How Much Influence Does Bag Appeal Have on You?

[DoobieDuck]

Private Poll
My friends I’m doing a little research on a couple things I’m curious about. I’m posting a couple polls in different forums; I’d be quite honored if you will vote in them if you happen across them. And your comments in the threads greatly appreciated as well.
I’m curious what might cause people to first grade cannabis a lot of times just by the aesthetic appearance of it? I hear it over and over again in my threads, from many different types of cannabis lovers how, after looking though my images, they can’t wait to get some of the strain I’m displaying. A lot of the time they’re willing to bet it is killer. I’m quite aware of resin content being one of the things Peeps are looking for but I’ve had snow crystal resin covered buds that hardly got one high. Another thing that sparked my interest was when I was visiting with a local collective last year the boys there were discussing how their pricing depended 75% on “bag appeal” and they claimed that was the first thing their patients were looking for.
I’m somewhat an old timer-57, what I mean by that is all my life we smoked the product then judged it from its effects. Bag appeal I don’t think was even in my dictionary until 20 years ago. We appreciated large colas when we saw them but that was not often. Now as a Med patient, who benefits from using cannabis, that sight first evaluation by other patients, one that influences their purchase, raises my curiosity levels even more.
Thanks..DD
Edit..I've set up a poll for Legal medical patients Only, if you're a medical cannabis patient please vote there..thank you, DD

 

[oceangrownkush]

Very little. The smoke test is the ultimate deciding factor.

 

[Green Supreme]

0% for me. That's some mighty small printing there buddy. Peace GS

ps. prohibition causes bag appeal envy. Good weed does not look a certain way

 

[skullznroses]

not sure, don't buy weed

I think it has everything to do with sell-ability, as your friends at the dispensary have said. My friends like to walk around with stanky bags in their pockets to seem cool, and whipping the weed out for an inspection before smoking is definitely the norm... so folks can oogle all over it. Id say that the smell is the biggest part of the bag appeal,, if it smells nice people think its hot shit they gotta have. People like the skunk smell is what I have been told by a friend who hustles bags of mersh.

 

[Agaricus]

Same here. First come the effects, then to some extent the taste. Bag appeal's not a consideration.

Old-time Mex brick weed was ugly as sin and tasted like dirt. Full of seeds. It took 2 or 3 joints for a good buzz. But that pure sativa buzz was superb and I don't recall any ceiling. I wouldn't mind getting 'hold of some of that again.

 

[DoobieDuck]

thanks..wow fast response, good answers. I've enlarged the font.please vote, your answers are important too....DD

Tom Hill X-18

 

[headband 707]

Yeah means shit to me I have seens and smoked some crazy weed that looked like shit.. but got me very high. Plus I have had fantastic looking weed that SUCKED too many times it had it all flavor, taste but no kick.. So I would have to say appearance means shit it's what is in the smoke that counts.. stay safe headband 707

 

[SupaDupaDupa]

Effect is most important.

 

[bentom187]

its a factor but not nearly as much as the effects of the product.

 

[pangolin]

The concept is a recent one to me too but i'd be lying if it had no bearing at all...love to see some commercial that actually had bag appeal round here.

Seems much like all the fruit and veg at the supermarket, uniform, great skin finish etc but often very bland and uninteresting otherwise. So much of the modern consumer mentality that it's hard to be immune from.

Like many others here alot of the grass i puffed years ago was essentially bagged dry compost but the highs from some of it were memorable indeed.

 

[+Vibes]

the results will surely be skewed from most people on this website right? in a non-med state here and its about 80% of the sale, 10% name, 10% smell. most people don't care for the smoke test, even with large amounts. its all about 100% resale value.

i think the question for us should regard plant selection. sometimes the plants i choose to keep are just the prettiest ones.... guilty

only the heady people i know, who buy/use on a personal level care about anything else

 

[midwestHIGHS]

Well for me I make oil out of all my flowers, So I judge by flavor/smell first then resin head content. If a bag of flowers has been badly handled or generally has low resin content(lots of stalks) and has little to no smell, I will not make it into extracts for vaporizing. I look for a quality high, an abundance of resin heads and lots of flavor/smell when choosing my flowers for extracting.

 

[dCarboxyL8]

I say f*** bag appeal.........If I can't smell it reeking well before I have even seen it(much less been within proximity), I have no use for it.

 

[Duplicate]

I usually don't get to smoke before I buy so it's kind of hard to say otherwise. Though my bag appeal might be different from someone else's. After smoking it though I'd say it's all about the effects. Here in SoCal I've had this blackberry kush that has always looked amazing but did very little for me. Never bought again.

 

[TribalSeeds]

Looks arent important? Of course if it doesnt look good, Ill just grab something that does. I dont get to smoke test everything.
People always tell me that taste isnt a big deal. If they want some fruity shit, or whatever, they will buy some fruit or whatever. If it looks great, gets me high, but the taste isnt there, or its just harsh, Ill find something else.
I dont care if it smells great or if I cant smell it, as long as it doesnt smell bad.

 

[midwestHIGHS]

OMG I was going to say blackberrykush is infamous for looking frosty as hell, but it actually is just a bunch of stalks with very small to no resin heads. A few bowls didn't even get me high. I also had some thai dom herb that was hermied to hell and looked very poorly grown. This was some of the most psychedelic spiciest tasting herb I have ever encountered, I had friends refusing to smoke it because the high was so crazy.

So it can go both ways, but most of the time your eyes can decifer quality over crap.

 

[greenmatter]

i think most growers know that something that does not look perfect can still knock you on your ass. lots of folks who don't grow put too much on the eye candy factor ......... i call it the kardashian effect

 

[FiveLeggedGoat]

Bag appeal is king with regards to buying and selling where I'm from. When inexperienced buyers are given a choice between two strains, they chose whichever one is most visually appealing 99 out of 100 times. In these parts, you typically don't get to sample the merch before buying so people primarily use looks along with smell as a barometer in predicting how good the bud is....

 

[MaynardG_Krebs]

I think vibes has the start of a good point. I'm looking at this question as both a grower and as an end buyer. From the grower's side of me, bag appeal is important from a 'market value' sort of thing... and, I must admit that when I was an end use buyer, 'bag appeal' in the form of look, feel and smell were often the only means of deciding on 'take it, or leave it'... So, I guess to me, it is somewhat important, but it is the effect that makes me decide to keep or ditch a strain. If it's a somewhat scraggly looking product that works real good, then it might just be a keeper despite it's shortcomings. I had a strain 2 years ago that I was quite excited about while it was growing... huge main cola, great smell,etc, but when it was dried and cured, all that was left was 'bag appeal'.. low buzz factor and the smell was pretty much gone and the taste was so-so at best... that strain got binned despite being a huge yielder with great visual appeal.. sorry to ramble, but it's a topic that I think has many facets...

mgk

 

[rasputin]

Before I started growing? Probably 80%. Smell mattered a lot, too. For most buyers bag appeal is the #1 indicator of quality, or so they think, at least.

But nowadays? Zero. I'm not in the marketplace anymore and have learned the lesson from growing that appearance only tells half the story, if that. I've seen plants covered in resin with fat calyxes that smoke like hemp and also the opposite, plants that look like shit but burn like a dream.