Choosing an e-liquid flavour all comes down to personal preference as there’s hundreds of e-liquid flavours and brands to choose from.
Historically vapers would begin with a tobacco or menthol e-liquid if they were coming off cigarettes so the taste and feel is more familiar, however more and more people are starting out with a fruity or dessert flavour instead. Pop into one our vape stores where you’ll be able to sample a few varieties - the key to quitting is finding something you really like and prefer to the usual taste of cigarettes. Once you’re more experienced you can come up with your own recipes and blend a couple of juices together to create your own combinations.
There are a lot of affordable options in a 10ml bottle so you can try a bunch at home. Once you find your favourites, you can buy them in a short fill
(a larger bottle with 0mg nicotine that you mix with a nic shot to create your desired strength) to save yourself money.
As mentioned, the PG serves to carry flavour and the VG is what produces clouds. The kind of blend you’ll want to get comes down to two things: the experience you want and the vape kit you’re using. If you’re after a feeling comparable to smoking with a stronger throat hit, more flavour and less vapour you’ll want to go for something like a 50:50 blend. The sort of vape this goes best with is a standard kit with a coil of 1 ohm or greater.
If you’re wanting to make clouds large enough to block out a solar eclipse, a gentler throat hit and aren’t as fussed about strong flavour, you’ll want to up the VG content. Go for something like 70VG:30PG and above (80:20 is also popular though you can go all the way up to 100%VG). As VG is thicker and therefore harder to vaporise, you’ll need a more powerful vape. Enter sub ohm vaping: this where the coils used within the vape kit have an ohm resistance on less than 1 can produce some serious power and clouds. For further information on sub-ohming read our Complete Sub-Ohm Guide.
Going back to the VG/PG ratio, the amount of VG dictates the strength of vape you’ll need. If you’re a beginner, we’d recommend a 50:50 VG:PG ratio with a pod or vape pen starter kit. They’re simple to use and once you’ve got some experience you can try out a few different combinations to see what works best for you. If you need a higher nicotine level, you’ll also want to go for a more simple kit so you’re not getting too much of a nic hit in one go.
If, after some experience, you prefer a milder throat hit and are more into filling the room with vapour, you should have a look at a sub ohm vape kit to go with a higher VG liquid. As VG is a thicker liquid than PG you need a more powerful vape to get the clouds you’re after.
E-liquid is an aerosol, not steam and when used correctly it simply breaks down into water (the vapour you exhale) and CO2 (which you breath out anyway as a normal respiratory function). Depending on the setting you use your vape on, the vapour may be quite cool or a little warm but it never feels hot like smoke from a cigarette would.
Once you’ve opened a bottle of vape liquid, air can get into it and will start to oxidise it. However, this process is very slow and unless you’re keeping your juice for a long time (we’re talking over a year here) it should be fine. The colour may darken slightly and the flavour may become a little bit sweeter but it’s typically the juices with a higher nicotine content that will degrade faster and lose some of its potency meaning you won’t get as much of a hit from it. To keep it fresh just store it somewhere away from heat and light and you’ll be able to enjoy it for ages. If it’s in your vape and you’ve not used it in a while you may notice a bit of a colour change there too. The reason behind this is the fibres in your coil absorb smaller particles more easily, whereas the darker ones get left behind so your tank may look a little darker over time.