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The Rise & Fall of Old Vaping Brands: Whatever Happened To...

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If you’ve vaped for long enough to have your feet embedded in the roots of the vaping community, you’ve likely withstood every trend, every brand that has come and gone, and most definitely tested many products until you found the right one for you. You’re probably familiar with a lot of gone but not forgotten brands that, at one point, reigned within the industry. Well, where are some of these brands now?

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Gamucci

Formed in 2007, Gamucci were an electronic cigarette company that specialised in making refills and batteries. They were up against giants such as 10 Motives and even briefly surpassed them in their prime. When we took their products on at ET, they were by far our top-selling electronic cigarette brand, loved by many!

So, what went wrong? Gamucci seemed to run into some financial difficulties and there was also in-house trouble between directors of the company, with legal action taken against one of them by the others. Eventually, this led to the liquidation and dissolvement of the company, and many were sad to see Gamucci go. Products like the Gamucci Vitesse kit, compatible with cartomizers from other ranges, were one of our top-sellers as well as the tobacco-flavoured cartomizers. One specific customer of ours was also quite fond of the Cherry cartomizer flavour!

Since then, we’ve taken on brands like Hoxton, which are even Gamucci compatible, that offer similar products and flavours. Most Gamucci customers seamlessly transitioned to Hoxton, satisfied that they didn’t have to sacrifice familiarity in their vaping journey!

Vapestick

Vapestick is another vape brand established in 2009, peaking in 2014 for its extensive collection of cigalike batteries and refills. Popular cartomizer flavours include Vanilla and Tobacco, which had consumers in a metaphorical chokehold for e-cigs.

Nothing scandalous seemed to happen to Vapestick, which leads me to believe that their rise and fall in popularity was down to the surplus of competitors. Along this journey, BAT (British American Tobacco) acquired them at their peak - a mega-giant in the tobacco industry - but shortly after, they went into administration around 2016. This subsequently led to the company’s dissolution in 2019, at which point Vapestick was nowhere to be found.

As mentioned previously, Hoxton was an exceptional alternative for Gamucci products, and the same can be said for Vapestick - when Hoxton was first introduced to the market, they were also cross-compatible with Vapestick products!

Skycig


Founded in 2011, Skycig was a British brand focused on manufacturing cigalike and cartomizer products. Quite popular among consumers, Skycig had ample opportunity to flourish, which it did. However, soon after its rise in popularity, the Lorillard Tobacco Company (USA) took over Skycig and blu Cigs, merging them to rebrand as blu.

Onwards, UK consumers now know Skycig as blu, a vaping giant in the industry, competing with large companies like Vuse and JUUL. blu has also halted the selling of cigalikes in the UK and has, instead, decided to focus on pre-filled pod mods and cartridge ranges. Luckily, Skycig seem to have a great ending to their story, unlike Vapestick and Gamucci!

E-Lites

Since being founded in 2009, E-Lites have a reputable background despite no longer being around. Founder and CEO Adrian Everett conquered his humble beginnings to achieve great success. Dealing with many personal life issues, he still managed to generate just enough money to create the E-Lites brand.

There’s probably never been a cigalike within the market that bore such an uncanny resemblance to traditional cigarettes, from the vaping experience to the Marlboro-esque packaging E-Lites came in - this is what they were renowned for! In 2014, the brand was sold to tobacco giant JTI (Japanese Tobacco International), allowing the CEO to manage and further grow the brand image on a global scale.

Where are they now? Eventually, the brand was merged with Logic to create Logic Vapes, a well-known brand still running today. Logic Vapes no longer focuses on manufacturing cigalike products (apart from in the US where the Logic Power is still a big seller), instead putting their efforts into producing pre-filled pod mods like the  and cartridge ranges. For more information on this, you can read our blog about E-Lites.

By Rona Recica

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