About Craig Jones

Craig Jones has been reviewing glass since before most of our customers had their driver's license. As Senior Product Curator for Waterbeds 'n' Stuff — America's smoke shop since 1972 — he is personally responsible for evaluating everything that ends up recommended across all 13 Ohio locations. Every bong, rig, vaporizer, and rolling accessory has passed through Craig's hands first. If it's bad, that's on him. If it's great, also him.

Over two decades, Craig has evaluated more than 1,000 products across every category — from $15 spoon pipes to $800 limited-edition American glass. He has attended every major industry trade event for 15 consecutive years, which means he has shaken hands with more glass artists, brand reps, and industry characters than he cares to admit. He's also seen more gimmicks come and go than a late-night infomercial channel, which is precisely why he's very hard to impress.

How He Got Here

Craig didn't set out to become the foremost authority on what Ohioans smoke out of. He started on the floor of one of the Waterbeds 'n' Stuff retail locations, answering customer questions and quickly realizing that most of the industry's product decisions were being made by people who had never actually used the products. He made it his mission to fix that — one hands-on evaluation at a time.

What started as a floor employee's curiosity turned into a career built on one stubborn principle: if you wouldn't stake your own reputation on recommending it, don't put it on the shelf. That standard, applied across 20+ years and 13 store locations, is why WNS customers come back — and why Craig's product picks have a sell-through rate that would make a bourbon distillery jealous.

Editorial Standards & Review Methodology

Every product Craig writes about has been physically handled and tested. His methodology covers:

• Glass quality — wall thickness, joint angle precision, weld integrity, borosilicate vs. soft glass identification. He can tell the difference by feel. It's a little unsettling to watch.
• Functional performance — drag, diffusion efficiency, ice-catching, ease of cleaning. If cleaning it requires an engineering degree, it fails.
• Vaporizer benchmarking — heat-up time, temperature accuracy, vapor path hygiene, session vs. on-demand performance. Battery life claims are verified, not trusted.
• Value analysis — MAP pricing cross-reference, brand warranty support, and durability data pulled from all 13 store locations' return records.
• Consumer feedback integration — real customer complaints and compliments from the retail floor, a dataset no internet-only reviewer has access to.

Areas of Deep Expertise

• Water pipes & bongs — percolator science, glass origin authentication, cleaning techniques, budget-to-premium value mapping
• Dab rigs & e-rigs — quartz banger quality, e-rig comparison (Puffco, Focus V, Dr. Dabber), carb cap mechanics, terp slurper setups
• Dry herb vaporizers — conduction vs. convection, terpene preservation at specific temperature ranges, portable vs. desktop tradeoffs
• Rolling accessories — paper material science (rice, hemp, flax), slow-burn chemistry, pre-roll machine performance testing
• Product authentication — identifying counterfeit Puffco, RAW, and ROOR products. Craig considers this a personal vendetta as much as a professional service.