Wintergreen flavoring warning

[miketr]

I recently got a number of Lorann's flavorings, and one was called Wintergreen. I decided to try to vape it. I know it's not recommend to use oils, which I later read this is.
It didn't say "Oil of Wintergreen", on the bottle, it said Methyl Salicylate on the ingredients list. I mixed 1 ml VG, 1 ml PG, and 0.5 ml VGA with 20 drops of Wintergreen, shook it up, and vaped it. I've experienced no adverse effects from this, and it had a strong wintergreen flavor and had some throat hit.
However, some odd things happened. It louched, or turned the mix milky, when I shook it up. I then wondered if it might be an oil. Within an hour of vaping it, I decided it was too strongly flavored, and decided to remove the filler from the cartridge and clean out the cart. Well, I couldn't easily remove the poly filler material because the threads had stuck, or bonded, to the sides of the cart. It had not melted or anything, but it did get all stuck to the cart sides to the extent that I couldn't remove it. I had to tear the polyfil apart and pull it out in clumps to get all but the stuck-on threads out of the cart. Soaking in PGA did not get the stuck-on polyfill off the plastic cart.
That made me decide to get rid of what I had made so far. So I poured out the liquid, and found that it had formed a thick vaseline-like gel in the bottom of the container. I tried to wash this out, and found that the hard plastic container had been "frosted" on the inside by the mixture. So I threw it away.
Anyway, that makes it seem like Wintergreen flavoring is caustic, at least with some plastics, perhaps only when combined with one or more of the bases I list as part of the mix above. Very concerned, I've decided not to use this anymore and post this warning about it.
It made me look the substance up and read about it, and I discovered that in sufficient quantities (not very large amounts) it is toxic. The average lethal dose being 10 ml for adults. Methyl salicylate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I'm certainly not going to be using any more Wintergreen, but what I am interested in is why did this happen? Has anyone else had an experience like this with Wintergreen flavoring, and can anyone explain what occured to cause this unnerving "eating up" of the polyfill, gelling of the eLiquid, and etching of the hard plastic container?

[Wink]

I have Lorann's wintergreen.. same ingredient as yours and haven't had a single problem. After reading your post I checked - I have a small bottle I mixed with unflavored PG 24 mg liquid at least 6 weeks ago.. I have a small bottle and a filled 510 cart (both have been sitting for over a month). I have looked and they still look fine, smell fine, normal consistancy, poly cart filter in perfect condition. The bottle is white so I can't tell for sure about any etching. Drops come out clear, not milky. I really can't see anything unusual about these at all.
Something different has happened for you, but I don't know why. Besides the wintergreen flavor was there anything else different about your mix - any possible contamination from something else?

[TnA]

I also use the LorAnn's Wintergreen to make my very popular "menthol/wintergreen" mix with no issues. However, I will note that I am a dripper and have no experience w/ using this mix in carts.....but I have zero issues or side-effects.

About the methyl salicylate; since the wintergreen is so potent, the amounts that is used is so small that I'm not worried about the methyl salicylate....but then again, this is also the reason why I have less fear of using "oil-based" flavors in my mixes, too.

[KevinD872]

This got my attention because I recently received two 1 oz bottles of this from LorAnns. However, I haven't gotten to making juice with it yet because I am waiting on some PG.

Which Wintergreen are you guys using? Natural or artificial? I ordered the artificial. Now this has me concerned. Not only about the potential interaction mentioned, but the health concerns........

[rave]

This sounds very similar to what happened to me with LorAnn's Sassafrass. I use a small plastic container with ml markings on it to mix up liquids. I mixed in my VG based nic juice, an equal amound of PG, and then added a healthy amount of sassafras. I like strong flavors because my taste buds are toast. Sassafras doesn't say anything about being an oil that I noticed, but it didn't mix up well. When I went to wash out the plastic mixing container it had a waxy coating on it. I tried soap and water and it got worse. It almost looks as if the plastic is melted. Needless to say, I threw the mix out. The container can't be cleaned by any means that I can figure out. Hmmmm ....

[Sun Vaporer]

Been using it on and off for a year---no issues.


Sun

[Angela]

Sassafras doesn't say anything about being an oil that I noticed,

From the Loranns site (emphasis mine):


Sassafras Flavor
Product Number:0120-0100
Kosher Certified. Gluten Free & Sugar Free Contains: Artificial Flavors. Insoluble in water. Appropriate for use in chocolates and coatings.


If it's insoluble in water, it's oil.

[rave]

Gotcha. Shoot. I was just looking at the bottle. Guess I'll look at the description on the site a bit better next time. duh. Thanks!

[miketr]

That is all some very interesting feedback! Also, the atty I used is now stone cold dead, no vapor, no heat, nothing. I can't think of anything else that might have contaminated things, but clearly I had a different experience from others who have had no issues. I'm going to guess perhaps mixing the Wintergreen and PGA may have caused what happened; it seems to be the only difference from the other mixes. The other possibility is the quantity - I was using about 10 drops per milliliter of eLiquid solution.
Anyway, it seems what I've been relearning the hard way is what many people have already determined on the site- that oil-based flavorings kill attys, and not slowly and a little bit at a time, but quickly and easily.

[RenaissancePuffer]

That's a lot of flavor for that mixture. That's 40% flavoring if you only had 2.5ml of e-liquid. I always like to use between 10-20% (flavor depending) for my mixtures, but the Lorann Wintergreen (Artifical) is fairly strong, it won't take nearly that much.