DIY questions for a DIY newbie

[Raynen]

Hello all

I've been vaping for almost 4 months (the 13th is my "monthly anniversary"), and I have been very curious about DIYing my own liquids. It'll be a slighty pricey investment I'm sure, since I'll be able to make my own juices. I just have a few questions.

Are there any specific guidelines for flavor recipes? I'll probably start small, then go big. For instance, what is an example of a simple recipe?

What mg nicotine is best to start out with? This kinda confuses me, since I thought everyone used 100mg nicotine and just leveled it down with PG/VG. I've been vaping 18mg nicotine liquids, but I'll probably drop down within my next order or so.

How safe is DIYing and handling nicotine? DIYing sounds great but I just want to make sure I'm not DIYing my way to the hospital.

Thanks everyone!

 

[DesiG]

When using higher nic solutions for mixing make sure that you have a clear, clean space, wear gloves (nic absorbs thru skin), keep the stuff away from all animals/pets/kids etc. and measure very carefully (I use syringes).
You can get nic in a bunch of concentrations- and my ejuice vendor even sells a 'flavorless' 30 ml that you can customize with pg/vg levels and nic levels, that you can add flavor to when you get it. That is how I started, since the 'scary' part of figuring the nic base was already figured out and mixed for me.
There are suggestions for how much flavor to add in the diy part of our forum, and somebody has a recipe for pineapple upside-down cake that I am dying to try!
Oh, and mix in small batches at first, and remember that the juice may need to sit for a bit before the flavors blend completely.
Good Luck!

 

[Bootsand]

I buy 60mg strength VG from myfreedomsmokes whenever he has a sale (best quality and price that I could find) and mix it down to 20mg before flavoring is added, probably around 18mg after. It's easy to mix one part nic to 2 parts no nic.

It can be a bit of an investment at first, but pays off quickly. I have enough nic juice and flavoring to last an entire year, all purchased for around 100 bucks.

I never use gloves, and 60mg on my skin doesn't bother me too much, but I've become pretty clean about the whole process. Gloves would be advisable at first. I've never handled 100mg before, 60mg was always the best price-per-mg-of-nic that I found.

The handling of higher dose nic juice is still pretty safe... A few drops here and there might give you a buzz, and gloves are the safest, but compared to handling pure nicotine, it's like holding an armful of kittens. Pure nicotine is a killer.

EDIT: A lot of juice vendors are selling flavoring for their specific juices if you've grown to love certain ones, you can also look at Flavor's Apprentice (excellent stuff), Flavourart, or LorAnnes to create your own

 

[markfm]

Go into the Tips and Tricks area, which has a DIY e-liquid subforum. There are some really solid introduction Stickys, discussions about safety, flavorings, etc.

Personally, I've used 100 mg since the start, but then again I'm not overly clumsy, keep my high mg stuff in a certain location in the basement, and am good about cleanliness. Some people wear nitrile gloves (cheap if you buy a big box from Walmart online), eye protection, and those are certainly good things.

If you are nervous about the nicotine, you can either quickly cut 100 down to whatever as a one time exercise (dluting with PG or VG to say 50 or 60 mg strength), else a lot of places sell 48 and 60 mg nic liquid, so you'll have a safer nic to work with (though you should still clean any spills promptly, keep the juice away from children and pets).

For me, I stay with the 100, and just do that as the first step of any mix, so the nic is recapped and put into its corner of my mixing area quickly. Even for samples I tend to make at least 10 ml, and more often 20. 10 ml at 10mg = 100 mg nic total = 1 ml of 100 mg/ml nic liquid needed. 10 ml at 15 mg strength = 150 mg = 1.5 ml of 100 mg. 10 ml of 20 mg = 2 ml of 100 mg. 10 ml of 25 mg = 2.5 ml of 100 mg. It's pretty easy working with the 100 mg/ml base, if I mix to targets of 10, 15, 20, 25 mg/ml final liquid.

Cost-wise, up front there's the bulk purchase cost, but on the other hand my actual juice, including shipping and handling to get the materials, costs under $5 per 30ml, with much of it under $4 (slightly more depending on how I use up bottles). I buy nic liquid on sale, buy bottles from US Plastics (and make the total order near $25 so S&H is low per-bottle), and since I personally really like my tobacco juice I bought a 7-1/2 ounce bottle of Seedman Commercial concentrate. I've certainly had some "meh" flavorings, but that's because I've been trying for some specialized things -- stick to the flavorings used on, say, scubabatdan's excel spreadsheet and you should be good.

Start simple, make sure DIY is for you (not everyone likes it).

Good luck!