Vaping eLiquids

Vaping eLiquids

Vaping eLiquids: Hello! This week we are looking at a key part of your alternative to smoking, eLiquids and what you should look for when buying them. First things first what do you want in your eLiquid, juice, mod fuel?

The selection of flavours available in eLiquids is as wide as your imagination, I have seen the things you would expect such as tobacco and fruit flavours and some slightly more unusual things such as roast beef, chicken tikka and herbs de province (only to be tried if you have a strong constitution and no requirements for taste buds)! As such its worth keeping an open mind about what flavour you will really like.

So where do you start?

Most people start with a tobacco flavour vaping?eLiquids and that’s a good plan but you may find yourself quickly looking for something that may be a bit more interesting (mayonnaise anyone?) so when you look for the closest thing to your current brand of smokes you might want to consider something else as well.
I used to smoke a certain brand of cigarettes that may of sponsored a f1 team and have a red packet, I may of smoked a lot (40-80 a day) of that brand… my biggest challenge was to find something in the UK eLiquid scene that was as close as possible to that flavour, simply I failed.

In failing to find something that tasted the same I had a major realisation, I actually preferred my backup (Strawberry Custard) to any of the tobacco flavours I had tried. This led me on to being a bit more curious and trying other flavours that were out there and in turn actually got me to quit smoking completely!

Whats in my vaping eliquids?

Vaping?eLiquids mainly have four basic ingredients:

• Nicotine, the stuff that will stop you climbing up the walls or trying to kill, maim or injure anyone around you.
• Propylene Glycol or PG which is normally used as a base to carry the flavourings and to give a “roughness” or “throat hit” to the vapour.
• Vegetable glycerin or VG to smooth out the flavour and texture of your vapour, this is also the main component that creates the “cloud” that you actually see.
• And finally the flavourings that actually give taste to your eLiquids.

Nicotine!

One of the most important ingredients (if not the most important part) is the nicotine, you know that stuff that should stop you ending up in court on assault charges! Due it its importance it is well worth making sure that the nicotine used in your liquid is good quality, poor nicotine tastes very “peppery” and you will notice how it strongly it will hit your throat. If you start noticing your normal strength starts tasting “peppery” then congratulations, it can be a sign its time to reduce your level!

There are five main strengths of nicotine, some manufacturers have some in-between levels as well but these are the industry standard and what I used as an effective alternative to smoking.

18mg is the highest and recommended for heavy smokers. This is where I started and It worked effectively and quickly but I also found after a couple of weeks and my scene of taste returning that it doesn’t taste great so I dropped a level.

12mg ah yes twelve milligram was the sweet spot for a few months, recommended for pack a day smokers. It tasted better than 18mg and I stopped buzzing like an angry nest of wasps which was helpful but after a while I realised that I wasn’t using my mod as much so I dropped my level again!

6mg is recommended for light smokers, around ten a day. This was the first part I found hard, dropping from 12 to 6mg is a big step but it is absolutely do-able! The trick I found was to use it more and then slowly reduce how often, It worked for me but everyone is different.

3mg is recommended for ahem… “social smokers” (the ones that steal your smokes at the pub) and those who are planning to use vaping as a overall replacement for cigarettes. I enjoy 3mg myself now, the lower the nicotine level the better the overall flavor of the liquid. From three mg to zero mg is a much easier step than any of the previous, just use your vape less until you start feeling when you do use it!

Zero mg, no or trace amounts of nicotine your penultimate goal! I use zero mg generally if i’m reviewing a liquid, the flavours are generally very clear in a high quality product.
Why should you think about using zero mg if you have got this far? the answer is simply, habit.

The jump from using zero mg and removing the chemical dependency to completely stopping is a strange process, you know you don’t need nicotine anymore but you still want to go out after dinner, if your having a pint (or a fruit based beverage) or even first thing in the morning, I’ve found this helps break those habits until you eventually stop completely! If you feel the need to still go out or just to have something in your hand then this does help!
It says 70/30 on my bottle what does that mean?

Ratio

When you buy vaping?eliquids you will often be asked to choose your PG/VG ratio. A 50/50 ratio means that the liquid will be half vegetable glycerin (VG) and half with propylene glycol (PG). The PG is used for flavour more PG the brighter the flavours but with that comes a second part, throat hit. Throat hit is how “rough” the vapour is in your throat (simple hey!)
The VG provides the visual side (the clouds!), smooths and sweetens the liquid but because it is naturally sweet it can dull some flavours. VG also thickens the liquid considerably (it has some similarities with syrup!) this can cause a problem with how quickly the liquid can get to the coil (wicking) this is why a balance is important as PG will thin the liquid allowing it to wick more quickly.

70/30 VG/PG is a fairly common ratio, to me this provides a good balance between the characteristics of both ingredients but it really is personal choice as to what you like more. With most modern starter gear 70.30 shouldn?t cause any wicking problems.

Is it better if I spend more money on a liquid?

It can be… but the important thing to look for is what grade the ingredients are, If it says USP then you should be ok! USP means the quality of the ingredients is pharmaceutical grade. I personally only buy US, EU and UK liquids that state the quality of their ingredients, If it says this is the greatest byproduct of a unicorn created in he history of mankind but doesn’t say USP I’m not interested!

So when you buy a liquid think about these points and you can’t go too far wrong!

Hopefully you now have an idea of what type of eLiquid you are looking for, click here to check out our exclusive e liquids.