Why Vaporizers are Important to Your Customers

Dry Herb Vaporizers Versus Wax Pens - Everything You Need to Know

Originally, vaporizers were just created for heating dry herbs. Whether for tobacco, cannabis, or other herbs altogether, vaporizers are an alternative way to light up. There are many benefits to vaping instead of smoking, which is what we’d like to touch on in detail today. 

We want to cover why vaporizers are growing massively in popularity with dispensary and smoke shop customers across the nation. Likewise, we want to explain the differences between the two types of vaporizers: dry herb vapes and wax pens. 

Let’s dive into our complete guide on everything you need to know about vaporizers.

What are Vaporizers?

A vaporizer, also known as a vape, pen, wax pen, herb pen, and other colloquial terms, is a device used to vaporize substances for inhalation. Plant substances are the most commonly used for vapes, such as cannabis, tobacco, other herbs, or some blend of essential oil.

One of the go-to inhalation devices nowadays, vapes are made up of metal or glass. When they’re used properly, they use cooler temperatures because they lack the need for combustion. This results in significantly more efficient extractions, no matter what you’re vaping. 

This is also what helps many researchers observe that the irritating, harmful effects that come from smoking are heavily reduced with vapes. There is still much debate on this topic, but overall, vapes are safer to use than outright smoking. 

Likewise, many vaporizers are portable. However, there are plenty of desktop vapes that are designed to be placed in one spot and vaped from there, like the Volcanos from STORZ & BICKEL.

Quick Pros and Cons of Vaping

Pros

• Most are portable, making them discreet and easy to maneuver and adding to their convenience
• While more research is certainly necessary on the topic, vaping appears to be overall safer than smoking
• You get full control over your vapor output as opposed to lighting up and hoping you cornered the bowl the right way
• Typically more pleasant smell than the noxious odors that might come from tobacco or smoked cannabis products
• Prices vary wildly, so it’s easy to find a vaporizer to fit any customers’ budget
• No experience is technically needed to get things started off right with a vaporizer -- in fact, there are some vapes designed specifically for beginners

Cons

• Given the sheer number of options available, it can be somewhat overwhelming
• There is a small learning curve if you’re unfamiliar with vaporizers already, so it can take time to figure out your new device
• There’s a stigma out there still for vaping, with the news shouting their scary headlines all the time

Differences Between Dry Herb Vapes and Wax Pens

The major difference between dry herb vapes and wax pens are the coils used for each. 

Wax Pens

An easy way to distinguish between wax pens and dry herb vapes is to look inside the chamber. 

Wax pens have a variety of different coils, and they often come in quartz or ceramic. Where wax pens use a variable voltage to heat their contents, herbal vapes typically allow for more precise, accurate temperature variance.

Dry Herb Vapes

There are two types of dry herb vapes, as well. If you can’t see the coils exposed on a pen, and it has just a regular chamber with holes in it, it’s designed for dry herbs to be vaporized through convection heating. 

It does this by heating the herb without allowing the herb to touch the coils. There are pens that utilized conduction style heating, alternatively, which has the coils exposed so that they herb sit directly on them.

Why Temperature Matters

We’ve mentioned already how vaping is technically safer than outright smoking -- but that’s only if something is vaped at lower temperatures. The heat from combustion (aka lighting up your bud) may be at such a degree that it’s detrimental to one’s health. Some researchers believe carcinogens may be released the higher the temperature used to combust.

Having more control over temperature is a big plus for vapes, especially dry herb vapes. This helps to ensure you’re not accidentally burning your precious supply.

Conduction Versus Convection

As we touched on, there are two types of heating methods for dry herb vapes: conduction and convection. Convection heating allows you to vape your dry herb without the herb touching the coils. Conduction, on the other hand, allows the dry herb to sit on the coils in order to heat it. 

Heating through conduction, while faster, doesn’t allow you to utilize the herb for anything else after. Alternatively, convection will surround the dry herb with heat and hot air until it vaporizes. While slower, it’s what many vape connoisseurs believe to be the safest option when it comes to inhaling anything into your lungs.

The 3 Main Wax Coils

Like we mentioned earlier, concentrate vapes use various coils to heat up the contents inside. While there are other materials used for dab pens, these are the main ones you’ll see. The most common are ceramic and quartz, as well as titanium, so let’s go over the benefits of each. 

Ceramic

The best of both worlds, ceramic has some pretty extreme pros and cons. The big benefits are that the ceramic coil can retain heat extremely well after heating rapidly. Unfortunately, they can break when they’re heated too high. If you’re not careful on regulating the heat, you run the risk of going through a lot of coils.

Titanium

For those that don’t want to run the risk of going through coils quickly, titanium usually reigns supreme. It’s possibly the most durable of the coil materials. As far as heating goes, it has medium heat retention abilities and a medium heating time. It’s a go-to for a lot of users who don’t mind waiting longer than ceramic. Plus, if you heat it too hot, all you have to do is wait for it to cool down, rather than automatically run the risk of breaking it.

Quartz

Possibly the most common type of coil you’ll see, quartz can heat up rapidly while also preserving the taste of the contents you’re heating. While quartz isn’t really known for heat retention, it also makes it easier to inhale at safer, cooler temperatures than other materials. It does have to be heated often to keep it at your preferred heat level, but they can hold up at least moderately better than ceramics under the same stress.

What are E-Nails?

Like dab pens, e-nails are also able to vaporize concentrated substances like wax and shatter. Unlike regular dab nails, e-nails are electronic and made to work far more efficiently. They’re connected to a power system, heated up to a specific temperature and not a degree further. It’s more efficient than standard dab nails because you have so much more control over the temperature.

4 Biggest Benefits of a Wax Pen

Those that enjoy dabs are usually in it for the intensity of what it makes them feel. Heavily concentrate wax and shatter makes for some of the strongest highs. 

Using a wax vaporizer instead, especially on the go, is the next best thing a lot of regular wax users are making the switch to. If you can handle shatter and other wax concentrates, let’s look at the benefits of using a dab pen to melt down the wax instead of lighting up with a dab rig.

1. Wax has a flavorful, enjoyable taste that most people end up preferring over smoking the plant itself. After vaping for even a day, many users notice the clear difference between vaping and smoking, especially if they go back to smoking after that. For those that enjoy flavor, vaping might be the best option for you.
2. Dab pens are possibly the most discreet inhalation options. They don’t smell the same way heating dry herbs do, and they produce thinner clouds than smoke. For the more discreet smoke seshes, vapes are the go-to.
3. Shatter and other concentrates offer a far heavier potency of all the active ingredients in cannabis, including THC, CBD, terpenes, and more. This has the added bonus of allowing you to save on product, as you’re likely going to use much less at a time compared to flower.
4. Finally, as we’ve touched on already, it appears to be at least a somewhat healthier alternative to smoking. Vaping eliminates some of the carcinogens and other harmful compounds you might be inhaling at combustible temperatures for smoking.

6 Biggest Benefits of a Dry Herb Vape

There are a plethora of benefits when it comes to using a dry herb vaporizer, especially in comparison to smoking. Let’s cover the top benefits to see the biggest perks that come with using a vape.

1. One benefit to dry herb vaping that not everyone may consider going into it is the AVB that comes after. AVB, an acronym for “already vaped bud,” also referred to as ABV, or “already been vaped,” is the bud that can still be used for more after! Many smokers that switch over to vaping utilize their AVB and extract the rest of the cannabinoids to make edibles or just get the full use out of their supply. 
2. The ease of use for dry herb vaporizers is a huge selling point for many. While some pipes are certainly portable, none are as discreet as the right vape. Bowls have the downside of needing to be cooled down before they can easily be stored in a pocket, and it takes time to pack in the first place. A dry herb vape can be prepped ahead of time, simply turned on, and turned off whenever the moment calls for it.
3. That brings us to you having more control over your smoking experience with a dry herb vaporizer. You can control the overall temperature, how much you’re inhaling, and virtually all other factors that can help contribute to the overall quality of your vape sesh.
4. Whenever you use a clean dry herb vape, you can truly taste the natural flavor of the cannabis, unlike any smoking piece you’ve tried thus far.
5. Get more out of your dry herb with a vape. Heating it at such a precise degree allows you to release a much higher level of the active ingredients in the strain than with smoking. When you use a pipe or a bong, you’re only actually consuming a small fraction of the overall THC and other compounds in the bud. With vaping, you automatically consume a higher fraction of ingredients in the same bud.
6. Finally, and to reiterate, vaping appears at least somewhat safer than smoking. While more research is out on the subject, the evidence indicates that being able to control and lower the temperatures with vaping to significantly lower than combustion means that it’s easier on the lungs overall.