Disappointing flavors discovery

[dirtmonkey]

My early experience with DIY flavors--

I ordered a lot of flavors when I got started, heavy on the fruits because I thought I would like those best. I was totally wrong. I hate fruit flavors! I only ordered reputable good quality ones; FlavourArt, LorAnn, Flavor Apprentice... and they all taste like candy to me. Not even tasty candy like Jolly Ranchers; more like cheap dollar store overstock candy No matter how much they mellow with steeping, if they do at all, they couldn't change enough for me to like them. I've tried weak and strong. Adding sweetener, sour, EM, lemon juice, or vinegar didn't help. Today I tried several I mixed up a few days ago and let sit, still yuk.

What's worse, a couple of them I think I would like at least a little, give me an instant headache even at low concentration (huckleberry, green apple, a couple others I'm not sure about).

I can put up with some FlavourArt watermelon, might mix it with mint. A little peach is OK, when mixed with green tea. I got a couple different brands of those to try out. I'm almost afraid to try the regular apple, blackberry, pear (but that sounds so good!), pineapple, mango, melon, and whatever others I haven't opened up yet.

I'll save them for a while to see if my taste changes, but I kind of doubt it. Looks like I might be limited to coffee, spices (liking cinnamon and anise), and mints (really strong ones!). I can vape the couple tobaccos I tried, prefilled cartos, but don't really like them enough to buy. I'll try some more bakery types too. The chocolates and FApp bavarian cream aren't too bad, and they haven't steeped very long yet. I ordered only a couple of those thinking I probably wouldn't like them at all LOL.

I'm making home made infusions of coffee (a few kinds including some flavored), and vanilla bean, and will try cinnamon sticks, cloves, orange, fennel seed, and probably other spices and teas when I get more PG & VG. I'm out already from experimenting with bought flavors.

I also made eucalyptus, it was good, but the flavor evaporates way before the juice runs out. That might be worth trying again if I get a tank to hold flavor.

So far, the only thing I can sit around and vape for a while without getting sick of it is the peppermint & creme de menthe mix I made extra strong... unless I'm drinking, then the coffee becomes more OK too. It doesn't turn into a cage fight in my mouth with the drinks, like mint or spice can.

And wow- I read about drying out from vaping here already, but definitely wasn't prepared for how much more water I want now. That's a good thing, I've always known I should drink more water in winter and now I definitely am!

 

[Hoosier]

Monkey, are there any premade juices you like?

I think I am reading that if you get the flavoring high enough to get a taste out of it, it is terrible while if it is a lower ratio, you cannot taste much, if at all. (Am I reading that right?)

If I'm right, then mints are a good path.

If I'm kinda' right, but a bit off, then giving a few Capella's a shot may be helpful as they are VERY forgiving. I'm thinking Cinnamon Danish Swirl as I know it works at low %'s, but doesn't go funky at high %'s.

I also wonder how good your sense of smell is working in general.

(Water is your best friend while vaping and before vaping and after vaping...)

 

[brokepainter]

It takes time to find something you like. And as time goes by your tastes may change. I haven't tried any fruits but I love peppermint candy but I can't get my peppermint juice to taste like the candy. What brand peppermint did you buy?

 

[dirtmonkey]

Hoosier, thanks; I haven't tried premade juices except the peppermint and prefilled cartos that came with my kit from V2; Red, chocolate, and Coffee. All the other things are what I'm mixing up at home. I don't think it's the strength that's the real problem.. I did notice what you're saying, but high low and in between, I just don't like the kind of taste most of the fruits have. I don't even like the fake fruit smells seeping out from the closed tin I'm keeping the flavor bottles in, so they got moved out to the garage. The garage now smells like candy flavored toilet deodorizer. My sense of smell was always pretty sensitive and getting more so pretty fast since quitting smoking. I think I just like the coffee/bakery and mint flavors better. I'm sure my taste will change some over the next few weeks, so I'll give the fruits a go again before tossing or trading them out. Maybe I will try some of those Capellas too, but starting to get to the place already where it's hard to justify spending more for a while. I've mixed up enough flavors for the drain to have lasted for months! Most of the fruits are going into one bottle all together now, since they're all mixed at 20mg nicotine. Maybe someone I know will like some mixed fruits someday.

Brokepainter, I'm finding that out. I just learned the hard way that I don't know my own tastes as well as I thought I would! I got some of the peppermint premixed (also from V2 with my first order- too expensive, but I didn't know that then). It tastes like plain peppermint oil flavoring. I haven't tried others so I can't compare it. I'll be using straight peppermint oil flavor and mixing it up myself in the future, not sure what strengths I'll settle on yet. Mixing the premade with creme de menthe [edit: LorAnn] did make it taste sweeter, I bet adding a little bit of doublemint type stuff to peppermint would make it more candy like too. I have another locally grown mint that's kind of like that, and some spearmint, to play with in the future too.

Actually I'll consider myself pretty lucky if my favorites continue to be things I can extract or mix up myself. Less money, and I'll always know exactly what all the ingredients are. Well, except with flavored coffee extractions, but then I always liked plain black coffee far better so maybe that will carry through to vaping too.

 

[Hoosier]

Ah, I'm completely wrong then.

You've tried 1% on some of these flavorings? If you haven't, then do so. You may be so sensitive that the levels that most of us use would be chemically tasting crud to you.

 

[brokepainter]

I hope you can find what you can vape all day soon, its very hard at first. For me I love tobacco juices, so I bought alot of different tobacco flavors thinking all I had to do was mix and vape.I was very wrong, I don't like any tobacco flavor I bought by itself. Lol I have to mix it with something else to be able to use it. Hopefully when Hoosier has the time he will be able to do his tobacco blog and I can make some decent juices. Scubadan has a good tobacco recipe on here that I can vape everyday, but when I bought all my flavorings at first it didn't include anything from his recipe so I had to order more stuff. So I know what your going through. The only advice I can give you is find something you like anne stick with it and keep trying you fruit flavors from time to time they might get better. When I first started vaping I didn't like sweet juices but I'm slowly coming around to them.

 

[Lyndagayle]

Thought I'd jump in and put a +1 on Hoosier's advice. Sounds like you have super sensitive taste buds. TPA's Juicy Peach is a very good true tasting peach. Give it a shot at 1% and work up. I hope you find something soon. You have something in your favor.....at least you didn't fall in love with a certain vendor's juice and want to duplicate it. That's when you run into the really tall hurdles. Keep trying and don't go by the recipes you see here, percentage wise anyway. Get acquainted with the flavors using the "less is more" approach and see if that helps. Good luck!

 

[dirtmonkey]

Hey thanks for the advices-- I just ordered some more PG & VG, so I'll make up some unflavored and dilute what I have down even more. The lower ones I mixed were at 5% and the higher ones at 15%; I'll start mixing those drop by drop into plain stuff.

Lyndagayle, I did read up on people here trying to recreate proprietary blends, and knew right away I don't have anywhere near the experience to even attempt that! Most of what I tasted before when I'd try other people's PVs didn't taste good to me anyway, so I decided making my own simple ones was probably a better way for me to start.

Now I've run across posts from people here buying vendor juice blends and diluting them down at home, so I think I'll get a few samples and try that too.

I'm also going to stop using nic juice for tests. I wanted to taste what the final mix would be like, but it starts to add up fast. On the plus side, some of the nastier ones will make great insecticides.

 

[Nikkita6]

I can definitely feel your pain .... My DIY journey has been filled with ups and downs ... I haven't made any bad tasting juice, but like you I was very disappointed to find how many flavoring I just didn't like, Lorann's being the main one. The only Lorann flavor I like is Natural Pear, which is true tasting ... all other I agree, taste like cheap candy.

TPA's Pineapple, Blueberry, Banana, Cinn Danish, Pecan, French Vanilla, Sweet Cream and Double Chocolate clear I found to be very good flavors .... the list of those that I didn't like is much longer.

Almost all of Flavour Arts flavorings have a strong perfumey note to them ... so most are a fail. Butter is the one flavor that I seem to be gettin a lot of use out of. Cookie is strong, but when mixed on the lighter side it's is also good.... and again the list of flavors I don't like is long.

Capellas is the one vendor that was a total surprise, I love the quality and the absence of artificial or chemically tasting mixes. I have my favorites, but out of 14 flavors that I have tried, I don't hate any of them ...

Caramel is the one flavor that all of the above vendors pretty much fail on ... even Capellas but they were close .... had to go to China of all places for a true tasting caramel, but at least I got it!

 

[Shilo]

I feel your pain. I think we all do. Its best to start lower than 5 percent I do because I too am very sensitive to the smell of some of the flavorings. I agree that some fruits taste like cheap candy not like the real fruit. I couldn't find a banana yet that didn't taste/smell like cheap banana taffy. I giggled at what you said about the smell of your garage. Make sure to have a sweetener on hand I think that can help improve many flavors that just don't bloom without a sweetener added in. I never make a nicotine base until I have tested a flavor with at least sitting for a week to see its beginning taste and what the taste is at full fruition/steeping. I test it in the same ratio I will use minus the nic base. Higher PG should need less flavoring than high VG vapes.

Keep trying this is a learning curve and a crazy ride---you are not alone.

Capella sweet strawberry is the first fruit I have (and I almost didn't buy it) that tastes more like the real fruit to me.

 

[ponytail girl]

At least your trying to mixed your own juice..maybe I should too..I have juices just sitting on the shelf..I thought I would like them and turns out I don't..what a waste of money..but I have found a couple I like..Good luck finding your flavor..one day when I have time I will try mixing too..

 

[dirtmonkey]

Thanks for those reviews Nikkita6, it sounds like we might have similar taste. That's the second time I've been referred over to Capellas, so that might be my next flavors order. I meant to add cookie to my FlavourArts collection, but forgot. I didn't order any butters because of a shipping accident once that saturated a bunch of boxes and furniture with diacetyl... even smelling theater-style popcorn gives me the heebie-jeebies now.

shilohcalista soon it will be a week for some of the first mixes I made, so we'll see... unfortunately I've never liked strawberry in any form I've used the sucralose liquid, bavarian cream and whipped cream flavors to sweeten so far.

I might have to double-dilute flavors to test them. Making them in 3ml batches, 1 drop can still be over 1.5% unless they're filled all the way up. The least I had used before was 3 drops, figuring that was close enough to 5%. I should probably go ahead and get a couple quarts of PG and VG to mess around with while I'm figuring this out. The 120ml bottles aren't enough to experiment much with.

 

[dirtmonkey]

At least your trying to mixed your own juice..maybe I should too..I have juices just sitting on the shelf..I thought I would like them and turns out I don't..what a waste of money..but I have found a couple I like..Good luck finding your flavor..one day when I have time I will try mixing too..

Well, actually, it's getting me behind on things I really should be doing instead!

 

[JewelzBagz]

Thanks for those reviews Nikkita6, it sounds like we might have similar taste. That's the second time I've been referred over to Capellas, so that might be my next flavors order. I meant to add cookie to my FlavourArts collection, but forgot. I didn't order any butters because of a shipping accident once that saturated a bunch of boxes and furniture with diacetyl... even smelling theater-style popcorn gives me the heebie-jeebies now.

shilohcalista soon it will be a week for some of the first mixes I made, so we'll see... unfortunately I've never liked strawberry in any form I've used the sucralose liquid, bavarian cream and whipped cream flavors to sweeten so far.

I might have to double-dilute flavors to test them. Making them in 3ml batches, 1 drop can still be over 1.5% unless they're filled all the way up. The least I had used before was 3 drops, figuring that was close enough to 5%. I should probably go ahead and get a couple quarts of PG and VG to mess around with while I'm figuring this out. The 120ml bottles aren't enough to experiment much with.

I've been doing a lot of flavor testing myself lately too, although I'm finding that 5% seems to work well for me. I just wanted to share what I've been using, as it's a lot easier than constantly washing out those little 3 ml bottles. I have doing my testing in one of those one week pill boxes from walgreens. I can slap a label on each days flip top, and slap it in a drawer to steep. But the best part is the ease of cleaning. I think I picked up the idea somewhere on the forum here, and figured I'd pass it along.

 

[dirtmonkey]

Hey thanks JewelzBagz, I know I can get those made of HDPE pretty cheap at a local drug store. and yes, all those 3ml bottles are getting [and giving] a workout.

 

[Str8V8ping]

My early experience with DIY flavors--

I only ordered reputable good quality ones; FlavourArt, LorAnn, Flavor Apprentice...

Lol .Thats your problem . What you think is quality is not the highest quality flavorings . TPA not the highest quality and mostly what people have issues with . TPA uses ingredients which is of a cheaper quality .Loranns has a few good ones but not all theirs are good either .Good in a pinch . If your looking for high quality and reputable you should be looking into flavorings like Capellas which use higher quality and natural ingredients .I do use some TPA flavoring still though but not all are good. If its not working for you like you said you should try out Capellas since people have a lot more luck with them . Anything beats analogs though as far as ingredients go .

Most people never read this sticky
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/127760-diy-warning-please-read.html

Edit: was a little harsh so i fixed it .

 

[Karla Lyle]

I'm new to DIY and after being referred to Capellas by Str8v8ping and others reviews, I found flavors that are actually good. I also tried The flavors apprentice as well as a few flavo west and a couple Loranns. Although I did find a few a few of the others usable, none compare to the Capellas. So here's another vote for trying Capellas. Haven't tried all 12 flavors I ordered yet and haven't even begun mixing them together yet but the 4 or 5 I tried by themselves are incredible. Good on my very first try.

 

[Lyndagayle]

Lol .Thats your problem . What you think is reputable and quality is actually the opposite . TPA is the lowest quality and mostly what people have issues with . TPA is made with perfume making ingridiants which is of a cheaper quality . If your looking for high quality anf reputable you should be looking into flavorings like Capellas which use much higher quality ingredients .

Most people never read this sticky
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/127760-diy-warning-please-read.html

Str8, although I agree with many of your posts, I have to disagree on this one. TPAs flavors are not perfume quality ingredients. Yes, she does have a "perfume" branch of her business but the flavor branch (TFA) is all food grade quality. Granted, some ingredients cross the line for both sides simply because some flavors also are used in higher proportions to formulate fragrance. Vanilla, one of the very basic and most widely used flavors is also used as a fragrance. Linda has gone above and beyond our expectations to help keep us safe by posting inhalation cautions on a few questionable flavors i.e. custard. With all due respect, a post like this one is not totally accurate and can harm businesses that are diligently trying to keep abreast of our needs and wants while doing their best to keep us safe. I use many of Linda's flavors and have found some to agree with my taste more than Capella's i.e. strawberry. IMO TFA Strawberry beats Cap's hands down but that's just my subjective opinion. Just because one does not like how some flavors taste does not mean that they are made from low quality ingredients. We all will do well to refrain from bashing a company just because we don't care for their flavors. None of them would survive long under the heavy hand of FDA if they were selling non food grade flavorings. We can give our recommendations of the companies we buy from without bringing harm to another. TPA is NOT a perfumers only business, but a company where both perfumery products and food grade flavorings can be purchased under the same (virtual) roof.

ETA: Just so you know, some of your favorite vendors use TPA flavorings.

 

[OCD]

EssentialDepot.Com has 1 gallon each of PG and VG with FREE shipping $47.99 at that price it will give enough to experiment to your hearts content and still have so much left over you shouldnt have to buy for a very long time. Three weeks ago I was spending that every 4 or 5 days for my wife and I.

On diluting, if you just use a small portion of your strong mix to dilute down it doesnt take much to make up a test sized batch and if you go too far you still have the strong stuff to adjust back the other way. Just keep copious notes so if you do hit the sweet spot you can get back to it.

Not sure if this might be the case but I see your last analog banned indicates 10 days smoke free, congrats on that but I would think giving it a bit more time before making any solid opinions on flavors you like or dislike because your senses are certainly still changing, For us I by what I have been reading I plan to keep a very open mind as to flavors for at least a couple of months and just have fun and try to get a handle on the various strengths and weaknesses. We bought well over 100 flavors as soon as we decided to DiY, probably $300 worth of tiny bottles. A few we have decided we like and bought larger bottles of (hope that doesnt change for us). Just went over $400 of savings between My wife, her Mom and myself so no big deal there. Figure in another month or so all expenses on hardware, nic and flavors will be recouped then I can start thinking about modding without guilt of spending so much money.

Best of luck in getting your flavors sorted.

 

[AzPlumber]

Lol .Thats your problem . What you think is quality is not the highest quality flavorings . TPA not the highest quality and mostly what people have issues with . TPA uses ingredients which is of a cheaper quality .Loranns has a few good ones but not all theirs are good either .Good in a pinch . If your looking for high quality and reputable you should be looking into flavorings like Capellas which use higher quality and natural ingredients .I do use some TPA flavoring still though but not all are good. If its not working for you like you said you should try out Capellas since people have a lot more luck with them . Anything beats analogs though as far as ingredients go .

Most people never read this sticky
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/127760-diy-warning-please-read.html

Edit: was a little harsh so i fixed it .

Str8, I hope you have something that backs up your statements. Making a public statement like that without facts to back it up, could get your ___ in a wringer.