All About Cannabis Vape Oils

Liz Filmer
14 May 2024

Weed carts are one of the most convenient ways to consume concentrated cannabinoids. However when starting, it’s easy to be confused by all the options.


What is a Vape Cart?

Weed pens need a cart. A cart is a glass tube that contains cannabis oil and an atomizer that will heat and vaporise the oil when it is connected to a battery. Carts often come full of different types of oils, such as THC oil or distillates. You can also buy empty carts to fill with oil. If you’re a beginner however then pre-filled weed carts are often the best option.

Once you have a 510-thread battery, you’ll be able to join it up with just about any weed cart you fancy. the battery provides the energy needed for the atomizer to vaporise the oil and make the vapour which is then inhaled via the mouthpiece.


The appearance of vape carts varies depending on manufacturer, price, size, and the type of oil in the cart. The first thing you’ll notice about your cart is the glass chamber filled with oil. Assuming it’s a high-quality oil, it should look translucent. Most weed oils appear as a light gold or honey-like colour. It’s common to see air bubbles in the liquid too. 

Weed carts come in multiple sizes with 1-gram and half-gram carts being the most common. The size refers to the amount of the oil contained in the cart.

How to Spot a Damaged or Cheap Cart

  • Little to no air bubble movement
  • dark, or brownish-black liquid
  • A burnt, ashy taste or smell 
  • Thick oil that moves like sludge
  •  Thin or watery weed oil

To avoid dodgy carts with these qualities stick to buying from trusted retailers.

Weed Cart Terms

There are other terms you’ll commonly hear to describe weed carts and how they are used. The phrase “Dab carts” is often used interchangeably with "weed carts", although this derives from a misinterpretation of the word “dab.” 

To clear up the confusion, You don’t dab weed oil, distillate or live resin carts because although the oils are concentrated, they have not been formulated into semi-solid concentrates like shatter and wax. Shatter and wax are accurately described as dabs whilst runny THC oil that you find in a cart is not. Dabs are only used in dab pens or e-nails that are designed solely for dabbing.

Weed Oil Options

The contents of your weed cart aren’t one size fits all, either. Oils come in a variety of forms, each boasting its unique texture, cannabinoid content, and consequences.

What cannabinoids can you get in your cart?

“Weed cart” is a broad term that covers a wide range of oils. Not every cart will contain the same cannabinoids or be extracted from the same region of the cannabis plant.

THC carts are by far the most popular for obvious reasons. These are also what springs to mind when most people think about “weed carts.” THC is the main psychoactive compound found in cannabis and it's going to get you high. How high you will get depends on the concentration and quality of the oil as well as your tolerance.

Delta 8 is another THC form that also produces a high albeit a much milder one. Whilst delta 9 THC is removed directly from the cannabis plant, delta 8 is extracted from hemp-derived CBD.

There is a growing range of other hemp-derived cannabinoids, like delta 10 THC, HHC, and THCP that are also coming to the forefront of the legal market. All with their own characteristics.

Unlike THC, vaping a CBD cart will not get you high. However, it is particularly popular due to its soothing effects. There is significant proof that CBD has other useful effects, including lessening inflammation and assisting in managing pain conditions.

THC, CBD, and Delta 8 Distillates

To produce a distillate, extractors will focus on a distinct cannabinoid. This could be any of those described above or another such as delta 10 or CBN. Distillation creates potent oils with exceptional purity levels that can be as high as 99%.

There is a negative to the distillation process however as when you’re removing everything except for the target cannabinoid, other minor cannabinoids will be lost in the process as well as terpenes. Terpenes are a big contributing factor in giving weed oil the familiar flavour that most users expect from cannabis. Many distillate manufacturers will add terpenes back into the oil after extraction and refining to recreate the desired flavour.

Full-Spectrum Carts

If you are after a cannabinoid and terpene profile that comes closer to the original plant’s then full-spectrum carts are the choice for you. These carts include a huge spectrum of natural blends and terpenes rather than simply one specific cannabinoid.

Live Resin Carts

Live resin is arguably the best-known full-spectrum extract. While live resin is a concentrated oil, the extraction method leads to the best conservation of the plant's natural terpenes and flavonoids in the end product. A good live resin should taste just like the cannabis plant from whence it came, however, these carts tend to be more costly than other types of carts.

Many say that vaping cannabis is the future of the legal market and due to the ever-expanding selection of weed carts available on the market, there is the perfect choice out there for everyone.

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Liz Filmer