The words on a dispensary shelf are a mixture of three different things — what a product is made of, what it feels like in the hand, and what somebody in marketing decided to call it. This separates them.
What do top shelf, indoor, smalls and shake mean?
- Top shelf is a shop’s own grading, not a measured category. It usually means bigger, better-looking buds with a stronger aroma — and it is worth checking the certificate rather than the adjective.
- Indoor means grown under lights in a controlled room. It typically looks better and costs more than sun-grown; it is a growing method, not a quality guarantee.
- Smalls are the smaller buds from the same plants, sold cheaper. They look less impressive and often test the same.
- Shake is what breaks off during handling. Same plant, smaller pieces, the lowest price per gram on the shelf.
What is an infused pre-roll?
Flower ground and rolled for you. An infused pre-roll has concentrate added — kief, distillate, resin or rosin — and is considerably stronger, sometimes roughly double. Moon rocks take it furthest: flower dipped in concentrate and rolled in kief. Treat all three as different products rather than stronger versions of the same one. We compare the trade-off in flower versus pre-rolls.
What is the difference between a cart and a disposable?
- Carts (cartridges) screw onto a reusable battery. The battery outlives the cart.
- Disposables are cart and battery in one sealed unit, thrown away together. Convenient, more wasteful, usually cheaper up front.
- All-in-ones are the same idea with a rechargeable battery, so the unit lasts as long as the oil does.
- Live resin carts are filled with extract from fresh-frozen rather than dried plants, which keeps more aroma.
What counts as a concentrate?
Resin separated from the plant. Shatter, badder, diamonds, hash, live resin and live rosin all belong here and differ mainly in how they were made. The concentrates guide covers each method and what it changes.
How do edibles, tinctures and topicals differ?
- Gummies, chocolate and drinks are eaten or drunk and dosed in milligrams per piece. They take 30 to 120 minutes because they are digested first.
- Tinctures are liquid, measured by dropper, and held under the tongue arrive faster than a gummy — 15 to 45 minutes.
- Topicals go on the skin. They do not cross into the bloodstream in any meaningful amount, so they are not intoxicating whatever they contain.
Whichever you pick, the timing matters more than the label. How long each format takes has the full onset table.
