Cloned

Is cloning bad? Yes. I do not agree with taking products or services already created by someone and put on the market for sale, completely replicating it, and selling for a profit. Another term for this is bootleg or counterfeit. I used to have a very laissez-faire attitude towards this, until I saw the repercussions of it portrayed right onto a friend. It ruined his business and made him shut his doors within almost 6 months time. It’s a terrible issue that needs to be addressed if we expect any kind of small business or grass-roots market to remain in this awesome industry. But what about e-liquids? Well this is where things get tricky. In DIY E-liquid mixing, if a mixer tries to emulate an eliquid on the  market, IT IS NOT CLONING. Think of it more like a cover song. It’s one artists RENDITION of another’s. Now if that band were to just take the original song, play it over a loud speaker at their show and claim it as their own, then that’s cloning, and obviously, that’s wrong. So that’s the difference. A rendition, cover, or the term I personally like to use…remix, is more of an ode to the original source material. Not is it fine to do, but flattering and pays homage to the original artist. There are other factors involved that justify remixing an eliquid. One being accuracy. NEVER, NOT ONCE, has a recipe perfectly emulated, down to the exact concentrations, an eliquid on the market. Not once. It’s just far too difficult and there are far too many variables preventing that. So therefore the very nature of the end result is not a clone, by definition. Last is a often debated topic, and that’s about sales. Many believe that DIYer’s trying to emulate these e-liquids on the market drive sales away from the original producer. This, in my opinion (and I have the numbers that prove this), is not true. DIYer’s are not purchasing eliquids. They make their own. So these companies are not missing out on these sales. In fact, if a DIYer mixes up one of these remixed recipes and they happen to really enjoy it, chances are much higher that they will purchase that e-liquid down the line. Either because they are away and can’t mix, or through ease of use. This is proven with the sales figures of my concentrates. I give the recipes, EXACT RECIPES, of my concentrates. I have not seen any reduction in sales…just the opposite. So REMIXING eliquid on the market is 100% A-OK. But cloning is not.

What is Remix Month?

Remix Month is a segment I had created to bring about some hardcore education to the DIY community. It’s an entire month dedicated to the topic of cloning, or remixing. Cloning eliquids is one of the most difficult thing you can do in mixing, if not the most difficult. It’s also one of the most requested from the community. So I decided to dedicate a month to focusing all the videos, podcasts, recipes, articles, and research coming out of DIYorDIE, to this topic. This will hopefully bring about some big experience to many mixers with it being so difficult. And also help knock out some of the most popular e-liquid clone requests out there in order to help bridge the gap from mainstream vapers to mixers. So today we get started. If you’d like to see a specific eliquid clone from DIYorDIE, I suggest you join both the DIYorDIE Mixers Collective on Facebook as well as the Mixers Collective on Discord. This will allow you to vote in the request polls and also engage with other mixers dedicating their time to this topic. Let’s get re-MIXING!