Vapor Couture

To be honest, the whole Vapor Couture thing came about as a joke. I started hearing about various e-cigarette companies bringing out new and improved ideas with sister companies and I realized that this was the case with V2 Cigs and Vapor Couture. Joking around with Peter (the IT guy that encouraged me to make this website) and I ended up losing a dare and having to use and review the e-cigarette company… That’s the truth and I’m sticking to it 😉

Starter Kits

There are five different starter kits available from Vapor Couture:

Entree Kit – $39.95

You’ll get one battery, 5 cartridges, a USB charger and a disposable Vapor Couture e-cigarette. It’s not a bad little kit but it won’t be enough to get you started – you’ll probably need to add another pack of cartridges and an additional battery to your order if you want to rely on this e-cigarette alone.

L’Essentiel Kit – $55.21

This is a better kit for a newbie in the world of electronic cigarettes. This time you’ll get two batteries, 10 cartridges, a USB charger and wall adapter. This is what you’ll need to get things kick-started on the quest to quit smoking conventional cigarettes.

L’Essentiel +1 Kit – $99.95

This is a pretty unimpressive kit that offers the kit above plus what appears to be a lanyard and not much else. From what I can tell, you are paying an additional $40 for the lanyard… I hope it’s made outta real diamonds at that price!

Passeport Kit – $149.95

Add a carry case and car charger to the L’Essentiel +1 Kit and you’ve got the Passeport Kit. Is it worth it? I’m not so sure.

Maximale Kit – $199.95

At this price, I would expect this starter kit to be all singing and all dancing but honestly, I wasn’t all that impressed. Three batteries, a lanyard, a carry case, the three chargers (USB, wall and car), a white handbag-looking thing and 20 cartridges. When you compare this to the likes of Vapor Zone or Eversmoke, you don’t get enough bang for your buck.

Batteries

They are much slimmer than other e-cigarette brands that I’ve tried and tested and they are clearly designed for female hands. One of my female friends said that they looked good, but she would feel too self-conscious smoking them because they looked so different. I guess it’s the same thing as getting over the fact that the tank-style cigarettes looks more like drug paraphernalia…

There are four styles of battery available but sadly, only one length:

• Deep Purple
• Rose Gold
• Brushed Platinum
• White Signature

These all have a contrasting color in their crystal ended glowing tip, can fully charge in about an hour, is just shy of 9cm without the cartridge attached, and is meant to last all day on a full charge.

Sadly, this wasn’t the case. We got about five or six hours out of the full charge of battery but we would hardly call that all day. Perhaps the feminine types smoke less than us office-type men?

A new battery will set you back $19.95 and there is no option of manual or automatic; you just get the auto-types.

Cartridges

At the moment, Vapor Couture boast just six flavors. This is already an improvement on when I first used them – they only have four at that time. Now you can make your pick from:

• Bombshell (rich, smooth tobacco blend)
• Fresh Mint
• Rodeo Drive (hearty, all-American tobacco)
• Passion Fruit
• Strawberry Champagne
• Arctic Mint

I told you this was the best e-cigarettes for girls!

The passion fruit one was like smoking water – no taste and no oomph. I was also quite looking forward to the strawberry and champagne variety but found that it too lacked the punch expected. The tobacco flavors weren’t all that bad but to be honest, the cartridges didn’t last “all day” as they had promised. I found myself going through at least two cartridges in a day, with two batteries constantly on the go – one on charge and one being used. It was all too much hassle to be fair.

When I used the Vapor Couture cartridges pre filled by Vapor Couture, the vapor and throat hit was pathetic. There was barely any vapor at all. I don’t know if girls prefer things this way but I certainly didn’t and it didn’t closely mimic the true smoking experience. The throat hit wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good. I’d give it, at best, a mid-way score.

When I refilled the cartridges with my own liquids (which voids the warranty), the throat hit and vapor was fine… This isn’t a big deal for me as I refill all my cartridges anyway but if you are planning on being lazy and using pre filled ones all the time, you might be a bit disappointed.

The cartridges come in four strengths – 0%, 0.6%, 1.2% and 1.8%. This means that even the strongest one from Vapor Couture isn’t as strong as those offered by the likes of Eversmoke… Boo!

Accessories

The one thing that you can say about Vapor Couture is that they have plenty of accessories on offer and most of them are utter garbage. I don’t personally see the point in a lot of the accessories that they have to offer but I know it would probably appeal to those that care what their e-cigarette looks like. There’s a stainless steel and sterling silver lanyard, for example, that retail at $49.95 and $149.95 respectively. I guess that explains the jump in price between the two different starter kits that I mention, doesn’t it? Who would pay that much for a lanyard?!?!

The charging case is just shy of $60 if it is not included in your e-cigarette starter kit and if you weren’t thinking of getting one, you may want to reconsider. You will end up needing to charge your e-cigarette more often than you think you will and you won’t enjoy being stuck without power! There are smartphone clutch bags, metal carrying cases and more on the website. It’s too much for me to be honest but at least you can say there is plenty of variety.

Warranty

As long as you buy your Vapor Couture products from the website and nowhere else, you will have a lifetime warranty on the electrical components. The disposables and cartridges are not covered by this warranty. However, if you refill your cartridges, you will void the warranty. Apparently they can tell…

You can have up to five replacements on your item which hardly constitutes a lifetime warranty and seeing as the first battery I had only lasted four months, I’d say that five replacements was pretty pitiful. You need to have bought an order of cartridges in the 90 days leading up to your claim too… Things are getting complicated once again. What a shocker. You need to call their customer services guys to make a claim too so expect to go through all the trouble shooting stuff that you’ve probably already done.

Added Extras

There is a page on the website dedicated to helping you find out what is in your e-cigarettes. If you enter the batch number from your order into the space on the page, it will give you a step by step rundown and report of what you’re using.

There are plenty of shipping options so you can make it cheap or fast (sadly not both) depending on your needs. If you have forgotten that you need more cartridges or have an emergency battery situation, you can even go for overnight shipping in some circumstances.

In Conclusion

Vapor Couture isn’t a bad company but when you consider that they are owned by the same guys that created the amazing V2 Cigs, you wonder what went wrong. Technically, they had all the right ingredients for an award-winning prototype to impress women smokers all over the world. What they created was a lackluster product that didn’t give me enough bang for my buck. It’s all fluff and frills and no real packing in punch. There isn’t enough vapor or throat hit, the flavors weren’t strong enough, nothing lasted for quite as long as promised on the website and there were no real extras or bonus points that would have encouraged me to go back for more. Even the girls I spoke to weren’t that impressed.

Sorry Vapor Couture – you’re only going to manage 2.5 stars out of 5!