- All of us have different lives and have started vaping for various different reasons.
- Our vape pens are just as diverse as we are, but there’s one thing they all have in common: they all consume e-Liquid.
The problem when considering the best e-liquid for vaping, is that you must be familiar with many different options: there’s a multitude of different flavors, brands, differing nicotine and PG/VG levels, etc.
Whether you’re a veteran vaper or you’ve just begun perusing “vaping for beginners” guides, the universe of choices available for e-liquid can stagger the mind. Choosing the e-liquid for you can be quite a task, but with the help of this guide you should be better prepared to choose new treats to tantalize your taste buds and improve your vaping experience.
1. Buy e liquid from Reputable Brands
It might be tempting to consider buying cheaper e-liquid for vaping from no-name offshore providers, especially if you’re a new to vaping or are trying to keep a tighter reign on your budget. Needless to say I wholeheartedly recommend against it. Sure, many generic brands are trustworthy: they might be manufacturing their liquids in a proper lab and with industry standard ingredients. The problem is you just don’t know for sure – it’s equally likely that they brewed the concoction at home with the cheapest substance they could find… even those substances might be harmful. Don’t think that means you have to restrict yourself to the biggest, most expensive mainstream brands though. Smaller labels are popping up all the time and most of them are legitimate organizations offering up a quality product.
The key, as with most things, is to research: if you find a smaller brand that you think may interest you then dig around on their website, look up reviews from their previous customers, and seek out thorough documentation. If everything checks out, then there’s no need to fear giving a smaller label a chance.
2. Buy the Right Amount of Nicotine for your Needs
I’ve noticed a lot of vapers, both vets and beginners, trip up on this one. On the one hand there’s people who have never smoked tobacco a single day in their life trying to choke down e-liquid with 24 mg/ml of nicotine, and on the other hand I’ve seen ambitious “two packs a day” smokers try to switch to vaping with no nicotine content whatsoever, and then crashing and burning predictably. Needless to say, both groups are approaching their problems the wrong way.
I’ll get this out of the way first: if you’re not already on nicotine, don’t use vaping as an excuse to start. We’ve all seen the public service ads: Nicotine is harmful and wildly addictive. If you enjoy vaping and aren’t hooked on nicotine (or you were and successfully kicked your habit) then just stick with 0 mg/ml juices – you’ll still be able to enjoy all the diverse flavors that vaping has to offer. If you’re considering using a nicotine-laced liquid for the so-called “throat hit”, then at least start at low… perhaps 8-12 mg/ml, and do your best not to get too accustomed to it. While it’s true nicotine overdose is rare, it’s just not worth it to get chemically devoted to the one substance in your e-liquid that’s addictive and harmful.
Are you ready to switch from smoking to vaping? Check out my TOP 10 list for the Best Vape Pens in the UK for 2017
3. Watch your E-Liquid PG/VG Ratios
Propylene Glycol (PG) and Vegetable Glycerin (VG) are the two substances most commonly used as the base for your e-liquid, and are largely
responsible for factors such as cloud production and throat hit. The various different effects these chemicals have could fill up an entire article on their own, so we’re not going to delve too deeply in to them today. Right now, all we’re going to focus on is how PG and VG effect your juice’s flavor.
Generally, liquids with a higher VG content will have a muted taste while PG rich liquids (think 80% or higher) are more known for harsher flavors. A few vapers have even reported that especially high VG content can cause you to taste the VG itself – while it’s somewhat sweet, that may not be for you. Remember that things like cloud production and throat hit can alter your perception of what you’re tasting, so you can’t ignore them entirely. We’ve sampled hundreds of different flavors and mixes over a period of a few months, and what we’ve determined is that the best flavor (especially for beginners) is usually found between the ratios of 70/30 to 50/50 (note: with these ratios the first number is always the PG content, and the second number is the VG).
Obviously that’s just a rough guideline to get you started – once you’ve experimented a little with different flavors and branched out to try different mixes you’ll quickly discover what suits your own tastes the best.
4. Don’t be Shy
You may have heard the term “vaper’s tongue” thrown around from time to time. For the un-initiated, “vaper’s tongue” is a term used to refer to the phenomenon where you gradually lose the ability to taste a given flavor of e-liquid after you’ve heavily favored it for a long time.
This is why it’s important that you try not to be conservative with your flavor choices – it’s ok to have favorites, but still make an effort to try different tastes, brands, and lines.
Don’t be afraid to start mixing flavors together, either – you’ll never know when you’ll discover a great new taste to add to your favorites list. As long as you remember to either swap out or thoroughly clean your coils after each taste test, there’s no harm in experimenting and exploring the vast universe of flavor combinations that are out there.
If you’re still at a loss for where to start when choosing flavors, consider this final tip: many of the flavorings used in e-liquid is the same (or extremely similar) to the additives used to flavor various foods, candies, and other consumable products. Therefore, if you find some e-juice advertised as “pineapple flavored” (as an example), then there’s an extremely good chance that it’s going to taste very close to pineapple flavored candy. Using this knowledge, you can seek out e-juice flavors that match the flavors of your favorite candies and other foods.
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