Beginners guide to E-Liquid
eLiquid or eJuice, yep thats the stuff that goes into our atomizers, cartomizers, clearomizers, or whatever else we are using with our vaping device.
Its the flavour, the nicotine hit, let’s face it, without it, we’d be just heating a coil for no good reason. It is the very thing we vape. Whilst the delivery device changes from vaper to vaper, one constant remains. The juice.
So what is this stuff? What’s in it? Why do we need it? Let’s take a look…
There are upto 4 seperate ingredients in most e-liquid. Nicotine, flavouring, Propylene Glycol, Vegetable Glycerine.
Nicotine
This is the stuff that keeps us off of the smokes. It has always been rumoured that nicotine is the one addictive ingredient in real cigarettes that keeps us going back. Most of us up to date, know this simply isn’t true, as there are many bi-products that burning tobacco produces that are addictive in their own right. It’s why using patches, gums or other NRT’s are simply not that effective. You still crave something.
This is also true with vaporisers and e-cigarettes, but (and this is only my theory) because we vapers satisfy the hand to mouth, throat inhale and blowing out of vapour, the additional addiction is much less noticeable. This is why there is a far larger quitting rate among vapers than there have ever been with other nicotine replacement therapies.
But I digress. Most commercially available e-liquids will come with various levels of nicotine. We all have our ideal dilution, we all crave a certain amount. (those of us still using it anyway)
It provides that throat hit, the feeling you get in your throat, when you pull the vapour back into your lungs mimicking a cigarette.
Wikipedia provides a bunch more technical data on nicotine, than I ever could so you can go there to find out more.
Flavouring
Without the flavours, vaping would be boring. Don’t get me wrong, some people vape nothing but unflavoured, and enjoy every second of it, but in all honesty, in my opinion the flavours are what make this an enjoyable experience, rather than just a smoking cessation.
Most of the flavours that you’ll find in your e-liquid are food grade flavours and fragrances. Generally they are made up from concentrates, or super concentrated flavouring, from various commercial manufacturers.
Some extract their own flavourings from various food products, but most are artificially created and available to all from such companies as The Flavour Apprentice, FlavorArt, Flavor West, and many others.
Propylene Glycol
Propylene Glycol is your flavour and Nicotine carrier. It helps the nicotine absorb into your body from your mucous membranes, carries the flavour well, and as an added bonus, gives you a little throat hit.
Most e-liquids come with some percentage of Propylene Glycol, but you will also find many that do not. The cloud chasing population, will tend to go with maximum VG (Vegetable Glycerine) formulations and skip the PG. Some also have allergies to PG and prefer maximum VG for obvious reasons.
There are many debates over the safety of this due to it being used for many other industrial endeavours, others debate that it is medically beneficial due to it having various viral fighting abilities, but I’ll leave it at that. You guys can make up your own minds about it.
Again, I’ll link to wikipedia for more information on Propylene Glycol.
Vegetable Glycerine
Last but not least, Vegetable Glycerine. This is the stuff that gives you the nice dense vapour. It’s the stuff they use in smoke machines in night clubs. It has a quite thick consistancy, and will thicken e-juice considerably.
Be aware that VG does not carry flavour as well as PG does, so if you are someone whom uses a high percentage of VG in your juices, you will notice some flavour drop.
A link to wikipedias entry on Vegetable Glycerine
