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KAVA PRODUCT ALERT Feel Free "Wellness Tonic" - Botanic Tonics

Cuzzie

Kava Enthusiast
I guess they’re making the rounds on podcasts. He was just interviewed on another podcast I listen to. This was a good one too. This sounds like a pretty safe and well tested product based on this interview. Only 4 ingredients and some stringent testing it seems. Curious if anyone disagrees after listening.

 

The Kap'n

The Groggy Kaptain (40g)
KavaForums Founder
If this guy's website literally printed money from my Chrome window when I visited, it still would not make me happy. They're being sleazy with their advertising to have kava so prominently featured. Let the customers know it has K@ in it. That's all I ask, and I can go back to my cave, lol.
 

Jacob Bula

Nobody
I guess they’re making the rounds on podcasts. He was just interviewed on another podcast I listen to. This was a good one too. This sounds like a pretty safe and well tested product based on this interview. Only 4 ingredients and some stringent testing it seems. Curious if anyone disagrees after listening.

I think everyone should have a choice what to consume... period. K@'s not the enemy, no plant is an enemy, no chemical compound is an enemy, but our relationships with any substance can be life-changing so we should be well informed when we choose what to put into our bodies. The problem with this situation is that there should be no deception involved. If you saw this product on a shelf, you shouldn't have to listen to a podcast to feel informed enough to drink it; although, you should never truly consume anything without taking a peak at the ingredient list. At least it does list the ingredients, unlike the beer I used to drink for years-- PBR- Ingredients: Beer.

I tried a K@ extract one time with a friend, and it felt unremarkable. I also knew the addictive protentional and made an informed decision to not drink it again. On the other hand if I didn't do my research and bought a few cases of this stuff thinking it was a relaxing drink made with kava, and then started having severe withdrawals and became a life-long K@ addict, I would feel like I was burnt by this company.
 

Groggy

Kava aficionado
Admin
I think everyone should have a choice what to consume... period. K@'s not the enemy, no plant is an enemy, no chemical compound is an enemy, but our relationships with any substance can be life-changing so we should be well informed when we choose what to put into our bodies. The problem with this situation is that there should be no deception involved. If you saw this product on a shelf, you shouldn't have to listen to a podcast to feel informed enough to drink it; although, you should never truly consume anything without taking a peak at the ingredient list. At least it does list the ingredients, unlike the beer I used to drink for years-- PBR- Ingredients: Beer.

I tried a K@ extract one time with a friend, and it felt unremarkable. I also knew the addictive protentional and made an informed decision to not drink it again. On the other hand if I didn't do my research and bought a few cases of this stuff thinking it was a relaxing drink made with kava, and then started having severe withdrawals and became a life-long K@ addict, I would feel like I was burnt by this company.
The problem for us is not K@ in it of itself, it's the association to kava and the blatant disrespect a lot vendors use with deceptional marketing making it seem like K@ is just as wonderful and somehow related to kava. That's the problem.
 

Skinskava

70-80 g to 1 Liter-Day Dreamer- My Roots Run Deep-
Agree with you Krunky,
The problem for us is not K@ in it of itself, it's the association to kava and the blatant disrespect a lot vendors use with deceptional marketing making it seem like K@ is just as wonderful and somehow related to kava. That's the problem.
Agreed Krunky,

I don’t believe one person in this community believes other herbs / substances out there are all inherently bad or evil. It does alot of good for those during the withdraw period from opiod dependency. Many individuals in the kava community have suffered with addiction before finding kava and id like to believe were all for harm reduction. With that said, be upfront and honest with your customers that there is a chance for dependency. What concerns me is these drinks target the uninformed consumer who goes into a smoothie or health shop and sees something in a cute little bottle that could help relax them or soothe their anxiety. Keep kava totally separate or it will continue to further intertwine kava with other legal hights that have entirely different effects. People deserve to experience the effect of kava by itself where its safety has been proven for hundreds of years. I know its hip these days to offer alternative herbal remedies in over priced health stores but be honest and show integrity theres no excuse for deceiving customers who dont know any better. Period.
 
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The Kap'n

The Groggy Kaptain (40g)
KavaForums Founder
I had removed this post because botanic tonic had featured their ingredients list on the front page of thier product listing. They have since moved this ingredients list to the more obscure "FAQ" section about 1/2 way down the page.

Not only that, this company has proven themselves to continually rely on insidious sales tactics:

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The Kap'n

The Groggy Kaptain (40g)
KavaForums Founder
And here we go.


Here's a competitor doing almost precisely the same thing, however they do make K@ an obvious ingredient on the website on the product label, but again obviously trying to say this is a kava product when it is not.

Disgraceful at best.
 

Alia

'Awa Grower/Collector
And here we go.


Here's a competitor doing almost precisely the same thing, however they do make K@ an obvious ingredient on the website on the product label, but again obviously trying to say this is a kava product when it is not.

Disgraceful at best.
Regarding Shot of Joy--They make a general statement of, (lumping kava in this also):
"We've gone the extra mile to import all of our plant-based ingredients from the beautiful island of Bali, Indonesia".
I also wondered if Feel Free still existed and found this Ad from August 2022, quote-
"Feel Free’s Plant-Based Tonic is a specially formulated tonic made from ancient plants in Southeast Asia and contains two main ingredients: kava and K@".
These associations with K@ as well as the fragmentation and re-invention of kava will continue to be crippling with regards to FDA review,
overall flawed understanding of many within the general public.
 

Artofkava

Jacksonville, FL
Kava Vendor
Wow! Fantastic that yall are on top of this. If it were marketed correctly it would be a different story. Super deceptive. I wonder if this would fall under the ftc as well in truth in advertising or something.
 

Edward

Aluballin' in the UK
Kava Vendor
This is the same rubbish that I commented on the other day on a different thread. It's so annoying that kava is being used this way to sell addictive products to unwary people. I hope that this sort of thing can be stamped out because kava is illegal in enough countries still because of this type of disinformation. At the moment we can point to the US as a beacon of hope concerning the use of kava. This threatens it.
 

Alia

'Awa Grower/Collector
This is the same rubbish that I commented on the other day on a different thread. It's so annoying that kava is being used this way to sell addictive products to unwary people. I hope that this sort of thing can be stamped out because kava is illegal in enough countries still because of this type of disinformation. At the moment we can point to the US as a beacon of hope concerning the use of kava. This threatens it.
It is heartening to read "...we can point to the US as a beacon of hope concerning the use of kava".
A huge concern remains the US FDA position regarding kava and them overthrowing the Codex alimentarius
safe food listing within the US. Having been deeply involved in this process I remain concerned by the
vast distance between science, culture, common sense, and a regulating agency.
 

Edward

Aluballin' in the UK
Kava Vendor
It is heartening to read "...we can point to the US as a beacon of hope concerning the use of kava".
A huge concern remains the US FDA position regarding kava and them overthrowing the Codex alimentarius
safe food listing within the US. Having been deeply involved in this process I remain concerned by the
vast distance between science, culture, common sense, and a regulating agency.
Yes, being honest it does frighten me that fat, white, heterosexual, religious, middle aged people should still be making any laws at all about anything ever without the benefit of any facts other than "it's drunk on the islands of the Pacific Ocean". Not that there is anything wrong with any of those states of being other than when you combine them together you do seem to get one type of world view!
 

The Kap'n

The Groggy Kaptain (40g)
KavaForums Founder
And now they've removed the amounts from the ingredients label

It did say 500mg of kava extract and 50mg K@

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Earthlark

Newbie
I ended up on this forum because I have been using Feel Free for the last 8 months, and I wanted to make my own mix because $8/bottle is too expensive for me. (I had been paying about $4.40/bottle with a discount.) I see, though, there a lot of negative feelings about Feel Free. I can understand that given it's addictive nature, and I am pretty skeptical myself about the use of K@, having read many stories online of addictions. Although I've let a number of friends try it, I'm a little hesitant, and I usually warn them about the addictive nature of K@, and that it's a pseudo-opioid (my own term).

My own experience is that it was one of the things that helped me get through a pretty rough time (my wife passed away last year), and that it has not been noticeably physiologically addictive. I've quit for a week a couple times without any noticeable physiological side effects. Though I'm guessing it has probably affected dopamine levels in some way, and I probably need to do a dopamine reset at some point. I've used it nearly every day for the past 8 months, from 1/2 bottle ~ 2 bottles, depending on the day. (If it's a 4:1 kava:K@ ratio as indicated in podcasts, I guess that puts me at about 250 ~ 1000mg of K@/day (according to the 2600mg listed in the post above). Seems that's a pretty small dose compared to what many people in the K@ world use, so I'm guessing that's why no noticeable physiological withdrawal symptoms.

I'm very disturbed though to hear that this was being handed out for free to college students and more or less sponsored by the college. :-/ Stories like that, and the lack of transparency on their site make me pretty hesitant to ever recommend someone try them again.

Nevertheless, one of the reasons I've stuck with the kava/K@ mix is that it makes me feel much like a cup of coffee--energy and hope and creativity--without the jitters or crash that I get a few hours later from coffee. As far as I can tell so far, my energy levels seem have seemed more balanced on days I drink that instead of coffee, and I've decreased the amount of coffee I drink (maybe 1-2 cups/week). That's one of the reasons that I'd like to keep using some kind of kava/K@ mix as an energy drink. But I guess I should phase it out for a while and try some other things!
 

Earthlark

Newbie
Interesting @kasa_balavu . Is that an older or new product label? I guess that label just denotes the actual active ingredients? Here's the label from the bottle in the video in first post of thread.

Kava: 1700mg
K@: 3500mg

Strange because that's a 2:1 ratio of K@:kava (rather than 4:1 kava:K@ mentioned in podcasts). I noticed change in the taste of the bottles over the last 8 months. So perhaps the amounts used shifted...


Feel Free Supplement Facts.jpg
 

The Kap'n

The Groggy Kaptain (40g)
KavaForums Founder
Interesting @kasa_balavu . Is that an older or new product label? I guess that label just denotes the actual active ingredients? Here's the label from the bottle in the video in first post of thread.

Kava: 1700mg
K@: 3500mg

Strange because that's a 2:1 ratio of K@:kava (rather than 4:1 kava:K@ mentioned in podcasts). I noticed change in the taste of the bottles over the last 8 months. So perhaps the amounts used shifted...


View attachment 12786
lol, good lord they change their formula regularly. Kasa_belavu's pic is an older ingredient list they had on the site prior to the one there now with no amounts.
 
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