Does e-liquid contain alcohol?

[scrubadub]

I agree Kate, most of the brands I checked give next to nothing away about what's in the liquid. I emailed Jason at wicked and he was certain that there was no alcohol present in his liquid and there's certainly no mention of ethanol in the lab report on his site.

However having read around a bit this evening I've noticed that on wikipedia propylene glycol is refered to as a diol alcohol. Not really sure what this means. I think dad may need to take the list of ingredients to his liver specialist and get an opinion from him. I really hope it gets the all clear as my dad's chest is quite bad these days. Also I would be generally interested to hear what the liver guy thinks of the liquid. I'll report back with the verdict obviously

[Kate]

Please do let us know, I'd be very interested to hear what's said.

I have a problem with my liver, something to do with high levels of enzymes. It was very high a couple of years ago then I changed medication and it went back to normal but it's been going up again recently and I don't know why. I hope there's nothing in eliquid that is affecting me but I can't be sure.

If propylene glycol is a problem then you might try asking Johnson Creek about their non pg formula. That's the only commercial eliquid I've heard of that doesn't use pg.

[scrubadub]

Yes I will do Kate. My dad's enzymes go up and down a fair bit as well so it has to be monitored quite closely. That said he had almost complete liver failure eight years ago and for the most part his liver has managed to repair itself. It's a hardy organ the liver, it can take quite a bashing and bounce back.

I'll try Johnson Creek and see what they say although from other posts I've read it appears they are being quite cagey about the ingredients. Do you know if it's VG they are using? It's a sugar alcohol according to Wikipedia. Not sure what the implications of that would be either. I wish I'd paid more attention during science classes...

[Kate]

There is much guessing over Johnson Creek, they are not giving anything away about their formula easily. If you explain the health situation and alcohol problem they might give you specific information. They say non-pg, they don't tell us any more so it's just guesswork about what creates the vapour. As far as I know the only ingredients that create vapour are pg, glycerine or alcohol. Alcohol probably wouldn't give much vapour though so it's probably glycerine.

Maybe your dad could ask his specialist about glycerine while finding out about the other stuff. The information could come in handy later even if he can use pg for now.

[scrubadub]

There seems to be quite a few references to glycerine being a safe alternative to alcohol products for alcoholics out there. They all seem to be hippy herbal shops though but still promising. I'll let you know what the verdict is.

[edisme518123]

Chemically speaking, anything ending in -ol is going to be an "alcohol." Artificial sugars, propylene glycol, glycerol... are all "alcohols". The alcohol your dad needs to watch for is ethyl or ethanol. (Ethyl being a natural gas product and ethanol being a starch product i.e. corn or wheat, etc). All this means is that the structure of the molecule is a series of carbon and hydrogen i.e.:


Propylene glycol is basically a composition derived from the combination of propanol and glycerol. The vegetable "glycerin" we know of is just the complex alcohol composition of glycerol. This can be related to oxygen i.e. O1 (elemental oxygen), 02 (oxygen gas), or 03 (ozone). Same stuff, more complex composition.

Even if a cartridge did contain ethanol, a full cartridge only contains 1ml (penstyle), .5 ml (mini), or .25 ml (super mini). So, even if your dad was to consume an entire cartridge in a sitting, he would not be able to discern any alcohol taste or feel. (As an example, typical moutwash contains 10-20% alcohol. This would mean that in the 15-20ml gulp you use to wash your mouth would contain as much as 2ml of alcohol... double the full capacity of the largest cartridge.)

Hope this helps.

[scrubadub]

Thanks very much for that Edisme, very informative. I'll pass that information along to my dad. It's all sounding very promising now which is great.

[Schroedinger's cat]

In this thread
E-liquid lab/toxicology reports
(post #14) there is the link to the latest report from NZ on Janty cartridges. They contain ethanol (5%), but I have no idea if inhalation of those small amounts would constitute a danger. You could print out the report and have your father's doctor look at it.

[Kate]

Sorry to correct you Cat but that report is about Ruyan juice, not Janty. They are not the same although they sometimes get mixed up with each other.

[scrubadub]

In this thread
E-liquid lab/toxicology reports
(post #14) there is the link to the latest report from NZ on Janty cartridges. They contain ethanol (5%), but I have no idea if inhalation of those small amounts would constitute a danger. You could print out the report and have your father's doctor look at it.

Yeah that makes sense Schroedinger. I emailed Pillbox and he was certain there was no alcohol in the totally wicked juice and his lab report seemed to back that up. Looks like glycerine isn't a problem but I'm going to get my dad to print the wicked report and take it in to show the liver guy. I'm interested to see what he says.

*This could take a while though, my dad operates on geological time.