I've always thought "organic" was one of those hype words fit only to induce people to shell out more bucks than anyone could find sensible. "Organic cotton" is an exception, strangely enough.
I didn't find anything actually unpleasant about regular cotton, such as what you find in plain old cotton balls. Then I got some organic cotton balls... and suddenly, I could actually taste my ejuice. I stuck with that for a while, perfectly happy, then someone PIFed me some japanese organic-cotton pads to try... KGD isn't bad, but Shiseido is MILES better. Very little break in time at all... and
@UncleRJ shared a tip for getting past that in an amazingly short time -- after you first build your coil, or after you dry-burn it, give it a short pulse and drip some ejuice directly on the hot coil once or twice, THEN wick it, and prime the new wick with enough juice to really soak it... Naturally you start at much lower than normal wattage with a new wick, but by the time you take 1-3 hits, the [very mild] cotton taste is GONE.
The cotton pads are excellent because the cotton is combed until all the fibers are aligned -- which has a TREMENDOUSLY good effect on capillary ("wicking") action -- definitely a good thing for y'all using that horribly thick high-VG because that shit is hard to wick, it's so thick. I prefer Shiseido not just because it has a much shorter break-in than KGD, but because it's pure white with zero flecks, so you can easily tell when it's time to re-wick. With KGD, the color is beige, and there are a lot of black flecks in it, so it's hard to know if the wick needs replacing or it's just the natural coloration of the cotton when wet.
Andria
