Velvet Glove is a cross between GMO and Nookies and something I’ve been keen to try having stumbled across it a couple times on dispensary shelves but never ended up taking it home (yay being spoiled for choice in Oregon!).
However upon seeing the mammoth size of these buds and getting blasted in the face with a deep dark peppercorn gas cloud of funk I knew I had to take a full 7 grams of this stuff home with me.
In this review we explore:
Would love to try some Nookies one day, sounds like a killer combo there with a fizzy Nigerian landrace parent (smokes like a Silver to me) crossed with a more sedating Animal Cookies which seems like the perfect contrast to make a nicely balanced hybrid smoke.
Then here’s the GMO. GMO is well, GMO. You know, fucking delicious?
Combine the two and you have this super kushy cookie profile with the GSC from GMO making friends with the Animal Cookies in Nookies and then the Chemdawg from GMO totally vibing out in the paint shed with the Nigerian, which I suspect to be a Silver.
The net output is a smooth fuzzy layer of velvet over a gassy iron fist that firmly places its hand upon your shoulder to ease you down into your couch, where you’ll likely want to stay for a while after lighting up.
So shout out to Swamp Boys Seeds for breeding this gem of an experience. The Chemdawg from the GMO is quite pronounced and pairs so well with the Nigerian landrace in the Nookies parent, just as the Forum GSC from the GMO plays perfectly with the Animal Cookies from the Nookies.
Double ying and double yang, doubly balanced, producing a doubly deep smoking experience IMO.
The result is a thick, robusto, yet smooth soul-warming smoke, which hits JUST right on an drizzly Oregon fall evening, before making some hot sesame chicken noodle soup and digging in for a couple episodes of Star Trek Voyager.
This particular quarter ounce of Velvet Glove was grown by none other than Herbal Dynamics, a living soil operator out of Eugene Oregon, famous for their living soil dankness and immaculate Ice Cream Cake strain, widely considered to the THE Ice Cream Cake to get in the area, IYKYK.
Herbal Dynamics does full-bodied strains that never fuck around and are always 100%, whether they be frosty GMO crosses like this here Velvet Glove or whether they be gasy fruit crosses like Nitro Fumez, 4K HD comes to play, every, single, time.
Appearance: Exaggerated Chonk Monstas
Even before laying flame to some of this Herbal Dynamics flower you’re already in an anticipatory mood because they are on of the most consistent big bud producers in Oregon.
Just like THC percentage isn’t everything neither is the size of your buds HOWEVER they are both INDICATIVE of some well cultivated, happy plants.
My whole quarter ounce order was contained in just 3 big ass chonksters. The last grower to surpass the 7g mark with just 3 nugs was… also Herbal Dynamics with their Nitro Fumez.
Can your homie ChAdster420 grow bigger? Perhaps. Am I still impressed when I get my whole quarter ounce order fulfilled at a recreational dispensary with just three huge nugs? Absolutely. Great work Oregrown PDX!
This is why I say these are chonky monkeys, because they are thick, dark, gnarly looking thangs. They are plump, exhibit a beautiful camouflage of dark olive greens and deep purple hues, with a rough textured surface area.
I’m not sure what percent of this is do to the plants genetics, what percent is the cultivation, and what percent is the (obviously amazing) trimming job, but this HD weed that looks dense and course enough to grate cheese with.
You just don’t get this depth of texture and accurate representation of the plants natural beauty with machine trimming. The extra effort that Herbal Dynamics consistently puts into their trimming is VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!
If an art teacher asked for an example of weed to share with their painting class I would recommend this here Velvet Glove simply because they’re so big and exaggerated in their features that you needn’t squint to discern the outline of these proudly pronounced calyxes.
Smell: Vintage Leather, Coffee Grounds & Peppercorn Eucalyptus Abounds
This is a deep dark smell that is quite potent and might be a bit intimidating for the uninitiated, like eau de parfum vs cologne or eau de toilette, and a dark woodsy musty one at that.
There is a deep, almost sparkly chemical freshness on top of wet leather jacket mixed with a bit of hot asphalt smell that I think is a unique output of the Nigerian landrace genetics being crossed with the funky GMO genetics.
Riding atop of these deeper danker earthy base layers is a slightly chemy almost minty gas that hits the nose quite sharply. I associate this astringent eucalyptus Vicks Vapor type of intensity with hazes and Silvers in particular, so attributing the Nigerian genetics here.
In full transparency, I don’t know if the Nigerian parent genetics are indeed landrace Silver but the tingly intensity of this bright gassy top note is definitely in the same ballpark as far as intensity of impact to the nose goes and not something I usually find in GMOs or GSCs.
The bouquet is quite complex between this strong chemy Silver, the leather and the bite of white onion base. This is married well with the kushy sourdough binding it all together like a sticky sourdough.
Makes sense as these genetics derive their potency of smell from some of the most darker soulful aromas of the cannabis kingdom.
There is not really any fruit or candy here, minus a little bit of tart raspberry on the tail end and some dark roast coffee out of a tin (think metal tin Foldgers) flavor notes when dry pulled and upon first spark-up.
Thus, if you’re exclusively a fruity, unicorn poopy, type of toker this probably isn’t at the top of your list although hey, it’s always good to try new things once and a while and I think Velvet Glove is a very unique example of how you can really have some fun with popular classic like GMO.
Trust me, this isn’t your typical GMO. It’s much less dinner at grandmas and much more more on the straight gas side of things.
As such, there is less garlic and mushroom and more onion astringency but even that is diluted to a more generic minty chem-y tingle than the body odor hallmarks that come with prototypical meatloaf accompaniments often associated with heavy GMOs.
GMOs wide variety of expressions in all of the various hybrids it exists may be attributable to the presence of Skatole which is the “primary cause of fecal odor in mammalian feces” that is “produced in the digestive tract via the decomposition of tryptophan”.
In cannabis however, because there are so many various compounds interacting with one another, especially after activation, you get entirely different outcomes.
According to this publication by the American Chemical Society, skatole is strongly associated with GMO, Garlic Cookies, and Chem strains and the “aroma of this compound is complex and changes drastically at different concentrations and in the presence of other aroma compounds”.
Sensation: Sunglasses At Night Shit
Alright, time to get down to how this stuff actually smokes!
Velvet Glove isn’t necessarily here to be your friend and it doesn’t really care what you think of it and you got to love it.
If you are in the club of people who appreciate the depth of a good GMO and the fuel-ladden minty gas that usually accompanies anything with a Nigerian landrace or particularly potent Chem D in it then well, you know what you’re looking at here.
The sensation you get after inhaling some Velvet Glove is a calming one that turns the dial down on things to give a shit about and helps you get into your own zone.
It feels like that moment in movie theaters when the previews end and the lights are turned down at a very gradual pace, limiting the distractions for your brain to focus on, pulling a soft velvety blanket over your brain.
I have found this helpful when out in public as it tones down the intensity of all noise and motion around me and allows me to kind of groove to an inner melody that got me head nodding along Bassnectar and Rodney P’s Nice & Easy remix.
The modern world is an intense buzz that can wear you down like an impenetrable mass of mosquitoes. Velvet Glove functions as a thick rubber rain coat, blocking both incessant itch of the overly uptight plebe bugs as well as muting their insufferable wing flapping.
When I smoke Velvet Glove I want to keep my sunglasses on, pull my baseball cap down low, and simply not participate in any conversations.
Not saying this weed makes you go mute, it’s not that potent, but it diminishes my need to socialize. My responses become minimal and to the point. I’m more keen to focus on riding this perfect barrel wave of glassy chillness for as long as I can.
This flower is jam packed full of potent compounds that marry together well, like a fine aged Bushmills or Hibiki and infuse your bloodstream with equal amounts of gradual certainty.
Smoking Velvet Glove is an entire flight of experiences with many different complex flavors to try to isolate. A glittery Rubik’s cube for the senses. It’s a complex strain and hard to explain. Full flavors abound in this burrito of big hitting gentics.
So in conclusion, if you enjoy GMO and/or GMO derivatives or you just like the fresh cold gas cut of a good Silver Haze then you’ll probably get a kick out of this well balanced heavy hitting hybrid.
It’s got the GMO depth but comes with plenty of permanent marker gas, even more so honestly than the actual Permanent Marker weed I recently smoked. It’s also a fresh smoke, with a cleanliness on the palette akin to what you see in the uber-clean 5 Star strain.
If you’ve smoked Garlic Drip (GMO x White OG), Compound Genetic’s Jet Fuel Gelato (Jet Fuel x Gelato) or even Lit Farm’s Black Soap (The Soap x Permanent Marker) then I think you’d be really pleased with a sack of Velvet Glove.
If you only smoke candy then respect, I love candies too, but also then a strain like Velvet Glove may not be for you.
