Your DIY Juice: Do you tolerate, like or love it?

[DeloresRose]

The Final Countdown thread made me wonder, is DIY really as doable as I think it is? I mean, if one can source the ingredients, what are the odds of success?

For me, I got exactly the juice I wanted in my first try - not that I haven’t had fails along the way - but I was fortunate to have a commercial mixer give me their recipe and talk me through.

Honestly I believe we could do the same for beginners, strike that, I know we have.

I’d like to hear from you all though, if you have not been able, despite your best efforts, to create anything you can stand to vape.

And also from those of you who rely partially or solely on your own mixes. How do they rate compared to commercial?

I’ll start, I rely solely on my diy, which I rate as good or better than commercial. I haven’t mastered cloning every juice I’d like to, but I’m confident I could, in time.

 

[Zaryk]

I only vape my DIY. I have gotten some commercial stuff on occasion, but most of it got given away or is in long term storage. I find the commercial stuff mostly too sweet or just off. If I didn't DIY, I probably would still be searching for a flavor I enjoyed and not just tolerated. I want to also mention that I make my own recipes and don't look them up or any of that, so some of my initial mixes can be off but usually it only takes a couple of tweeks to get it right.

 

[Doffy]

I only DIY

I started because nic is illegal here. Shipping gets stupid on premix.

I vape unflavoured. It is neither good nor bad. Just is. Like smokes were

 

[madstabber]

I like my diy better than commercial juice. I bought a few bottles of commercial juice awhile back just because it had been years and I was curious how it compared to mine. It was good but mine was better. Commercial juice usually is too sweet for me, I use sweetener from time to time but just drops per ounce. I’m sure there is some commercial juice out there that I’d love but I’m not willing to spend all the cash via trial and error to find it. My mixes are good and continue to evolve to satisfy my needs.

 

[Tabac man]

I only vape single flavour DIY. If I get a free sample with a hardware order I throw it in the bin. Overly flavoured and sweet with way to much vg seems to be the norm.

I vape menthols through the day and tobaccos at night after dinner.

 

[jandrew]

I started my DIY journey about a month after I started vaping, and my first recipe was unflavored, which has been my staple ever since. I also successfully made plenty of vapable flavored recipes, mostly tobaccos, for myself and others, and did some natural extraction of tobacco and tea with good results as well. But I am a low-flavor type vaper --- and back then, I most often used unflavored in my squonker and dripped flavors on the atty for a change-up, and let it fade with further squonking. That's mostly how I vape today as well.

I have no need of commercial juices, but I do buy one or two 30ml bottles a year (a Black Note tobacco, or recently a bottle of Boba's Bounty) --- I don't vape them straight but either highly diluted with unflavored, or I use them more like a flavoring concentrate in some low flavored tobacco mixes for my pipes.

 

[beckah54]

I love some of the mixes that I have tried from ELR but I also have tried a few that were not to my taste. There are about 10 recipes I rotate between periodically. I don’t hate mixing but I do try to mix about 3 different ones at the same time so I am set for a while.

Mixed recipes in the cabinet give me that same feeling of calm that having an extra pack of cigarettes used to. lol

I haven’t bought much vendor eliquid for the past several years and DIY saves a lot of money but you can go down the rabbit hole pretty quickly if it becomes another hobby. Ask me how I know.

 

[stols001]

I love DIY shamelessly. But really to figure it out just look at the active, long term DIY forum posters.

Also I do think many people quietly vape unflavored and/or stuff the just like, and stick with that.

I can see how DIY would feel intimidating. I started due to that dang deeming thread, and I'm not sorry I did.

ONCE I realized vaping was going to work for me, l preferred to know I could be self-sufficient and got there ASAP. Including RTAs. I am glad I did.

I'm sort of funny that way, there isn't much I would shoot somebody over but if I did, trying to take away my lithium would do it.

I think some folks just prefer the convenience of store bought. There are some brands I am okay with. I am also okay with saving money etc.

I will say, if I have a large mixing session I do sometimes feel like I got run over by a truck, all that concentrating. But it's worth it.

Anna

 

[DavidOck]

I love some of the mixes that I have tried from ELR but I also have tried a few that were not to my taste. There are about 10 recipes I rotate between periodically. I don’t hate mixing but I do try to mix about 3 different ones at the same time so I am set for a while.

Mixed recipes in the cabinet give me that same feeling of calm that having an extra pack of cigarettes used to. lol

And I ALWAYS had a spare pack or two!!

I have a half dozen or so that have served me well, and those are always mixed and loaded.

New recipes, well, they're starting points. I will usually do about a half dozen, at 10 mls, and use those to supplement the loaded ones I know I enjoy. So if the test isn't to my tastes (although usually if not, they're still "ok", and 10 mls isn't much to go through), I can just pick up another setup.

 

[DeloresRose]

I love that some of you are saying unflavored and single flavors, easy stuff to do.

I don’t think we give enough air time to easy here, and all the complicated stuff likely scares off some would-be mixers.

 

[Letitia]

I only use my diy and seldom mix any recipe exactly the same twice. I create my own recipes and also use other's recipes for inspiration. I like variety and adding different nuances to my go to profiles.

 

[Letitia]

I love that some of you are saying unflavored and single flavors, easy stuff to do.

I don’t think we give enough air time to easy here, and all the complicated stuff likely scares off some would-be mixers.

I do singles of a few I like, more to give my buds a break and to remember I actually enjoy simple too.

 

[HigherStateD]

I started diy almost immediately after finally coming back to the vaping fold. If ti was to compete with the price of RYO cigarettes, I had to. Last six months I've tried a few mixes, but I am currently going through my stash of flavors, testing most at 30mL sizes, just to make sure I don't miss anything in the sample, to make measuring easier, and to mix and match to see what may work well together. Most commercial juice is TOO sweet, and/or over flavored for me anyway now, although there are a few I liked, but at 16$ for 30mL, not the ratio or strength I want, I hardly see the point.

Also, I find just enough flavor to mask the PG taste is just right. Like an Italian soda, not bitter, and no lingering aftertaste.

 

[uthinkofsomething]

I've been mixing 11 months now, only use liquid I have made and make liquid for my wife and occasionally other family.
Once I knew where to start (thanks to ECF members' experience and willingness to help) it was a piece of cake. I've mixed 3 bottles that I did not care for enough that I didn't vape them. Single flavor testers definitely help me get where I'm going, if I have a specific goal in mind.
I found personally that I don't have much patience for cloning a commercial liquid. I kinda gave up on that early on. While trying to mimic some of my previous favorites I did make some very close, very tasty flavors.
For me, variety is the spice of life. I'll always have certain flavor profiles I want around all the time (custards, creams, hazelnut, chocolate) but I absolutely love the wide range of flavorings that are out there.
The number one reason I started making my own e-liquid was that with my progression of gear commercial liquids eventually were extremely over-sweetened and flavored, and gunked up my coils too quickly. Most of the liquid I make is close to 10% flavoring, but many are much less, and never ever any added sweetener. (I do use Ethyl Maltol for it's other properties in small% and many would consider EM a sweetener)
I didn't start making liquid for about 3 years after first considering it because I was worried that I would make "cheap" or low quality juice compared to some of my favorite commercial liquids. That is my only regret, that I waited. I could have been happier with the stuff I made, and the money saved? Good Lord!! Commercial liquid is up to 10 times the cost!

 

[GOMuniEsq]

DIY: Like, love, or tolerate?

I'd say I never made anything good enough to share. My juice never has brightness or pop of the commercial stuff. But it's good enough for me and I'm gradually getting better. So I suppose I tolerate the juice, while liking the the price and the hobby.

 

[Letitia]

DIY: Like, love, or tolerate?

I'd say I never made anything good enough to share. My juice never has brightness or pop of the commercial stuff. But it's good enough for me and I'm gradually getting better. So I suppose I tolerate the juice, while liking the the price and the hobby.

Start a thread with a recipe that's missing the pop and we can help. Or just start an "adding pop to diy mixes". I seldom use additives, I've found many flavors at a low percentage can add pop without intruding on the original profile.

 

[bombastinator]

I mix about as sloppily as it can physically be done. I buy cheap flavorings and frequently use single flavors. I measure by eye a lot. I mix VG only not because I can’t tolerate PG, but because that way there’s only one bottle. I don’t steep at all. I just shake and vape. Super super lazy mixing. The way I do it it’s actually less effort to mix juice than to go out and buy it ignoring any cost savings (which are big)

My juice is generally not as good as a really good store bought. Not by a whole lot though.
Also I have bought a couple of store bought juices recently when I was in a jam though and they were occasionally just fricken awful. Just because a juice is sold and is popular doesn’t mean you will like it.

I have been mixing for a while of course. When I first bought flavorings I had tackleboxes full of little vials. I had a bunch of weird ... flavorings like “old oak” and “amber” and “horehound”. I noticed about 70% of the time these flavors never got used more than once or twice. There were flavors I repeatedly ran out of though because I liked em. Recently I threw out most of my old flavoring vials whether they still had flavoring in em or not. Now I got maybe 8 large bottles of stuff I like. I don’t even use all 8 of em. There’s maybe 4 I use regularly. I generally mix em single flavor, or maybe “mostly this with a dash of that”.

I strongly suspect that the really complicated multiple ingredient diy juices are better than what can be had in a store. (Assuming it tastes good to me in the first place). When you DIY you have the opportunity to use higher quality flavorings in more appropriate amounts. There’s less pinching of pennies to maximize profit.

There was a period where I mixed a lot of pomegranate and other people who tried it really really liked it. What was the deal? I knew fruit flavors are generally weak so I used a lot of pomegranate flavoring.

 

[YorkMan]

Too soon to tell for me. I love the mixing process and like my first mix. Got two single flavors steeping so I will know more soon. I haven’t been blown away with commercial stuff but have several that I like.

 

[AngeNZ]

I started diy after 9 months of vaping. My first mission was to create an ADV that I'd been vaping for 3 months:

It wasn't a commercial juice - but a selection of flavour profiles the vendor then made and sold to me. And yes I called it Doggy Drool

It took me another 2 months to find the right flavours used - after trialling various TFA, FA and CAP flavours. I got it right and did a Eureka all the way down the street

Renamed it EnticeMint and went 100% DIY from then on.

I've so far created 3 or 4 mixes I love - all very simple, all with an ice cream base.

 

[greek mule]

I only vape my DIY e-liquids.Recently tried Vapetasia killer custard,great but expensive.