VICE: What's Really In Your Vape? Cannabis Oil Types, Explained
VICE asked cannabis vape experts to explain the oil types on today's dispensary menus, and ACTIVE VP Randy Reed was one of them.
Distillate, live resin, cured resin, live rosin, liquid diamonds, sauce, full spectrum: the list of terms on a vape box keeps getting longer. In “What's Really In Your Vape? Cannabis Oil Types, Explained,” VICE writer Maha Haq works through what each one actually means, with input from Randy Reed of ACTIVE, Matt Martinez of Heavy Hitters, Jessie Kater of Curaleaf, and Kris Sacks of ACMS.
Where “live” comes from
Today “live resin” usually means an extract made from fresh-frozen cannabis rather than dried and cured flower. Reed points out that the term is older than the vape boom: early extractors also used “live” for concentrates in which THCA crystallized and separated from the terpene-rich part of the extract.
What curing changes
Cured resin starts from flower that has been dried and cured first. Reed explains that curing shifts the terpene profile. Some of the lighter, more volatile compounds fade and heavier terpenes come forward, which helps give cured resin its deeper flavor.
How liquid diamonds are made
Reed describes how THCA crystals can be separated from an extract, then melted and decarboxylated into a fluid oil that works in a vape, often with a terpene-rich fraction added back in. As the article notes, “liquid diamonds” is not one standard formula, so the name on the package is only the start of the story.
The oil is only half the vape
The piece ends on a point ACTIVE builds its hardware around: the same oil can taste and perform very differently depending on the device. Heating element, voltage, airflow and oil intake size all shape the result, and thick oils like rosin need different hardware from thinner, terpene-heavy formulations. As Sacks puts it in the article, “the oil is only as good as the hardware that it is vaporized through.”
That's the thinking behind Singular, which pairs each extract type with a purpose-built pod, and behind the full range of ACTIVE cartridges, pods and all-in-ones.