Hookah Love Blog

Hello Hookah fans and college students!

Several weeks ago the Lebanese Club at Cornell University contacted us about supplying hookahs to their April 19th event entitled “Rated R II: Escape to Beirut.” As you can see from the pictures below, the event was a success! According to the President of the LCC, participants were overheard saying that it was the “best event Cornell has ever had.” They chose several Odyssey 3 hosed hookahs to put on display and have participants takes puffs on during the night. Check out the pictures below!

We received a very nice letter after the event from the President of the Lebanese Club at Cornell:

“The LCC and I were extremely impressed by Hookah-Shisha.com’s customer service, everyone I spoke with was super polite and helpful, and I wish every other company was like that. We were all so impressed. “

Awww thanks!

Are you thinking of getting some hookahs for your next school-sponsored or campus event? Don’t hesitate to contact us, we’d love to help out! We can work with you in terms of special pricing and can help you narrow down which hookahs would be best for your event. As always, happy smoking to everyone!

Why are we giving you the largest sale in the history of Hookah-Shisha.com? Simply because nothing makes us happier than putting a hookah smoking smile on every single one of your faces. For Eight years now, Hookah-Shisha.com has grown into the largest hookah store and the oldest online hookah shop in the world. This was only made possible with your continued support and feedback. So as show of our appreciation, starting April 16th and for eight days, we are going to have this super sale!

We would like nothing more than to make sure every single one of you is extremely happy. Your continued support is what has kept us strong. Continue keeping us going and show us your hookah love by:

• Bookmarking us in your browser
• Telling your friends about us and this super sale
• Posting links to us in your blogs, facebook, myspace, or anywhere on the web
• Continuing to give us your amazingly valuable feedback
• Coming back to see us to have great hookah smoking experiences

We exist solely to serve your hookah needs. Pretty kewl job huh?

So onto the good stuff. Our special 18% Hookah-Shisha Discount Code that the majority of you are looking for is.

Enter Discount Code:
“8 more years of Hookah-Shisha.com“

Just enter the discount code “8 more years of Hookah-Shisha.com” in the summary page when you are in the checkout process. No tricks, no nothin. Just straight up customer appreciation. And this will last for 8 days, April 16th through April 23rd.

Hookah-Shisha.com has changed dramatically since its humble beginnings of starting in a college dorm room. I remember packing boxes and answering customer phone calls in between classes. From selling two different styles of hookahs and three flavors of hookah tobacco, to where we are distributing hookahs and shisha all over the world with over 3,000 different items. I remember sitting at friends’ places explaining what the heck a hookah was and why I always smelled so sweet (it was the shisha in my closet). And now, we have a full fledged hookah blog dedicated to hookah knowledge and hookah fun with a much larger audience than a living room.

However, one thing has not changed since we started: “We care about you!” Now that we have grown, we have proven that our pillar is our customer service. That is why we have a full-time team dedicated to making sure everything is perfect for every customer. Your hookah experience is the primary focus for us here at Hookah-Shisha.com. We work extremely hard to make sure you have amazing hookah smoking experiences. That means not only us selling the best products at the best prices, but more so through providing you with the most amazing customer service you can get anywhere in the world. And we are crazy when it comes to customer service, because that is where we can best show you how much we care. We ensure that any interaction you have with us or when you have anything to do with us, it is always the best experience possible. After all, Hookah smoking should be a very relaxing time and ordering or smoking one never should have any stress related to it! So as a company, we stretch ourselves to make sure your experience is perfect every time.

Here is one of our customer’s comments, that like many others, helps us know how we are doing:

Thanks. Im still trying to figure out how a Company that sells Hookahs provides me with the best customer service then with any other business ive ever dealt with (no offence). Whos the brains behind it all? I am interseted in purchasing stocks if and when they become available.

No stocks yet, but our methods are basic:

1. Superior, unrelenting customer service
2. Quality hookah products at the best prices
3. Fast, accurate and protected shipping

That’s it… Simple in theory, yet behind the scenes there is a lot of hard work to ensure it comes true because it is all driven by our desire to take care of you in any way we can. We believe our 8 years of business, if anything, is an indicator that we are successful. We do extensive quality checks to ensure all of your hookah products are perfect. Have a masterful room of hookah smokers constantly doing Research and Development to find you the best hookah products. We spend tons of time and care in making sure your orders are wrapped and packed properly to ensure that your package arrives quickly and in perfect hookah smoking conditions (relaxing and stress free). We are always available on LiveChat or phone for any hookah related questions you might have. Our supreme customer service a natural part of how we do business, because that is just the type of people we are. And knowing that you are taken care of is really what keeps us motivated. We truly care about you and your experience.

We know that the world isn’t perfect, but we try and make it perfect. But don’t rely on my pretty words. Here are a few pieces of recent customer feedback in just the past few weeks that help corroborate our work.

once again, i want to thank you very much for your help. you guys have excellent customer service and it is very much appreciated. don’t think that this won’t go unnoticed, as i have already told everybody on the hookahpro forum how helpful you have been.

I am truely grateful for your wonderful customer service and i will continue to buy from your company. Any company that follows up on their customer complaints/comments with worth their weight in gold in my book. Your company has proved to be very good and i will recommend you to anyone. I am sincerely grateful for your post sale support. Many companys i have dealt with in other areas forget you are a customer once they have received payment. You are truely a remarkable company! Thank you so much again and i appreciate all that you have done for me.

BTW you have have some of the best CS ever!

You guys are incredible! I ordered at 8:00 on a Thursday night and had the product in my hands at 5:00 THE NEXT DAY with plain-jane UPS shipping. WOW. Seriously, you have 100% of my buisness from now on!

You guys keep amazing me with your great customers service, I very much appreciate the effort. I will definitely keep referring you to my friends.

Well thanks again for the awesome customers service, really haven’t had anything as good with online stores so far…. you mind if I mention you to Dell?

I just wanted to say that it was a pleasure working with your site and will be happy to do business with the company again based on the superb customer service!

u guys rock!!! ur the best vendors online.

i just recived my package, everything was there and in good order. you guys are always on point and take care of me so thank you. youve made me a life customer

I cant believe the turn around time on my order!!! Ordered Monday, and here by FRIDAY?!?!?! I was expecting this to get here next week somtime.. especially since part was out of stock. oh its gonna be a great weekend!!! You guys are unbelievable. My loyalty is with Hookah & Shisha Central. Smoke on fellas and Thank You again!!

Thank you for your excellent customer service! You’re very friendly and polite. I really appreciate it.

Hey all……My True Love bought a Hookah and tobacco from you guys…….I am headed to England to see her……Your help in processing all of this means the world to me ……We met at the Hookah and are going to spend the rest of our lives together……Thank all of you and your staff…..Thanks guys……for helping me meet the woman of my dreams……. devoted customer

With that kind of motivation and success at doing what we say we will do, you can see why we love our jobs so much and why we have been around for 8 years. And more than anything, why you all have helped support and turn us into what we are.

So once again, thank you so much for all your support. Help celebrate our birthday by telling a fellow hookah smoker about our 8 more years of Hookah-Shisha.com Sale and remember to come back and visit us. We always have new hookah content, hookah promotions, hookah related contests and hookah innovations coming out. Show your support and bookmark and post links to our site to help others find us. Let us show the rest of the world why we are the largest and best hookah company that ever existed.

Thank you!

Hookah-Shisha.com - the Hookah and Shisha Central

“We put the dash in life”

Believe it or not, the difference isn’t where they’re made. Syrian bases can be made in Egypt, and Egyptian hookahs in Syria; Egyptian and Syrian hookahs can even be produced in China, Europe, and America.

Traditionally, one of the factors distinguishing Egyptian from Syrian hookahs was the type of bowl used. Syrian hookahs were one constructed primarily to accept inside-fitting (or “male”) bowls, while Egyptian hookahs were constructed for outside-fitting (or “female” bowls). With the increasing popularity of hookahs, Syrian hookahs gradually shifted to accommodate the increasing variety of bowls and accessories designed in the female style, and the distinction between Egyptian and Syrian hookahs shrank. Once outside-fitting bowls became more popular, Syrian styles began incorporating them and the main identifying feature of Syrian hookahs became their fine ornamentation.

Whereas some Egyptian hookahs feature painted bases and creative adornment on the shaft, Syrian hookahs often incorporate intricate engraving and highly detailed Syrian basework.  The Egyptian and Syrian hookahs we sell are further distinguished by their composition and production style.  Made entirely of surgical grade stainless steel, the Egyptian hookah shafts are turned on a lathe, whereas many of our Syrian hookahs are cast.  The Syrian hookahs we carry feature an inner brass tube (through which the smoke passes) surrounded by metal of varying compositions that is cast, unlike the lathed Egyptian shafts.    Our Egyptian and Syrian hookahs are constructed exclusively for us, and we oversee all elements of their loving production.

Whether you prefer the reliable simplicity of an Egyptian hookah or the attention to detail of Syrian hookahs, enjoy smoking from a hookah style that’s survived the test of centuries to please today.

I love visiting New York. I don’t think I could ever live there for too long, but it is an experience to visit. The thing I love the most about NY is how its ethnic communities so closely resemble the environments of their origins.

Steinway street in Astoria is a good example. I wanted some good Kanafa, a famous Arabic desert, and was directed to a great place on Steinway. As I walked down the street, I could smell the hookahs from two blocks away. It was awesome! As I would walk by the hookah lounges, I was giddy for the first time (in a long time) by the immense amount of smoke billowing out of these hookah coffee shops. I would soon learn the clouds of smoke it was produced from the traditional method of smoking and coal use.

The vast majority of shops were all decorated in a traditional Egyptian manner and were filled with patrons sucking down hookahs, eating arabic food, sipping tea and playing cards. The occasional backgammon game or plate of food being served as well. It was like walking into downtown Egypt all over again.

During the next few days I visited a total of 3, although there were probably about 10 hookah venues on Steinway street alone. The ones I visited were Eastern Nights, Layali Beirut and Melody. Although I enjoyed the pleasant atmosphere oft was a nice mix between all of them (and I will be posting reviews on all of them), but I would have to say that Melody was my favorite.

Honestly, none of them had their hookahs up to par for my standards. All of these hookah lounges were filled with older hookahs, most had tons of charcoal loaded on their hookahs (although they thankfully used Natural Hookah charcoal which is my favorite) but the best hookah smoke was from the ones serving Al-Fakher, which I still consider a sub-par tobacco brand. The others used Nakhla.

I thought that smoking hookah indoors was illegal in NY. It is! And they actually have “No Smoking” signs in all of the hookah lounges. So how do these hookah lounges exist? By using herbal shisha. Herbal Shisha is a type of shisha that uses all herbal blend vs. tobacco leaves. It tastes different and is typically much less quality of a smoke than hookah tobacco. But it is great for those no-smoking cities like NY. Now, are they really using herbal shisha. Although I can’t say that all of the lounges in NY aren’t using herbal shisha, but I can safely say that some NY hookah lounges are using regular tobacco shisha.

Can herbal shisha be as good as hookah tobacco in the future? Yes! With proper development, herbal shisha should be able to taste just like regular shisha.

Is herbal shisha as good as hookah tobacco right now? Noooo… not when customers reporst flavors such as “pencil shaving” and “wood”

So, to kick off my reviews of NY Hookah Lounges, I will start with the Melody Hookah Lounge, the best I visited in NYC. It has delectable food, well maintained hookahs (although the shisha served was the ‘ketchup flavored’ Grape Al-Fakher that some may have heard of), and homey, comfortable ambiance. Here is a pic of the hookah I ennjoyed:

As well as the tea kettle we used (it has a fun little guy padding as the handle).

Will I go again? Yes, because the food was amazing. For areas of improvement, I’d like to see them offer better hookah flavors. Full reviews for the 4 hookah lounges I visited in NY will soon follow.

Do I dare disturb the universe? Yes - Romman Peach is that good.

Whenever I serve a hookah to someone who’s never smoked one before, I like to treat them to Romman Peach. This succulent shisha is one of the most vivid, long lasting, and aromatic shishas I’ve ever smoked. Frequently, when I smoke this flavor in public, people will walk up and announce

“Oh! That smells so good - is that peach I smell?”
Because of the higher quality tobacco and flavoring used in Romman shishas, this tobacco is more sensitive to heat, so be sure not to burn it! As scrumptious as it is by itself, Romman Peach mixes well with other flavors. Try mixing it with some vanilla to make peaches and cream! Throw peach and orange together for a flavor inspired by the Fuzzy Navel drink. Here’s a trick that’s guaranteed to please: make a hookah bowl out of a peach!

You can slice a peach in half and remove the pit, and use a spoon to enlarge the dip in the peach half (where the pit was). Then, you can poke a small hole through the peach half. Now, simply load the peach with shisha as though it were a clay bowl, and use the hole to place it on top of the shaft! You don’t have to stop at peach, either - you can make a hookah bowl from fruit using apples or even lemons!

Hello Hookah Lovers and Art Lovers!

This here is Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), a French painter and sculptor most known for his Orientalist works, a subject he picked up after a trip to Egypt in 1856. Hookahs were common in many of these paintings, and below is just a small sample of his most famous works. Click on the thumbnails below to view the full sized images, and enjoy!

“Why hello hello ladies, can I interest you in a fine narghile this lovely afternoon? As you can see I have both the “floppy” hose style and the “rigid” style”

And the winner of the “Unnecessarily Long Hookah Hose” award goes to: This guy. No wonder he looks winded, I’d have to sprawl out on my couch and take a breather too if I was trying to inhale from a forty foot-long hose.

This extravagantly-clad gentleman ponders over his latest prototype: a combination hookah and vacuum cleaner. All kidding aside, this is quite possibly the thickest hookah hose EVER. If you’re looking for the thickest hose on the market today, and don’t have the iron lungs to smoke from a 6 foot-long industrial air conditioning duct, check out our Nammor Hookah Shisha Hose.

Here, a street performer puts down his hookah to break out his Bouzouki cover version of “Blackbird.”

Blackbird singing in the dead of niiiiiiight
Take yon broken wings and learn to fly

I can’t imagine that his singing is any good, considering he’s playing for a total audience of 3 people, and one of them seems to be passed out from sheer boredom. His bird, however, seems to be really into it.

This hookah enthusiast somehow possesses an almost super-human ability to deliver a laser-like beam of smoke right into his dogs nose. Now that’s a Scooby Snack!

The Phunnel (Funnel) hookah clay bowl is a very interesting and unique way to smoke shisha. Smoking-Hookah is all about trial and error, and making your own modifications when the time arises (see my work/”Frankenstein hookah” at the bottom.) With this method you can learn how to make your own minor Phunnel bowl mod to get this product smoking with its full potential.

The trick is to get the heat from your hookah charcoal around the shisha and back up through the opening of the bowl, then down into the base. Below is an animated .gif I whipped up to help illustrate, as well as directions below.

Part One of How to Load a Phunnel Hookah Bowl with Scalli Mod: #1

Part One of How to Load a Phunnel Hookah Bowl with Scally Mod: #2

Instructions on how to make your own Scalli hookah mod of aluminum foil:

1. Tear a 2 inch by 2 inch square bit of aluminum foil. Loosely wrap this around the opening in your Tangiers Phunnel Bowl, leaving a little room on the sides and bottom to let the air flow under this foil square.
2. Loosely fill your Phunnel Bowl with your choice in tasty shisha tobacco. Be sure not to push down too hard, for you can close off the air-paths that will draw the heat through your tobacco.
3. Test your bowl before finalizing the foil across the top, be sure that you still have optimal airflow. Sucking from the bottom of the bowl is a good and quick way to see if you need to make any adjustments before proceeding to the next steps.
4. Then tightly wrap your hookah aluminum foil square around the top of your bowl.
5. Keeping that foil tight with your fingers, then take a hookah foil hole puncher and swirl it around to make your holes for heat to travel through. Keep in mind it’s best to keep the holes toward the outside of your shisha bowl.
6. Then once your holes are poked, place your charcoal toward the outside of the bowl, thus you will make that hot air filter through the shisha tobacco. Super-heating the shisha molasses blend to release the vapor and moisture locked in the hookah-shisha mix.

As hinted above sometimes you have to get creative, so here is a picture of our new shisha flavor testing hookah. In the background there are Havana Shisha, Starbuzz Tobacco, Al Fakher Shisha, and a Mya Acrylic Hookah carrying box.

The Frankenstein hookah is made up of a Tangiers Funnel Bowl, fixed atop a black melted-on the shaft rubber clay bowl grommet with ash from 3 different types of hookah charcoal ash in the tray, busted Scarab Hookah Shaft, good and durable Mya Wood Tipped Washable Hose, 1 small rubber hookah grommet, stacked in 1 medium rubber glass base grommet, and a lone oddball Gunmetal Black with green tinted acrylic Stratus style hookah base, and last but not least small Heba diffuser.

Note: the hose connector broke, and we hold it in place with electrical tape, also the acrylic seem between the the green plastic and the metal base went out pretty quick too, so we have electrical tape keeping the seal there too. Smokes great!

Over the year each poster in our Hookah Love Blog will have their own special special!

Since I have been a fan of this flavor for years, and the Romman Brand was so kind to make this flavor to my specifications, I felt it fitting to pass on the blissful birthday smoke with all our Hookah Love Fans! This mellow flavor makes for a flavorful, and balanced shisha (not too sweet, and defiantly not what you would expect out of a wrinkly prune, this hookah shisha flavor truly is amazing!)

So if you would like to receive a free Romman 50g Plum (Prunes) Shisha Flavor, then go ahead and place an order from Friday the 14th through Sunday the 16th, and simply write me a little “happy birthday note for Jonathan the night guy” in the customer comments field when placing that order to have us manually add that flavor to your order for free! (similar to our Hookah Shisha Valentines Day Free Shisha Promotion)

As a veteran in the hookah industry, I have tested and tried an extremely wide variety of hookah products (we’re always running tests and experiments to find the best hookah supplies) and hookah troubleshooting tips to smoke a perfect bowl of shisha. I take as much pride in my hookah smoking abilities as I do in my hookah teaching abilities, and would like to share both by starting a blog series on how to smoke a hookah.

Today’s blog focuses on heat management. Though the top of the hookah today may be one of the most neglected parts when smoking a hookah, it can be one of the most influential parts of the hookah smoking experience.

For those of you that don’t know, a hookah is heated by hookah charcoal. Some hookah charcoals are easier to light and arrange than others, but they all serve one common purpose: to heat a hookah bowl. Heat management and maintaining the heat transfer is the key to gaining the perfect hookah smoke. A common misconception about hookahs concerns the burning of the tobacco. When smoking a hookah, you are never trying to burn the hookah tobacco, you’re merely trying to evaporate and vaporize all the honeys and sugars in which the shisha tobacco is marinated in. Thus the reason for using charcoal instead of an open flame (as with smoking cigarettes or a cigar). This also explains why the spent hookah tobacco is still in the hookah bowl, unlike cigarette or cigar tobacco burned to ash. Another example of this method of tobacco smoking can be seen in Eclipse Cigarettes. If I remember correctly, these cigarettes contain a small carbon (charcoal) rod running down the middle of the cigarette. The tobacco is soaked in glycerin and, once the carbon rob is ignited, it evaporates the glycerin off of the tobacco. When smoking this cigarettes you are ideally getting no tobacco smoke, just vaporization. The nicotine is still transferred to the smoker though because the glycerin acts as a transfer agent and pulls the nicotine out of the tobacco in the vaporization transfer. That is essentially the same concept of what is happening when you are smoking a hookah. You are ideally only vaporizing the shisha tobacco and that is why the smoke is smoother. You are still extracting nicotine and other things out of the tobacco though, so that is why some people still get the nicotine buzz when they smoke a hookah. Typically, I have found that cigarette smokers don’t get as much of the nicotine buzz. It may be worth noting that there is the potential for health concerns with all forms of smoking, those who choose to smoke can learn the optimal way to serve a hookah on our HookahLove blog.

In essence, how a hookah works is based on vaporization: not burning. When you smoke a hookah, the hookah should always be totally sealed. This way, the top of your hookah bowl is the only entrance for air when you pull on the hookah. When charcoal is at a standing state, it is much less hot than when it is being blown on, or in the case of a hookah, when air is being sucked from above the hookah bowl past the hookah charcoal, and through your hookah and hookah hose. For best results, you’d like the hookah charcoal to rest at a cooler temperature when the hookah isn’t in use, and heating up to simmer the tobacco when one pulls air through the hose (and over the coal).

The type of charcoal you use can greatly impact your ability to properly manage the heat of your hookah bowl. My favorite hookah charcoal is undeniably the natural wood charcoal (especially lemon wood charcoal like Romman Lemon Wood Charcoal). Although it takes more effort to ignite and requires more attention than quick-light charcoal, once you get it going it is simple to use. The reason I like natural wood charcoal is because it is much more porous than other charcoal. You can tell this by the simple fact that it weighs less per mass than other compacted charcoal. Other hookah charcoal, like quick-light charcoal, is compact and dense. Having a porous charcoal allows for the charcoal to sit at a lower temperature in its standing (resting) state, and then raise to a higher temperature when you pull through your hookah. I believe that the glycerin and other sugars in the shisha have a lower flash point (the temperature at which an element combusts) than tobacco. So ideally you only want to smoke and thus vaporize the shisha tobacco at the exact point below which the tobacco leaves in your shisha tobacco will start burning. This must be accomplished by never having too much charcoal (and thus heat) on your hookah bowl. That is why when you put too much charcoal, your hookah bowl starts to burn and you see a steady stream of smoke coming out of the top of your hookah bowl. Too much heat, and thus too many leaves are burning.

So, how exactly does natural wood charcoal differ from compacted charcoal? The main fact is that its standing temperature is at a lower heat level than other compressed charcoal. So when you are not pulling on your hookah (as I am while typing this sentence) your hookah bowl is not overheating and thus not burning. Have you ever seen smoke rising from the hookah bowl when you’re not drawing on a hose? That is a telltale sign of excess heat and burning shisha. This is caused either with simply having too much charcoal on your bowl at once and/or pulling too frequently from your hookah and raising the temperature of your hookah bowl above the point at which the tobacco leaves in your hookah tobacco then start to burn.

** Hookah Tip: To solve this common problem, I will typically take the charcoal off of the hookah bowl since its resting state has now reached a temperature that is too high. I will then let the hookah bowl cool down or to speed up the process I will take the bowl off the hookah, cup my hands around the bottom (since the top is scorching hot) and blow through the bottom of the hookah bowl. This is an old technique that Middle Eastern hookah lounges and hookah cafes use when they are replenishing a hookah that has too little charcoal or that has gotten too hot and is thus starting to burn. **

Glyercin boils at a temperature of 290 degrees Celsius and the flavoring used in hookah tobacco is around that temperature if not less. If you have access to a temperature gage - such as my thermocouple - you’ll notice the hookah charcoal on your bowl will be around 320-350 degrees when pulling/smoking your hookah and will drop to around 250-300 (depending on the charcoal you are using and how much). From my observations (just simple fun observations I have made while smoking my hookah), the natural wood charcoals standing state is on the lower end of the scale, while compressed charcoal is at the higher end. When smoking from the hookah, both rise to the 320-350 degrees which allows for the evaporation of the glycerin and minimal or no burning of the tobacco leaf (in fact, some studies show that some cigarettes burn at upwards of 800 degrees). When you then stop smoking your hookah, the temperature will fall back to the 250-280 degrees (if you have the proper amount of lemon wood charcoal. And this is where the lemon wood or other natural wood charcoal has its advantage. Romman Lemonwood charcoal has an estimated standing state of 250-280 degrees while compacted charcoal standing state is 270-300 degrees. Both have 320-350 degrees of smoking state (the state at which air is passing over it and thus heating up the charcoal.

These numbers can be affected greatly by the amount of hookah coal that is on the bowl and the type of hookah bowl you are using. Typically a clay or ceramic bowl always has a lower temperature than a metal bowl (metal conducts heat like crazy but has the advantage of not breaking). Using foil vs. a screen also can have an affect. The foil/screen is supposed to act as a heat barrier to prevent too much heat from contacting the hookah tobacco. Foil works better due to having a thinner barrier that dispels heat at a faster rate than a screen. Plus, the ability to have smaller holes and thus better control the amount of heat entering your hookah bowl allows for you to have more control on what your resting and your smoking state temperature is at.

Hookah Tip: Never fill the hookah tobacco to the top of your hookah bowl. By having a space in between you are creating a space for heat to dissipate easier and are also preventing the hookah tobacco from ever having direct contact with your hookah charcoal.

By allowing the temperature of your hookah bowl to fall below the boiling point of the glycerin, you are preserving your smoke producing ingredient as well as flavor. Thus gaining the best hookah smoke you ever had out of your hookah with the most smoke and most flavor on every puff.

Look for our future posts on the essence of shisha tobacco as well as specific instructions on how to properly use your hookah charcoals.

“Create any theme you wish, and feel free to submit as many T-Shirt designs as you like!”

That’s how it all started. It’s been almost 4 months since the contest started and we received a plethora of amazing designs. Selecting the Top 20 Hookah T-Shirts was hard enough and we’re thankful for all the votes we received from our customers to help select these finalists. Hookah-Shisha.com will be printing these four designs so you can pick up one for yourself and be ultra cool while sharing your passion for smoking hookah with the world. Be on the lookout for Hookah Wear mid-March.

The top 4 designs will split $550 in Hookah-Shisha.com credit. You’ll notice that there are two third place winners. We originally planned $500 in total prizes, but when the two third place selections came up so close (1 vote difference!) we wanted to make sure both people were well taken care of. We’re cool like that.

All contestants that were selected in the top 20 will receive a special 20% discount for the next 6 months that is good for them and 2 of their friends as well as a free t-shirt design of their choice!

First PlaceWinner - $300 in Hookah-Shisha Credit, Free T-Shirt, 20% discount

Second Place Winner - $150 in Hookah-Shisha Credit, Free T-Shirt, 20% discount

Third Place Winner (Tie) - $50 in Hookah-Shisha Credit, Free T-Shirt, 20% discount

In case you’re curious, here are the original Design and Submission Guidelines for this contest. Our Top 20 Hookah T-Shirts are featured below.

Design Guidelines:
Design your Hookah tee in a vector art program such as Adobe Illustrator®. Or, design in a raster program such as Adobe Photoshop®. If you are designing in a raster program, make sure you design actual size at at least 150dpi. When you are done, transfer your design to the template picture (shown at bottom,) so that we may have a relative idea of placement. If you are using the photoshop template, save off a copy of your design as a gif, jpg or png. If you are using the flash template, publish your file so that you have a .swf of your design.

Submission Guidelines:
We want every design submitted to ” info@hookah-shisha.com ” to have the best possible chance at being chosen for print. The Hookah & Shisha Central team will review submitted designs and vote internally on the winners. We will also try to post the designs online, and have our website visitors vote on the designs.

We allow a maximum of 8 unique colors in designs submitted for this Hookah T-Shirt Design Contest, but for quality sake, we highly suggest 4 color count (background color will not count). Submissions will be declined if the design contains more than 8 colors. Each shade of a color counts toward the eight color limit, as do black and white.

Common oversights with placement include designing across the tee from edge to edge, carrying a design over a seam onto the sleeves or off the top of the shoulder. We love larger format prints, but a design meant for regular screen printing should be constrained to a 15″ x 20″ (38cm x 50cm) area.

**A submission will be declined if it contains copyrighted material. Pop-culture inspired designs sometimes have legal issues we would rather not flirt with. If this is the case with the artwork, we may decline it. Hookah & Shisha Central reserves the right to alter all submitted artwork for formatting/printing capabilities sake. We at Hookah & Shisha Central (http://www.hookah-shisha.com) reserve the right to reproduce and sell Hookah T-Shirt designs submitted in the contest..

We would like to thank all of our contestants for their entries, outstanding feedback and the numerous responses we received during this Hookah T-Shirt Contest! Because we had so many entries, you can vote on your favorites to help us narrow down the winners. Be sure to bookmark this Hookah T-Shirt section and check back soon to see who the winners are…

Pick the worlds best Hookah T-Shirt!
For over 2 months we have been collecting righteous works of Hookah T-Shirt Art submitted to www.Hookah-Shisha.com. These 20 Tees have been narrowed down from a large and creative pool of entries, and now it’s time for your help! Do us a favor and take a look at these cool designs, simply click the check-box for any and all the T-Shirts you personally like, then at the bottom be sure to click the “Vote 2008″ button. We ask that you please only vote once. Once you vote, you will be redirected back to this page. We will show the winners when we have closed the polls…
Top 20 Hookah Shirts
(To see a larger image of the shirt, click on it to bring it into a new window)

I like Hookah T-Shirt #1	I dig Hookah T-Shirt #2
I revel in Hookah T-Shirt #3	I elect Hookah T-Shirt #4
I want Hookah T-Shirt #5	I choose Hookah T-Shirt #6
I prefer Hookah T-Shirt #7	I yearn for Hookah T-Shirt #8
I prefer Hookah T-Shirt #9	I crave Hookah T-Shirt #10
I call for Hookah T-Shirt #11	I favor Hookah T-Shirt #12
I opt for Hookah T-Shirt #13	I love Hookah T-Shirt #14
I nominate Hookah T-Shirt #15	I go for Hookah T-Shirt #16
I wild for Hookah T-Shirt #17	I zeal for Hookah T-Shirt #18
I enjoy Hookah T-Shirt #19	I relish Hookah T-Shirt #20