Hi this is my first post. I started vaping about a month ago on the grocery store e-cigs. They did get me off analogs but I was going through those cartridges like crazy and at 9.99 for a 3 pack, I was spending more than I was when I was smoking. So I invested in one of those fancy push button nicotine sticks. A Kanger something or other. I like it, but everything (flavors) seems to taste the same. I'm assuming my taste buds are dead-on-arrival from 25 years of smoking. So far the only flavors that I have been able to taste are sweet tart and green apple. I guess my sour buds still work. I figure sour, mint, and menthol are going to be the only things that I can taste atm.
Now for the question part.
Wizard labs sells 24mg/ml nicotine - Is that vapeable straight out of the bottle or would I have to do something to it to make it safe? They only have 100% vg or pg dilution, so I'm thinking I could buy a bottle of each and mix it up and get what I'm tasting from the fancy mixes. They all have this kind of stale cigarette taste which I'm assuming is the nicotine since it carries through all the flavors that I have tried. Kind of icky but not any worse than an analog after a month without. Plus I could buy some of their pretty cobalt bottles which I wouldn't do if I didn't have an excuse to purchase something else.
Although I'm not terribly interested in DIYing my own flavors, I figure I could pick up a bottle or 3 of mint, menthol or something sour from one of the flavorist shops and put it into my wizard labs nicotine for a little novelty.
I've got an order of 24mg flavored juice coming about Thursday (currently smo...umm vaping 30mg) and if the flavors are still not there does my plan sound reasonably safe to you folks?
Thanks for giving a confused newbie a chance to ask a few questions.
Sorry this will be a little lengthy, but I wanted to make sure you didn't have to wander a lot to get yourself started off on the right foot. Hopefully some useful beginner information here for others to consider as well.
Welcome!
So let me cover a couple of things in basic terms for you. Always remember, you can ask 10 people about flavors and you will always get 10 different answers. Finding your flavor will be the toughest part for you. It is one of the keys to keeping you off the smokes. *Don't give up*, your flavor IS out there, trust me... It just might take you a while to find it. Keep a LIST, what flavor you liked and where you got it... and what flavors you hated so you don't accidentally buy it again. Eventually, you are going to end up with a box of bottles and you won't remember where they came from.
So, basically you can buy liquids that are already flavored and in various strengths as you have discovered. Or, you can buy unflavored nicotine liquid that is used for DIY mixing, and add your own flavorings. If the liquid has a flavor at all, you can assume it is ready to vape as long as the strength suits your needs. The products you are referencing on the WL website are plain and unflavored... it is up to you to add flavorings of your choice and dilute it to the strength that you need. It is considered safe to vape by itself at 24mg, but it's not going to taste very good without adding flavor, not to mention, 24mg is pretty strong.
E-Liquid strengths range from Zero-Nic to 24mg (0-24) usually. 10mg for example, means that every 1 milliliter of liquid contains 10 milligrams of nicotine. This also equates to 1.0% for reference purposes. Some vendors list their liquids as a percentage. 2.4% for example, means it is 24mg. Any liquid strength higher than 36mg (3.6%) is considered dangerous to handle without proper safety equipment, and definitely not safe to vape.
"Unflavored nicotine" is what you are seeing on the WL website. If you want to go down this road (DIY), I cannot stress enough the importance of doing some initial reading about handling safety. Wizard Labs sells expensive, but very high quality ingredients, and it is all DIY material. You will need various bottles, syringes, pipettes, flavorings, plain PG and VG, and a good recipe. I personally am not familiar with their house branded flavorings. For a beginner, Capellas brand may be a better flavoring choice as they are more forgiving and most of them can be used as single flavorings per batch instead of complex, multi-flavor concoctions. It is time consuming and requires lots of patience and record keeping. Check out the DIY forums if you decide later that this is something you want to do as a hobby (and a huge money saving) activity. There is better and more accurate info there than I could ever cover myself.
On NIC strength: When I started, I came off of a 3 1/2 pack/day cigarette habit. I assumed I needed high powered liquids to keep me satisfied. I ended up making myself sick on 24mg liquid the first few days because I vape just like I smoked, almost continuously. I finally figured it out... if you are a chain-vaper like me, you may want to stick with a lower strength like 8 or 12mg. If you are one of those people who takes a hit every 5-10 minutes or something, then yes, maybe a little higher strength (like 18 or even 24 in more drastic situations). You will have to find your own spot via experimentation. I would not recommend ever going higher that 24mg on vapable finished product, that is considered pretty potent.
IF you go down the DIY road, do a search for "E-juice Me Up" on Google. It's a small program from Breakthrough Software, you can plugin the strength of your nic base, the strength you want as a final product, and how much you want to make and it will calculate exactly how much of each ingredient you need. Again, be careful. Nicotine can be dangerous if not handled properly and recognized for what it is.
If (and it sounds like you'd rather) you want to avoid DIY, Wizard labs won't do you much good. You will want to stalk all of the vendor websites (many good ones listed here on ECF) for sample packs until you find your home with a flavor/vendor. Remember, Menthol or any other flavor from VendorA will normally never taste like Menthol from any other vendor unless it is a name brand liquid such as: Halo, Apollo, Dekang, Liqua, Hangsen, (not all inclusive or in any particular order) etc... those are all branded liquids that are re-sold by various vendors and will be the same no matter who you buy them from.
I'm not sure I can recommend/mention vendors in this thread so I'll avoid that, but I would highly recommend you subscribe to and monitor this PIF thread:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/pay-forward-pif/418767-deals-steals-15.html#post11328664
ECF users share good deals, current coupon codes etc. There are other threads as well, you'll find you way around eventually. I suggest keeping your orders to sample packs or small 10ml bottles until you find your flavor or you will be flushing a lot of money away.
Again, be safe and pay attention to your body. If you start feeling queasy, back off and reduce the nicotine strength. You might want to keep a bottle of plain PG around to dilute your liquids if you find them to be too strong. It can mean the difference in throwing something away or rescuing it.
And one important note about flavors: IF you get a sample to try and decide it tastes like road kill, don't throw it in the trash just yet. Put the cap on and put it in a dark kitchen cabinet. Leave it there for 2 weeks at least, shaking it up ever few days, then try it again. Flavors transform over time, some very dramatically. This is generally referred to as "steeping". You'll hear more about that as you read. I've had some completely terrible juices turn into wonderful flavors after a couple weeks of steeping time... and it's not folklore, it really happens.
Lastly, don't let this place confuse you. It's easy to get overwhelmed with the vast expanses of information and opinions here. Vaping is really as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. There is no best of anything really, only the thing that works well for YOU. You will find a LOT of subjective opinion here that gets confused as fact. Keep that in mind when you start getting overloaded and keep things simple, you'll be much more successful in the end.
