About
I smoked for years. I tried to stop twice. The first attempt lasted a few weeks. The second one got me thirteen months — thirteen months of being genuinely proud of myself, right up until the night I wasn’t.
Then I found snus.
I’d like to tell you that this is where the story turns into a success. It isn’t, quite. What actually happened is that I stopped smoking and started using nicotine pouches, and I have used them ever since. I got rid of one addiction by picking up another one. That is the honest version, and it is the version this site is built on.
Snus Freak is my nickname. My name is Jose Del Pozo. I’m not a doctor, a researcher or a harm-reduction consultant. I’m someone who has worked through more cans than I’d care to total up, kept notes on all of them, and got steadily more annoyed at what comes up when you search for an honest opinion about any of them.
The part where I admit this became a problem
Somewhere along the way, trying pouches stopped being a thing I did and became a thing I do. I don’t mean that as a joke about being a freak. I mean there is a spreadsheet.
It started because I kept forgetting. You try a can, you like it, three weeks later you’re in a shop staring at forty near-identical white tins with no idea which one you liked or why. So I started writing it down — date, product, strength, what it actually tasted like after five minutes rather than after five seconds, how long before the flavour gave up, whether my gum was complaining by the end of it.
Then I started noticing patterns the marketing doesn’t tell you about. That two pouches labelled 6 mg can feel completely different because one is formulated more alkaline. That the “ice” in a product name is usually a separate ingredient from the mint. That fleece quality decides whether you’re comfortable at the forty-minute mark, and no can mentions it. That the strongest thing on the shelf is almost never the best thing on the shelf.
None of that is in any product description. It took hundreds of cans and a lot of notes to work out, and it is the reason this site exists rather than being a folder on my laptop.
How I actually test
I buy the cans myself. Every one of them. Nobody sends me anything, and if that ever changes the page will say so at the top, in the same size text as everything else.
Each product gets at least three days in normal use — with coffee, at work, in the car, late in the evening when tolerance is different. One pouch tells you almost nothing. Three days tells you whether you’d buy it again, which is the only question that matters.
Then it gets scored on six things, and every score comes with a reason:
- Flavour intensity — is it there, or are you imagining it?
- Flavour longevity — does it survive past the first five minutes?
- Nicotine kick — how it arrives and how it settles, not just how hard it hits
- Comfort — the fleece, the shape, whether you forget it’s there
- Drip — how much runs, and whether that’s pleasant or grim
- Value — what you get for the price in its own market
The overall score is the average of those six. It is not nudged afterwards to make a ranking look tidier, and it is never nudged for commercial reasons. Where I haven’t used something and I’m working from the manufacturer’s specifications, the page says so at the top and carries no score at all.
Why this site exists
Almost every review you’ll find for a pouch is published by someone who sells it. The scores go up when the margin does. The “best of” lists are the stock list with a headline on top. I got tired of it, I couldn’t find the site I wanted to read, so I’m writing it.
What I will not do
I don’t recommend that anyone start using nicotine pouches. If you don’t use nicotine, please don’t start — not with pouches, not with anything. Nothing on this site is an invitation. This is for people who already smoke or already use pouches, written on the assumption that you’re already in it.
I’m not going to pretend this is harmless either. Nicotine is addictive. I would rather not be dependent on it. I am, and I’d rather be honest about that than sell you a story about wellness.
What’s better than smoking, and what still isn’t
| What’s better | What’s still a problem |
|---|---|
| No smell — hands, clothes, car | I’m still dependent. That hasn’t changed |
| Usable on a flight, a train, at a match | Gum irritation, especially with the strong ones |
| No stepping outside, no standing in the rain | It costs real money over a year |
| My sense of taste came back within weeks | It’s easier to use more, because nothing stops you |
| No smoke for anyone else to breathe | Some days I still want a cigarette |
If a page on this site only tells you the good half, I’ve done it wrong. Tell me and I’ll fix it.