the brightness of the raspberry and the sweetness of the blueberry (not to mention the placebo sour) could prove killer in a recipe.
OOO Powdered Sugar
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3 and 5%
Notes: the whipped cream test on this flavour produced an initially startling sensation which became unfortunately familiar during my OOO testing: a pronounced off-note, limited mainly to the top range, that can best be described as licking a sheet of cardboard. In some of the flavours, the cardboard note carries through into the vape. In Powdered Sugar, it either doesn't register in the vape or steeped out very quickly. Literally overnight, I could not detect any cardboard note in the vape. It's a quick steeper which doesn't change beyond the first couple of days. OOO describes this as "a delicious sugary sweet flavour", along with an image of a bowl of icing sugar. I wouldn't classify this as delicious but it surely is sugary and sweet. Both the aroma and the taste are crisp, clean, processed white sugar. It's not gritty and dry but there is just enough texture in the vape to convince me that I'm vaping a sprinkling of fine white sugar rather than an infusion of sucralose. The flavour scales smoothly without any surprises. At 1% it offers just a faint generic sweetness, increasing in intensity with each new addition. It's a lot weaker than TFA Brown Sugar and even at 5%, it doesn't produce cloying sweetness. The sweetness also doesn't linger, dying quite quickly during the exhale. As one would expect, there is not much body to the vape.
Application: due to this not being a strong flavour, it would be best suited to providing subtle sweetness. If you want sugar lips or smash-you-in-the-face sweetness, this won't do it. There are several sweetening agents (besides sucralose) available to the DIYer, each with their own character. Marshmallow adds mouth feel, Meringue has its 'cereal milk' character, Brown Sugar and Caramels add a deeper browned/cooked note, Honey and Maple Syrup have their own distinctive flavours. OOO Powdered Sugar delivers what it says on the tin: refined white sugar. If that is the character of the sweetening that you seek, look no further.
Conclusion: you can certainly live without OOO Powdered Sugar, it's not a "must have" flavour. But if you are particular about how you achieve sweetening, and want as many tools as possible in your arsenal, this will fill a niche that isn't covered by other sweetening flavours.
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3 and 5%
Notes: the whipped cream test on this flavour produced an initially startling sensation which became unfortunately familiar during my OOO testing: a pronounced off-note, limited mainly to the top range, that can best be described as licking a sheet of cardboard. In some of the flavours, the cardboard note carries through into the vape. In Powdered Sugar, it either doesn't register in the vape or steeped out very quickly. Literally overnight, I could not detect any cardboard note in the vape. It's a quick steeper which doesn't change beyond the first couple of days. OOO describes this as "a delicious sugary sweet flavour", along with an image of a bowl of icing sugar. I wouldn't classify this as delicious but it surely is sugary and sweet. Both the aroma and the taste are crisp, clean, processed white sugar. It's not gritty and dry but there is just enough texture in the vape to convince me that I'm vaping a sprinkling of fine white sugar rather than an infusion of sucralose. The flavour scales smoothly without any surprises. At 1% it offers just a faint generic sweetness, increasing in intensity with each new addition. It's a lot weaker than TFA Brown Sugar and even at 5%, it doesn't produce cloying sweetness. The sweetness also doesn't linger, dying quite quickly during the exhale. As one would expect, there is not much body to the vape.
Application: due to this not being a strong flavour, it would be best suited to providing subtle sweetness. If you want sugar lips or smash-you-in-the-face sweetness, this won't do it. There are several sweetening agents (besides sucralose) available to the DIYer, each with their own character. Marshmallow adds mouth feel, Meringue has its 'cereal milk' character, Brown Sugar and Caramels add a deeper browned/cooked note, Honey and Maple Syrup have their own distinctive flavours. OOO Powdered Sugar delivers what it says on the tin: refined white sugar. If that is the character of the sweetening that you seek, look no further.
Conclusion: you can certainly live without OOO Powdered Sugar, it's not a "must have" flavour. But if you are particular about how you achieve sweetening, and want as many tools as possible in your arsenal, this will fill a niche that isn't covered by other sweetening flavours.
OOO Cake Batter
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5%
Notes: the whipped cream test got this flavour off to a promising start. I got a blast of bright, cream-coloured (vanilla, refined sugar), sticky batter. None of the funky plastic notes or off-putting greasiness that plagues some other batters and, hooray, none of the cardboard note that affects some other OOO flavours either. I guesstimated from the cream test that this would be reasonably strong and a short steeper, and so it proved to be. The vape is not reminiscent of grandma's home baking batter but rather a giant stainless steel vat of supermarket chain batter ready to produce hundreds of luridly-coloured cardboard boxed cakes. That is not a gripe, though, batter is batter. If it's sticky and sweet and highly processed, it's all good. And this is.
At the lower percentages, it doesn't offer much beyond faint sweetness, a very light commercial vanilla essence and a hint of sticky texture. At 3%, the flavour suddenly comes alive and it registers clearly as batter. 4-5% is where the flavour reaches fullness. It's not particularly heavy but does add decent body. From 3% up, I'm also getting a hint of a fruity note in the background and base notes especially. Passion fruit would be my best guess and if you told me that this batter would end in a cake that has passion fruit pips embedded in the icing, I would believe it. It's very subtle, though, such that I only picked it up now and then. I would give this a week's steep to settle, which is short in OOO terms.
Application: wherever you'd use something like Cap Cake Batter or Flv Cupcake Batter. OOO have several very similar flavours with Cake Batter differing from Vanilla Frosting and Pop Pastry mainly in the textural nature. They all have a very bright and icing-sugary character. This could also see use a glaze topping for a doughnut or biscuits.
Conclusion: batters and doughs tend to be love-hate type of flavours that will either be in a mixer's wheelhouse or ignored entirely. They are renowned for funky notes, too. For my palate, there is nothing off in this flavour and I will be using OOO Cake Batter a lot.
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5%
Notes: the whipped cream test got this flavour off to a promising start. I got a blast of bright, cream-coloured (vanilla, refined sugar), sticky batter. None of the funky plastic notes or off-putting greasiness that plagues some other batters and, hooray, none of the cardboard note that affects some other OOO flavours either. I guesstimated from the cream test that this would be reasonably strong and a short steeper, and so it proved to be. The vape is not reminiscent of grandma's home baking batter but rather a giant stainless steel vat of supermarket chain batter ready to produce hundreds of luridly-coloured cardboard boxed cakes. That is not a gripe, though, batter is batter. If it's sticky and sweet and highly processed, it's all good. And this is.
At the lower percentages, it doesn't offer much beyond faint sweetness, a very light commercial vanilla essence and a hint of sticky texture. At 3%, the flavour suddenly comes alive and it registers clearly as batter. 4-5% is where the flavour reaches fullness. It's not particularly heavy but does add decent body. From 3% up, I'm also getting a hint of a fruity note in the background and base notes especially. Passion fruit would be my best guess and if you told me that this batter would end in a cake that has passion fruit pips embedded in the icing, I would believe it. It's very subtle, though, such that I only picked it up now and then. I would give this a week's steep to settle, which is short in OOO terms.
Application: wherever you'd use something like Cap Cake Batter or Flv Cupcake Batter. OOO have several very similar flavours with Cake Batter differing from Vanilla Frosting and Pop Pastry mainly in the textural nature. They all have a very bright and icing-sugary character. This could also see use a glaze topping for a doughnut or biscuits.
Conclusion: batters and doughs tend to be love-hate type of flavours that will either be in a mixer's wheelhouse or ignored entirely. They are renowned for funky notes, too. For my palate, there is nothing off in this flavour and I will be using OOO Cake Batter a lot.
OOO Cream Milky Undertone
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6%
Notes: dairies appear to be OOO's strength and Cream Milky Undertone is their signature flavour, much the same as Holy Vanilla is the signature flavour of DIY Flavor Shack. There appears to be some confusion with alltheflavors.com listing both a Cream Milky and a Cream Milky Undertone for OOO. While there is a VG version as well, the OOO website lists only Cream Milky Undertone. I'll assume Cream Milky refers to the same flavour. It is by far the most popular OOO flavour so far, with 171 recipes already up on ATF. Included in those are recipes by heavy hitters like Enyawreklaw, Fear, steamroom, Krucial and thadentman.
Cream Milky Undertone is a very descriptive name suggesting a cream that has a strong element of plain milk in it. OOO's website description is rather vague, stating that it is "similar to a whip cream". Wayne cuts to the chase and calls it "a flat milk", thadentman waxes lyrical in describing it as "the Flv Rich Cinnamon of creams imo, it's just a perfect milk". My experience concurs largely with the above. In the whipped cream test, I just got neutral cream with a very slight sour note. That either steeped out within hours or doesn't translate to the vape. Instead, I got a neutral unsweetened dairy that is more than a milk but less than a cream. There is nothing to make it stand out, no eggy or buttery or spicy or vanilla or sour notes. It's mouth feel with a light milk taste. That is a very good thing.
At low percentages it just offers a mildly creamy texture. The flavour first pops at 3% where the milk starts to shine, then again at 5% where the mild milk taste and creamy texture both reach saturation. At 6% the experience was, if anything, not quite as good as at 5%. It makes for a fairly dull standalone vape because it has little character. But that is often what is needed in a mix, a thickening/milk texture that doesn't interfere with top notes.
Application: this is a blank canvas and will see a lot of use alongside FA Cream Fresh and Flv Cream as a generic thickener and milk base that doesn't detract from the top notes. 2-3% seems to be the sweet spot in mixes. It's not spectacular on its own but, like Cream Fresh, is a concentrate that will enhance every flavour stash.
Conclusion: if you're happy with your current unflavoured cream, you can probably live without OOO Cream Milky Undertone. But let's face it, you can never have enough creams. This one is among the best of the breed.
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6%
Notes: dairies appear to be OOO's strength and Cream Milky Undertone is their signature flavour, much the same as Holy Vanilla is the signature flavour of DIY Flavor Shack. There appears to be some confusion with alltheflavors.com listing both a Cream Milky and a Cream Milky Undertone for OOO. While there is a VG version as well, the OOO website lists only Cream Milky Undertone. I'll assume Cream Milky refers to the same flavour. It is by far the most popular OOO flavour so far, with 171 recipes already up on ATF. Included in those are recipes by heavy hitters like Enyawreklaw, Fear, steamroom, Krucial and thadentman.
Cream Milky Undertone is a very descriptive name suggesting a cream that has a strong element of plain milk in it. OOO's website description is rather vague, stating that it is "similar to a whip cream". Wayne cuts to the chase and calls it "a flat milk", thadentman waxes lyrical in describing it as "the Flv Rich Cinnamon of creams imo, it's just a perfect milk". My experience concurs largely with the above. In the whipped cream test, I just got neutral cream with a very slight sour note. That either steeped out within hours or doesn't translate to the vape. Instead, I got a neutral unsweetened dairy that is more than a milk but less than a cream. There is nothing to make it stand out, no eggy or buttery or spicy or vanilla or sour notes. It's mouth feel with a light milk taste. That is a very good thing.
At low percentages it just offers a mildly creamy texture. The flavour first pops at 3% where the milk starts to shine, then again at 5% where the mild milk taste and creamy texture both reach saturation. At 6% the experience was, if anything, not quite as good as at 5%. It makes for a fairly dull standalone vape because it has little character. But that is often what is needed in a mix, a thickening/milk texture that doesn't interfere with top notes.
Application: this is a blank canvas and will see a lot of use alongside FA Cream Fresh and Flv Cream as a generic thickener and milk base that doesn't detract from the top notes. 2-3% seems to be the sweet spot in mixes. It's not spectacular on its own but, like Cream Fresh, is a concentrate that will enhance every flavour stash.
Conclusion: if you're happy with your current unflavoured cream, you can probably live without OOO Cream Milky Undertone. But let's face it, you can never have enough creams. This one is among the best of the breed.
OOO Milk Shake Vanilla
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10%
Notes: the OOO website paints a glowing picture of this concentrate: "A smooth and cold vanilla ice cream expertly blended with milky goodness". Erm... no. Tellingly, the image used to illustrate Milk Shake Vanilla is of a milkshake with speckles on the surface, as if it had been made from a powder and hadn't been stirred properly. That's about the measure of it. Earlier, I spoke of some OOO concentrates having a cardboard note. This is one of them. In some others, it steeps out. In this... not so much. Anyway, let's start at the beginning.
The whipped cream test delivered a powdery malted taste with a pronounced cardboard note right down the middle, together with a dry chemical aroma. In both the cream test and the low concentration testing, I detected no vanilla. Instead, it seemed like they were aiming for an instant milkshake powder that gives the malted note (cranked really high) and nothing else. Up to 3%, I just got dry powdery cardboard. OOO recommend 5-7% and at 5%, a hint of vanilla and faint creaminess began to emerge. Cranking it up to 7% did eke out a bit more vanilla but the overall effect was still of dry powdered malt. I went for broke at 10% which just turned the whole taste sensation darker. I had hoped it would steep into something decent but, while the cardboard note does diminish a bit over time, it never dissipates. If a concentrate hasn't settled after 29 days, it is unlikely to. So I can't agree that this is cold vanilla ice cream. It is dry malt powder, free of dairy of any type, with that cardboard note that refuses to fade away.
Application: I can't think of one.
Conclusion: if milkshake was an exceptionally difficult profile to replicate, it might be worth persevering with this to try and find some magic combination of % or other flavours where it will work. Fortunately milkshakes are dead simple. I would skip this concentrate.
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10%
Notes: the OOO website paints a glowing picture of this concentrate: "A smooth and cold vanilla ice cream expertly blended with milky goodness". Erm... no. Tellingly, the image used to illustrate Milk Shake Vanilla is of a milkshake with speckles on the surface, as if it had been made from a powder and hadn't been stirred properly. That's about the measure of it. Earlier, I spoke of some OOO concentrates having a cardboard note. This is one of them. In some others, it steeps out. In this... not so much. Anyway, let's start at the beginning.
The whipped cream test delivered a powdery malted taste with a pronounced cardboard note right down the middle, together with a dry chemical aroma. In both the cream test and the low concentration testing, I detected no vanilla. Instead, it seemed like they were aiming for an instant milkshake powder that gives the malted note (cranked really high) and nothing else. Up to 3%, I just got dry powdery cardboard. OOO recommend 5-7% and at 5%, a hint of vanilla and faint creaminess began to emerge. Cranking it up to 7% did eke out a bit more vanilla but the overall effect was still of dry powdered malt. I went for broke at 10% which just turned the whole taste sensation darker. I had hoped it would steep into something decent but, while the cardboard note does diminish a bit over time, it never dissipates. If a concentrate hasn't settled after 29 days, it is unlikely to. So I can't agree that this is cold vanilla ice cream. It is dry malt powder, free of dairy of any type, with that cardboard note that refuses to fade away.
Application: I can't think of one.
Conclusion: if milkshake was an exceptionally difficult profile to replicate, it might be worth persevering with this to try and find some magic combination of % or other flavours where it will work. Fortunately milkshakes are dead simple. I would skip this concentrate.
OOO Vanilla Custard
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10%
Notes: this is one of the strangest flavours I have ever tested. I started as usual with the whipped cream test and got... whipped cream. Tested again... nothing. In panic, I tested Cap VC1 and got full concentrated flavour. Tested OOO again... nothing. The flavour literally does not register in cream. Fortunately it does register in vape although it does need to be cranked up some. At concentrations under 3%, I got a dry hint of generic vanilla sweetness. Bumping it up to 5% does unlock smoothness but it still feels dry and anaemic. At the top end of OOO's recommended 5-7% range, it becomes relatively full-flavoured. An eggy note emerges, the dryness dissipates and you're left with a smooth vanilla that feels flat and thin, without much mouth feel or body. I dialed it up all the way to 10% and the egginess and vanilla both become overbearing, giving that near-perfume warning sign of over-flavouring. So it goes from under-flavoured to over-flavoured without ever hitting the sweet spot of rich, full flavour. The best I got from it was at 7% but it was still lacking and unsatisfying.
Application: custards are super versatile and used for body in almost everything. The problem with OOO Vanilla Custard is that it is neither a tasty standalone custard nor a body-adding base custard. I suppose it will do the basic job of a custard - just not as well as other custards do.
Conclusion: the custard segment of DIY is rigorously contested. It's not just that Capella have market dominance with their Vanilla Custard v1 and v2, it's that there are several others - Inw, FA, TFA - who have very good custards on offer. OOO Vanilla Custard is not a bad flavour per se, there are no off-notes or other deal-breakers. It's just that I can't see it competing with the more esablished brands. If you're desperate for another custard, give it a whirl. But it doesn't offer anything that other custards don't do better.
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10%
Notes: this is one of the strangest flavours I have ever tested. I started as usual with the whipped cream test and got... whipped cream. Tested again... nothing. In panic, I tested Cap VC1 and got full concentrated flavour. Tested OOO again... nothing. The flavour literally does not register in cream. Fortunately it does register in vape although it does need to be cranked up some. At concentrations under 3%, I got a dry hint of generic vanilla sweetness. Bumping it up to 5% does unlock smoothness but it still feels dry and anaemic. At the top end of OOO's recommended 5-7% range, it becomes relatively full-flavoured. An eggy note emerges, the dryness dissipates and you're left with a smooth vanilla that feels flat and thin, without much mouth feel or body. I dialed it up all the way to 10% and the egginess and vanilla both become overbearing, giving that near-perfume warning sign of over-flavouring. So it goes from under-flavoured to over-flavoured without ever hitting the sweet spot of rich, full flavour. The best I got from it was at 7% but it was still lacking and unsatisfying.
Application: custards are super versatile and used for body in almost everything. The problem with OOO Vanilla Custard is that it is neither a tasty standalone custard nor a body-adding base custard. I suppose it will do the basic job of a custard - just not as well as other custards do.
Conclusion: the custard segment of DIY is rigorously contested. It's not just that Capella have market dominance with their Vanilla Custard v1 and v2, it's that there are several others - Inw, FA, TFA - who have very good custards on offer. OOO Vanilla Custard is not a bad flavour per se, there are no off-notes or other deal-breakers. It's just that I can't see it competing with the more esablished brands. If you're desperate for another custard, give it a whirl. But it doesn't offer anything that other custards don't do better.
OOO Pop Pastry
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 5, 7, 9 and 11%
Notes: OOO list several variants of pop pastries on their site. As I don't get Blueberry, Chocolate, Cinnamon Bun, Mixed Berries, Peanut Butter or Strawberry from this, I'll assume that it's the Frosted Breakfast variant, described as "a sugary sweet frosting sealed inside a flaky pastry crust". OOO have nailed down a sweet, bright, icing flavour compound template which is applied in Vanilla Frosting and Cake Batter, along with this Pop Pastry flavour. You will recognise the same notes throughout.
The whipped cream and aroma tests were promising, both reflecting that cheery bright icing vibe with a hint of semi-cooked pastry. That translates faithfully into the vape. It is, however, a weak flavour and you can disregard OOO's 5-7% recommendation. 1 and 2% delivered almost nothing but base and a bit of sweetness. Bumping it up to 5% dialed up the sweetness a bit and introduced the very-lightly-toasted pastry note. At 7%, the frosting developed but it was only at 9% that everything came together cohesively and at the prominence I'd expect from a standalone flavour. Further increasing to 11% didn't add anything but didn't tip it towards over-flavouring either. I'd say 9% is in the zone for single flavour.
The frosting component of the flavour dials down the brightness of Cake Batter and Vanilla Frosting, to balance against the semi-cooked pastry. While half-baked pastry may not sound appetising, it is on point and makes for a cheerful, well-balanced pop tart.
Application: as a compound pop tart flavour that includes both pastry and filling, this is ostensibly a one-shot designed to be used solo. I don't think it's complete enough for that (which compound flavours are?) but will instead be used much the way that TFA Cheesecake Graham Crust is: to add both crust and filling components. So it should prove versatile in cakes, glazed doughnuts, cookies with icing, even milkshakes and cereals. It could be used for pop tarts and cannolis too, with the addition of fruits and other enhancers like Pie Crust. The downside would be that it requires a relatively high concentration to make its presence felt.
Conclusion: OOO Pop Pastry won't be the easiest ingredient to work with as it welds the frosting and pastry components together and mixers may prefer to control these separately. However, it fills a niche that is not crowded. If you are absolutely into tinkering with complex layered bakery bases and want a new and different tool in your arsenal, this is worth a go.
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 5, 7, 9 and 11%
Notes: OOO list several variants of pop pastries on their site. As I don't get Blueberry, Chocolate, Cinnamon Bun, Mixed Berries, Peanut Butter or Strawberry from this, I'll assume that it's the Frosted Breakfast variant, described as "a sugary sweet frosting sealed inside a flaky pastry crust". OOO have nailed down a sweet, bright, icing flavour compound template which is applied in Vanilla Frosting and Cake Batter, along with this Pop Pastry flavour. You will recognise the same notes throughout.
The whipped cream and aroma tests were promising, both reflecting that cheery bright icing vibe with a hint of semi-cooked pastry. That translates faithfully into the vape. It is, however, a weak flavour and you can disregard OOO's 5-7% recommendation. 1 and 2% delivered almost nothing but base and a bit of sweetness. Bumping it up to 5% dialed up the sweetness a bit and introduced the very-lightly-toasted pastry note. At 7%, the frosting developed but it was only at 9% that everything came together cohesively and at the prominence I'd expect from a standalone flavour. Further increasing to 11% didn't add anything but didn't tip it towards over-flavouring either. I'd say 9% is in the zone for single flavour.
The frosting component of the flavour dials down the brightness of Cake Batter and Vanilla Frosting, to balance against the semi-cooked pastry. While half-baked pastry may not sound appetising, it is on point and makes for a cheerful, well-balanced pop tart.
Application: as a compound pop tart flavour that includes both pastry and filling, this is ostensibly a one-shot designed to be used solo. I don't think it's complete enough for that (which compound flavours are?) but will instead be used much the way that TFA Cheesecake Graham Crust is: to add both crust and filling components. So it should prove versatile in cakes, glazed doughnuts, cookies with icing, even milkshakes and cereals. It could be used for pop tarts and cannolis too, with the addition of fruits and other enhancers like Pie Crust. The downside would be that it requires a relatively high concentration to make its presence felt.
Conclusion: OOO Pop Pastry won't be the easiest ingredient to work with as it welds the frosting and pastry components together and mixers may prefer to control these separately. However, it fills a niche that is not crowded. If you are absolutely into tinkering with complex layered bakery bases and want a new and different tool in your arsenal, this is worth a go.
OOO Vanilla Cupcake
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10%
Notes: I was looking forward to this as Vanilla Cupcake is one of the most useful concentrates, adding body/smoothness/sweetness to bakeries, milkshakes and even tobaccos. The whipped cream test was promising with both a bakery note and a light vanilla frosting evident. The shake and vape test was less promising as the OOO cardboard note immediately registered. At low percentages, the flavour is dry and indistinct. At 3% the cupcake establishes, reaching prominence at 5% and full saturation at 7%. It is a smooth but typically supermarket-chain cupcake, the type that stays fresh for three months. The problem lies in the cooking time: as the steep lengthened and the percentages dialed up, the cardboard note receded and was either replaced by or mutated into a burnt note, like the cupcake edges had been blackened during baking. I pushed the concentration all the way up to 10% which was not a good idea. The cardboard/burnt note becomes truly acrid, leaving a scratchy bitter note in the back of the throat. Another consequence of increasing percentages is that the frosting (which is subtle at low %) becomes more prominent, shifting the balance from bakery towards icing.
Application: it's hard to think of an application for this, I can't get past that cardboard/burnt note that cuts right through the middle of the flavour. Maybe at 3% and with a long steep, it could bolster a milkshake, dessert or tobacco. I can't see it forming the bulk of a bakery base which is a pity because, lurking under that off-note, there is a decent frosted vanilla cupcake flavour. It has that mass-produced feel but then, they all do.
Conclusion: TFA and Capella own the cupcake market. If you already have one or both of those, OOO Vanilla Cupcake won't offer anything new. You can safely skip this one.
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10%
Notes: I was looking forward to this as Vanilla Cupcake is one of the most useful concentrates, adding body/smoothness/sweetness to bakeries, milkshakes and even tobaccos. The whipped cream test was promising with both a bakery note and a light vanilla frosting evident. The shake and vape test was less promising as the OOO cardboard note immediately registered. At low percentages, the flavour is dry and indistinct. At 3% the cupcake establishes, reaching prominence at 5% and full saturation at 7%. It is a smooth but typically supermarket-chain cupcake, the type that stays fresh for three months. The problem lies in the cooking time: as the steep lengthened and the percentages dialed up, the cardboard note receded and was either replaced by or mutated into a burnt note, like the cupcake edges had been blackened during baking. I pushed the concentration all the way up to 10% which was not a good idea. The cardboard/burnt note becomes truly acrid, leaving a scratchy bitter note in the back of the throat. Another consequence of increasing percentages is that the frosting (which is subtle at low %) becomes more prominent, shifting the balance from bakery towards icing.
Application: it's hard to think of an application for this, I can't get past that cardboard/burnt note that cuts right through the middle of the flavour. Maybe at 3% and with a long steep, it could bolster a milkshake, dessert or tobacco. I can't see it forming the bulk of a bakery base which is a pity because, lurking under that off-note, there is a decent frosted vanilla cupcake flavour. It has that mass-produced feel but then, they all do.
Conclusion: TFA and Capella own the cupcake market. If you already have one or both of those, OOO Vanilla Cupcake won't offer anything new. You can safely skip this one.
OOO Vanilla Frosting
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7%
Notes: the cream test of OOO Vanilla Frosting immediately brought a smile to my face: which bakery fiend doesn't love a glaze of sugary-sweet goodness atop their golden-baked creations? This one immediately ticked the boxes, boasting a bright and tasty vanilla with just the right amount of sweetness. My heart sank during the shake and vape test as the familiar OOO cardboard note struck again. But my dismay was relatively short-lived: the cardboard steeps out within two weeks, give it three to be safe. The wait is worth it. It's a finishing touch that does exactly what it is supposed to do. It scales better than most other OOO flavours too, clearly discernible at low percentages, achieving relative fullness at 3% and ramping all the way up to 7% without any surprises of off-notes emerging. The inhale is bright sweetness, with the sugar and vanilla blending into a mellow harmony on the exhale.
Application: bakeries obviously but this will also work in desserts, shakes and cereals. Basically anywhere you'd use LorAnn's Cream Cheese Icing, this will work - but minus the tangy cheese notes which are off-putting to some. Apparently mixing this with CCI also works a treat.
Conclusion: LorAnn used to enjoy market dominance with their Cream Cheese Icing, which was a rare hit for them. But with Flv Frosting and OOO Vanilla Frosting rolling into town, the competition just got real. I haven't tried Flv Frosting yet, I am led to believe it is excellent. But until I do, I am very happy to add OOO Vanilla Frosting to my flavouring toolbox.
Test gear:
Hadaly clone, single Ni80 0.54Ω, Cotton Candy wick, 25-30W
Recoil clone, dual Ni80 0.40Ω, Cotton Bacon wick, 30-40W
Velocity clone, dual SS 0.3Ω, Japanese OC wick, 40-45W
Test percentages: 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7%
Notes: the cream test of OOO Vanilla Frosting immediately brought a smile to my face: which bakery fiend doesn't love a glaze of sugary-sweet goodness atop their golden-baked creations? This one immediately ticked the boxes, boasting a bright and tasty vanilla with just the right amount of sweetness. My heart sank during the shake and vape test as the familiar OOO cardboard note struck again. But my dismay was relatively short-lived: the cardboard steeps out within two weeks, give it three to be safe. The wait is worth it. It's a finishing touch that does exactly what it is supposed to do. It scales better than most other OOO flavours too, clearly discernible at low percentages, achieving relative fullness at 3% and ramping all the way up to 7% without any surprises of off-notes emerging. The inhale is bright sweetness, with the sugar and vanilla blending into a mellow harmony on the exhale.
Application: bakeries obviously but this will also work in desserts, shakes and cereals. Basically anywhere you'd use LorAnn's Cream Cheese Icing, this will work - but minus the tangy cheese notes which are off-putting to some. Apparently mixing this with CCI also works a treat.
Conclusion: LorAnn used to enjoy market dominance with their Cream Cheese Icing, which was a rare hit for them. But with Flv Frosting and OOO Vanilla Frosting rolling into town, the competition just got real. I haven't tried Flv Frosting yet, I am led to believe it is excellent. But until I do, I am very happy to add OOO Vanilla Frosting to my flavouring toolbox.
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