Expanding the E-Liquid Flavor Wheel: Classification of Emerging E-Liquid Flavors in Online Vape Shops

Introduction: Electronic cigarettes are the most popular tobacco product among U.S. youth, and over 80% of current youth users of e-cigarettes use flavored e-cigarettes, with fruit, mint/menthol, and candy/sweets being the most popular flavors. A number of new e-liquid flavors are currently emerging in the online e-cigarette market. Menthol and other flavored e-cigarettes could incentivize combustible tobacco smokers to transition to e-cigarette use. Methods: From February to May 2021, we scraped data of over 14,000 e-liquid products, including detailed descriptions of their flavors, from five national online vape shops. Building upon the existing e-liquid flavor wheel, we expanded the semantic databases (i.e., key terms) to identify flavors using WordNet-a major database for keyword matching and group discussion. Using the enriched databases, we classified 14,000+ e-liquid products into the following 11 main flavor categories: fruit, dessert/candy/sweets, coffee/tea, alcohol, other beverages, tobacco, mint/menthol, nuts, spices/pepper, other flavors, and unspecified flavor. Results: We find that the most prominent flavor sold in the five online vape shop in 2021 was fruit flavored products, followed by dessert/candy/other sweets. Online vendors often label a product with several flavor profiles, such as fruit and menthol. Conclusions: Given that online stores market products with multiple flavor profiles and most of their products contain fruit flavor, the FDA may have issued marketing denial orders to some of these products. It is important to further examine how online stores respond to the FDA flavor restrictions (e.g., compliance or non-compliance).

Automated summary

Introduction: Electronic cigarettes, particularly flavored ones like fruit, dessert/candy, and menthol, are popular among U.S. youth. This study examines the flavor profiles of over 14,000 e-liquid products from five national online vape shops. Results reveal that fruit flavors are the most prominent, followed by dessert/candy flavors. Online vendors often label products with multiple flavor profiles. Further research is needed to understand how online stores comply with FDA flavor restrictions.