Mixing your first e-liquid using DIY bases

In the last episode of our “DIY e-liquids” article we went over the basics of DIY e-liquids – equipment you will find necessary on your journey into the DIY world, some safety guidelines and of course the ingredients – types of nicotine bases best for DIY e-liquids manufacture. Now that you know how to safely work with your nicotine solutions – let’s start mixing.

First of all, by reading any further you are agreeing to release me, and all of my heirs and assigns from any liability or responsibility for anything you do with this material. This material is presented for informational purposes only. With that out of the way let us begin. We will start mixing with a pretty simple, one flavor e-liquid. We want a big cloud and not much throat hit, we will make a high VG e-liquid (let’s use 80VG/20PG for this recipe), also since it is high season for strawberries we will make our first e-liquid a strawberry one.

Choose ingredients for your e-liquid

When choosing flavorings for your e-liquid, remember that not all flavorings are safe to vape. First thing you need to take notice of is whether the flavoring contains any sugars, oils, or Diketones (diacetyl, acetylpropionyl or acetoin). Avoid these at all cost, if not sure choose a different flavor, do not take any risks. The easiest way to avoid risk when choosing your flavorings is to choose a brand of flavorings dedicated to vaping (like Molinberry e-liquid flavorings for example) and carefully study the label.

What ingredients we have chosen for our first recipe:

• nicotine base – Chemnovatic NicBase VPG-20; 100ml
• dilutants – Chemnovatic Pure Vegetable Glycerine; 100ml and Chemnovatic Pure Propylene Glycol; 100ml
• flavouring – Molinberry Sweet Strawberry; 10ml

We also have a couple of syringes with blunt needles (10ml and 1ml), few 10ml PET bottles and a 30ml glass bottle with pipette for storing the finished e-liquid.

Let’s use 20mg/ml nicotine base since after the introduction of the Tobacco Products Directive any nicotine base with a higher nicotine content will not be available for purchase for the consumer. We use both VG and PG to dilute the 50/50 VPG base in order to achieve a 20PG/80VG ratio. To help you with calculating the amounts of ingredients you will need to achieve the desired e-liquid you may use one of many e juice recipe calculators available online, here are a few to choose from:

• https://ecigvape.com/
• http://e-liquid-recipes.com/
• http://dot1ml.com/mixer
• http://www.steam-engine.org/juice.asp

and probably dozens of other e-juice recipe calculators available online. Some calculators also feature a database of e-liquid recipes created by the users, browse it for ideas, inspirations or to find some really good, tested recipes.

Use DIY e-liquid calculator

First of all we will use the e-liquid recipe calculator and figure out what amount of which liquid will be required to achieve the end result we want. We will use www.ecigvape.com, the “DIY E-Liquid (E-Juice) Recipe Mixing Calculator Ten Flavors with PG/VG Adjusting” does everything we need, it allows you to choose the PG/VG ratio you would like to achieve which most calculators do not offer. Now to the recipe! – we start off with a 50/50 VPG base, strength of 20mg/ml and want to receive a 20/80 VPG nicotine base with nicotine content of 3mg/ml.

All we need to do now is to add our flavoring – Molinberry suggests Sweet Strawberry to be dosed at 4-8%. I love strawberries so will go for the 8%, put the dose in the appropriate field and calculate the amounts of each ingredient.

Now, all we have to do is measure the amounts of ingredients and mix them together. Remember to use googles and gloves to avoid any nicotine base getting into your eyes or on your skin – it may not kill you but why risk even mild poisoning?

Mixing your DIY e-liquids may be the first step, so if you are thinking about becoming a brand owner, check out our guide about it!

Prepare and mix the ingredients

Measure the exact amounts of each liquid using syringes and pour them into a clean bottle. Write down the amounts on a piece of paper. A good idea is to have a few syringes and use one for each liquid – you avoid cross-contaminating your liquids and will get more precise measurements as nothing will be left inside a syringe. When you are done measuring all the ingredients and they are safely in a closed bottle, go ahead and shake it vigorously for a few minutes.

Steep your e-liquid

Since this is a fruit e-liquid it does not require long steeping, I usually leave mine in a dark, cool place for a day or two shaking them every couple of hours. You may want to make a few bottles varying in flavoring dose or PG/VG ratio or even with other, additional flavors or additives just to see what will you prefer. Label your bottles with a date, nicotine strength, e-liquid name and version – keep everything neat and organized, it will make life easier when you are steeping tens of e-liquids at the same time. If there is something wrong with your first e-liquid, do not panic. It may be a simple mistake, do not give up so easily, try again! Making your own e-liquid and having people complimenting you on the flavor, the clouds etc. is a great feeling.

TPD regulations

Now with the TPD in place, the companies are not allowed to sell liquids containing nicotine in packaging larger than 10ml to consumers.  We at Chemnovatic have been working on a TPD-compliant DIY bases solution and are now fine-tuning the details. Keep an eye on our blog and Facebook page!