For herb aficionados of the UK scene there is some point of contention surround skins. What is the best material to make rolling papers out of?
What is the best size? Traditional papers or cones? Roaches or filters? This is a real and ongoing debate.
Friendships have been ruined, brother turned against brother, blood in the streets; none of these things have happened because the debate isn’t that vociferous, but still.
Here is our 100% impartial break down of all the different variables that exist in skins and rolling papers.
Hemp or Organic?
Hemp paper has been around for a very long time, in facet hemp paper has been found in ancient Chinese tombs dating back to 147BC.
The first rough paper made from hemp was produced by the Western Han Dynasty in China.
Hemp remained a popular material for paper right up until the early 20th century when it’[s popularity declined. Hemp remains as one of the most popular materials to make cigarette papers from.
Hemp papers burn slowly and evenly as long as you pack them evenly. If you still have trouble with uneven burns maybe increase the amount of tobacco in your herb blend.
A popular brand of hemp papers is RAW, who supply incredibly high quality and affordable skins in a variety of papers.
Organic papers are made from a variety of materials. A popular material is rice paper.
Rice paper skins are often incredibly thin, nearly transparent, and watermarked to ensure an even and slow burn. Elements have a range of high quality papers that are virtually see through.
Cones or Rolling Papers?
Another point of contention between smokers is whether you should roll your skins from scratch or use cones, and if you DO decide to use skins do you use king sized ones or do you build a three skinner out of standard papers?
Building a three skinner takes some level of skill, you have to use the gummed edges of the paper to link the two skins together.
The advantage of this is that standard papers are somewhat easier to carry about, and people will be impressed with your skills, somewhat.
King size papers removed the need to join two papers together. They are a much more straight forward roll, and once you get the basic technique down it’s hard to go wrong with them.
The downside generally tends to be that they’re somewhat harder to carry about than regular skins and a bit harder to track down when you run out.
Glass supply a fantastic range of king size rolling papers should you need to stock up!
Cones make rolling a joint into the easiest task in the world. There’s hardly any technique to it, simply tip your herb blend into it, roll it around and voila, you’re ready to go.
Some brands of skin even come with built in filters so you don’t need to scavenge a strip of card for a roach. A great line of cones can be found in RAW’s range of rolling papers
Supersize?
For those of you who want to push their smoking experience even further then there’s a range of extra large foot long papers for you to get stuck into.
These papers come in a range of materials, RAW providing hemp and Elements supplying organic rice papers.
Footlong skins will allow you to roll engineering marvels that will keep an entire party going! However are they worth it?
Despite the aesthetic of a giant joint it looks like they’re not the best. Generally speaking, larger joints require more combustion to burn properly.
This can lead to a greater loss of herb when you aren’t toking as the herb burns out.
Generally unless you’re sharing with a lot of people, it’s not much use to roll with footlong skins!