Glass Tips vs Paper Roaches — What’s Actually Better?

Everyone’s got an opinion. Most people have only ever tried one. Paper roaches have been the default since the dawn of rolling — free, instant, made from whatever’s to hand. Glass tips have been around longer than most people realise. The honest answer about which is better depends on what you actually want from a tip.

Paper roaches

Ubiquitous. Literally everywhere. You can make one out of the back of a Rizla packet, a business card, a strip torn from a cereal box. Roll it up, jam it in the end. The designs vary more than you’d think — accordion folds, W-folds, spiral rolls, plain tubes. All doing the same job: keeping the end open so it doesn’t collapse, stopping bits ending up in your mouth. What they don’t do is filter much. A cardboard tip is more of a structural handle than an actual filter — the smoke passes through largely unchanged. Cheap. Instant. Single use, bin it when done.

Glass tips

Not all the same thing. Worth knowing before you buy. Flat-ended are the most basic — clean glass tube, smooth on both ends. Round-ended are similar but easier on the lip. Ones with nibs inside break up the airflow slightly. Vortex tips are the most engineered — holes drilled at angles to create a spinning effect on the smoke, which slows and cools it as it comes through. It’s not marketing. You can actually feel the difference. All reusable. When they need cleaning, run them through some ISO (isopropyl alcohol) or proper bong cleaner, rinse, dry, done. No paper taste. Don’t collapse. Keep the heat off your lips and fingers. You can smoke all the way down without burning yourself.

So which?

Paper roach: free, instant, disposable. Right for most people most of the time. Glass tip: a few quid upfront, reusable indefinitely. Worth it if you care about taste and temperature. The vortex styles are genuinely different to smoke through — the spinning action cools things down noticeably. Once you’ve used one you tend to keep using one. Neither is doing anything sophisticated with the smoke chemistry. If you want actual filtration — charcoal, chemical, the proper stuff — that’s a different product category entirely and we’ll cover it in a separate post.

What we stock

Browse the full glass and metal tips range →

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