Influential Female Vapers | Community
International Women’s Day celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. In a vaping world long dominated by men, the women behind the counter, at the mixing bench and behind the camera often went unnoticed, so we used the day to spotlight a few of them.
Just a pretty face?
Kelsey, who wrote the feature, remembered her first week at a vape shop, when a man told her she was just a pretty face behind the counter who knew nothing about vaping. She gave herself three months to out-learn him.
She studied Ohm’s law, conductivity, battery capacity and battery safety, and built coils late into the night until she could hit a target resistance from memory. Months later, the same man asked her to build him an intricate coil. Her reply: “Oh? But I thought I was just a pretty face?”
Andrea Hendricks, the flavor behind Stache Sauce
Andrea Hendricks was the chef and mixologist behind the e-liquid lines Stache Sauce and Stache Ride. With her husband, Chris, she also ran Vapor Cafe, a shop in Tacoma, Washington. Chris was the better-known face of the brand, but Andrea created the flavors.
The couple both smoked until a family moment convinced them to look into e-cigarettes, starting with eGo-style kits. They liked vaping enough to open a shop in north Tacoma, which had no other vape shop at the time. Chris had just retired after 22 years in the military and was looking for a second career.
Their house juice started in the shop’s back office, where Andrea, a dental hygienist by training, mixed recipes until customers begged to buy them. By the time of our feature, the lines were shipping out of state and overseas. Mixing was her favorite part of the job, and her own go-to flavors were Flavor Saver and Ferris Wheel.
More women in the spotlight
The feature also introduced Instagram vaper Hannah Merrill, part of a lineup meant to recognize women across the community: shop owners, mixologists, photographers, trick artists, coil builders and activists. For more, read our Women’s History Month tribute.
Where things stand now
The industry has changed a lot since then. Federal law set the minimum age for all tobacco and vaping products at 21 in December 2019, and every vaping product now needs FDA authorization through the PMTA process. Brands and shops from that era have come and gone, so treat the names here as a snapshot of the time. The women who build, mix and run businesses in vaping still deserve the credit.
WARNING: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. For adults 21+ only.