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Are you planning to create your own nicotine eliquid? Then look no further, it’s actually a lot easier than one might first imagine. All you need are three components (two components if you opt for a zero-nicotine blend) and a couple of tools.
Before we get down to the nitty-gritty of mixing the components to create your own nicotine eliquid across Australia, lets first take a look at what the individual components are.
“If you’re a smoker who needs the throat hit and “feel” of a traditional cigarette, then having higher PG concentration is the way to go. Inversely, if you want to blow those magnificent plumes of vapor, then a higher concentration of VG is the way to go.”
A PG/VG base is basically the bulk of any nicotine eliquid. Take note that most commercially available vape juices range from a 50PG/50VG ratio all the way up to a 20PG/80VG ratio. PG and VG have a number of differences, but we’ll just highlight the main differences that affect the vaping experience.
Propelyne Glycol (PG)
Vegetable Glycerin (VG)
This question has no wrong or right answer since everything is subjective. If you’re a smoker who needs the throat hit and “feel” of a traditional cigarette, then having higher PG concentration is the way to go. Inversely, if you want to blow those magnificent plumes of vapor, then a higher concentration of VG is the way to go. This is the beauty of going the DIY route, you can customize the combination of your PG/VG base to hit that balance of throat hit, flavor and vapor production.
We suggest a 50/50 PG/VG ratio to start with and adjust from there. It might take you a few tries to get to that goldilocks ratio, a.k.a. just right, but once you get there, the feeling is amazing. Plus, the DIY route is pretty affordable so if you don’t like it, you can just chuck it.
This was also echoed in the RACGP smoking cessation guide when they quoted studies from the United States and UK showing that the uptake of combustible tobacco products has gone down with the increase in usage of nicotine vape juice.
The answer is a big and resounding NO. When going the DIY route, make sure that you only get from reputable sellers selling flavorings that have been tested for vaping. There are a number of flavorings out there that contain oils, natural sugars and other ingredients that may be harmful when vaped or exposed to high temperatures. And as a side note, don’t be tempted to add colorings to your nicotine vape juice, it does nothing for the flavor, it gunks up your coil faster and you don’t know what reactions happen once it’s heated to create vapor.
There is this common misconception that 100mg/ml is “pure” nicotine when in fact, it’s only 10% pure. The purest form of nicotine is 99.8% and that translates to 998ml/ml, which is extremely dangerous to handle, even deadly, so 99.8% nicotine should only be handled in a laboratory setting with complete hazardous material protection gear.
100mg/ml nicotinebase, on the other hand, is relatively safe to handle with just gloves and a lot of careful handling. 100mg/ml nicotine comes in either PG base or VG base, it’s important to take not of what the base is for your nicotine because that will factor into your computations for DIY nicotine vape juice down the line.
There are a lot of free tools online that one can use to compute how much 100mg/ml nicotine base to add to your mixture to get the desired nicotine levels, but for the beginner, it might seem a little bit confusing to start so we made a handy chart as a quick reference so that you’ll know exactly how much to add to get just the right level of nicotine in your DIY eliquid.
From experience, these are the nicotine levels that are commonly used in commercial nicotine eliquid and who uses them.
As a rule of thumb, we don not recommend using freebase 100mg/ml nicotine base for concentrations of higher than 18mg/ml. For those wanting a higher level of nicotine, this already goes into the territory of nicotine salts and more advance pod systems which we will cover in the future.
Now that you have all the components ready, your PG/VG base, some flavor concentrates and your 100mg/ml nicotine base, it’s time to start mixing. But before we do that, we need to get some recipes. When it comes to recipes, there are two sites that are the go-to for DIY mixers and budding commercial mixers, and those are ELR and All the flavors.
Both of these sites contain thousands of users and recipes from DIY communities around the world and is an excellent place for any budding DIY nicotine eliquid enthusiast to start looking for recipes. Of course, part of the fun in going the DIY route is coming up with your own recipes but as a starting point, you can’t go wrong with any of the resources pointed above.
There are two ways to measure your volumes when mixing your DIY nicotine eliquid. By volume and by weight.
By Volume
This method is traditionally used by those who are mixing large amounts eliquid, where small variants won’t affect the overall taste and feel of your eliquid.
By Weight
This is the best method to get accurate measurements for small volumes.
Now there are a lot of arguments on which way is better, and it would take hours just to go over all of them, but for us, it’s just a matter of preference. Whichever way you find more comfortable or easier, then that should be the way that you do it. Just remember that if you start your recipe off by volume measurements, make sure to use volume measurements all the way through to keep your measurements consistent.
As a rule of thumb, most flavors that have menthol in them can be vaped immediately after being mixed while most pastry flavors requires at least one to two weeks’ time (others say up to a month!) to properly “steep” and for the flavors to fully come out and develop. Don’t be alarmed if the nicotine eliquid you just mixed doesn’t taste very good off the bat, just give it some for the flavors to develop. Remember, patience is key.
How to steep your eliquids? Simple, just put them in a cool and dark place, away from direct sunlight and that should be more than enough for the nicotine eliquid to steep, just remember to give the containers a vigorous shake/mix every once in a while.
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Whichever way you decide to go, DIY or off the shelf, remember that vaping is supposed to be fun and safe. Actually, you can create DIY nicotine vape juice for using.
So don’t stress too much about pricing or waiting or whichever detail is bothering you, just go out and have fun vaping!
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