My vaping journey has been down, up and all around. I started vaping in 2009. Quit. Smoked. Vaped again in 2011. Quit. Smoked. Vaped again in 2012 and it worked! Each time a New Year's Resolution....so four years for me now.
The gear improved to the point to where I could get enough nicotine to finally quit smoking by replacing my urges with vaping in January 2012. We all have success stories. This last time I found a guy that made his own juice and had him mix up some 36 mg/ml juice....cherry as I recall. That stuff worked for me. I was intrigued that he could make his own juice and vary the intensity and the flavoring. I was paying about $20 for 15 mls at the time and wanted to find a way to reduce my juice costs. I discovered DIY and then launched myself into it, invested $500, and then tried for six months to make juice....AND I COULDN'T! Nothing tasted good....NOTHING! I had so much invested, so I didn't want to give up, but nothing I tried worked.
Some how I made a 46% cinnamon mixture that I liked. It's still my ADV, though I modified it to a 23% flavoring. Nicotine gradually dropped over time to 6 mg/ml, and the change was easy, and natural. For the six months that I couldn't make anything good at all, I tried low flavor mixes. When I switched to high flavor mixes, I could taste the juice on the fly, so I could experiment until I found something good. Took a long time to figure out primary and secondary flavorings. At the time, there were no websites, no real recipes, other than long steep concoctions, and very few of those.
I tried vape shops and used their flavor bars to find flavor combinations that were good, and then went home and tried to copy what I tasted. In time, I found flavorings that worked. In time, I discovered patterns in the mixes. Like you, in time I could design flavorings as easily on paper, as I could in the vape lab. In time, I was asked to make juice commercially. For a while, I was making 20 new juices a week. Literally thousands of 100DT's. I was as hooked on juice making as I ever was on smoking. What an adventure.
Today, I make half a dozen flavors of my most preferred, usually in my 600 ml beakers, and vape those. Along the way, I wanted to share my story, my successes, etc. with others, as I had a really hard time getting it to work. Much easier to learn today. Lots of pioneers have shown the way. New pioneers will show more ways. I've always been about helping the new vaper, the new mixer, as I completely relate to being lost in this world. I rarely go into the vape lab anymore. I may again some day, who knows. I know I only scratched the surface.
Others, like yourself, will add to the body of knowledge we now understand about vaping, mixing, etc., and more people will be helped, more will be able to quit smoking, more will make their own juices, and so it just continues with new stories all the time. I've shared what I learned, and I try to encourage others to post what they learn here, as well. Because the numbers on juice making are so profitable, particularly in bulk, many of our best juice makers keep their mixes a secret. I've never felt inclined to do this, though I don't begrudge anyone their hard work. Helping others, though, in the long run, is its own benefit, and far more profitable, I believe.
I'm encouraged every time I see folks posting their hard won juice battles, and find it gratifying when I read that all of our stories help the new vaper and mixologist. I don't have a lot of new mixes to add these days, but I'll probably stick around and enjoy the growth of this TFA thread for some time, and when I think I can add something, I'll pipe in. In the meantime, I do enjoy all of your stories. It's really amazing how far this thing has come! Good luck to you all!
and get right, imo. Through many trial and errors (about 23 trials and errors 
), I came up with a blueberry pie that ain't half bad. All TFA flavors except the cheesecake.
