DIY e-liquid means you make vaping e-liquid by yourself based on the ingredients instead of purchasing ready-made from a vape shop.
In practice, this means mixing together propylene glycol (PG), vegetable glycerine (VG), nicotine (which is diluted in PG or VG) and one or more flavourings. The amounts of these ingredients are carefully chosen to ensure that the end result has the PG/VG ratio, nicotine strength and flavour profile you’re looking for.
Here is a step by step guide based on our experience.
1. What do you need to make e-liquid?
To make your own e-liquid, you will need the essential ingredients and supplies. Here is your checklist:
• Vegetable Glycerin (VG) & Propylene Glycol (PG): the two most important ingredients in e-juice. You can get 100ml VG & 100ml PG at $3.5 at HealthCabin.
• Nicotine Booster – Nicotine is optional. The strength of nicotine you choose to buy depends on your preferred nicotine level. Always be careful when you’re handling nicotine, and please keep your nicotine out of children’s reach. You can get all unflavored nicotine booster here with different PG/VG.
• Flavor Concentrates – Flavors will decide the final taste of your e-liquid. There are over 70 individual concentrates to choose from at HealthCabin, which can be combined to make countless unique recipes. You can pick Tobacco flavors here and other flavors here, including Mint, Fruit, Cake and more.
• Empty Bottles – These are easy to find and very affordable. Get 10 or more 10ml bottles for the early experimentation phases and some bigger ones so you can create big batches when you’ve perfected a recipe. This depends on how much you’ll be mixing, but they’re very cheap, so it’s generally best to overestimate your needs.
• Syringes & Needles – There are two main ways to make your e-juice: by volume or by weight. Syringes & needles are especially important if you’re mixing by volume. Picking a couple of 1 ml or 2 ml syringes, a 5 ml one and a 10 ml one will be fine for most purposes, but you can get more if you like. If you do not have them, you can also use drippers.
• Precise Scale – If you’re mixing by weight, you often need to add quite precise amounts of ingredients, so you’ll need some precise scales. Ideally, get some electronic scales that measure down to the nearest 0.01 g. This will be your biggest expense, but using this approach saves a lot of work compared to mixing by volume.
• Gloves – Always have some disposable gloves at hand, especially when you are handling Nicotine.
• Labels – Buy some cheap sticky labels to write the details on before sticking to the bottle.
2. e-Liquid Calculators
A calculator, will help a lot to make DIY e-liquid, which simplifies the whole process by giving you all the info you need, be it the amount of nicotine needed to reach your favorite strength, or how much from each ingredient you will need to end up with a 70/30 e-juice. It may sound challenging, but it’s super simple.
Useful calculators:
• Mix eJuice, super easy to use and understand, recommends for mixing by volume. Create an account, adjust the numbers of your desired ejuice, follow the result to mix.
• e-liquid-recipes, another easy to use tool.
Useful websites to find recipes:
• Reddit, a paradise for e-liquid DIY fans, pick the best recipes here.
• e-liquid-recipes, there are thousands of recipes created by DIY fans here for your reference.
3. What to do after you make the e-liquid?
• Labeling – Label your mixed e-liquid with the following info: VG/PG ratio, nicotine level, flavor percentage and date created. Do this immediately after the mixing.
• Steeping – How many days to steep? This is a controversy topic. Genally most homemade e-juice containing more than one concentrate needs a certain amount of time to let the flavors blend and settle. This varies with every mix but you’ll often find multi-layered dessert or cream-based mixes need over four weeks to reach their best, while simple fruit recipes might not need to steep at all. Most recipes come with a recommended steeping time.
• Testing – Once your e-juice has steeped, it’s time to test it out. It’s best to use a good quality dripper or rebuildable atomizer rather than a tank. This saves wasting coils on potentially substandard e-juice and easy rewicking makes sampling different juices quicker. Be aware that ohm and temperature can greatly affect the taste – juice that tastes great at 80w on a 0.2ohm RDA vape is likely to taste very different in a 1.8ohm tank at 15w.
• Storage – Sunlight, heat, and oxygen can have a negative impact on e-juice so keep your homemade juice in a cool dark place. And make sure they’re safely out of reach of pets and children.
• Repeat – If you’re satisfied with the mixed e-liquid, keep the recipes and repeat the whole progress in your future mixing.
