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A few questions before I take the plunge

littlewitewilly

Member For 4 Years
Howdy peeps

First off I'd like to thank all the members here for the helpful info, sharing of recipes, and generally keeping the DIY community alive and well. As my thread title states, I'm getting ready to try some DIY for the first time. I plan on weight mixing (ordered a scale), have about 15-20 recipes to work on, but need a little help if you would. I do about split between 70% DL (3mg) and 30 % MTL (around 12mg) vaping depending on craving :p

1) Need some 411 on nicotine. I plan on a 50/50 blend of 50mg nic. What are the benefits of using 100mg, besides lasting longer (using less)? What should I use as a dilutant? I realize a VG base nic is better for DL vaping at lower nic levels, but what about when I mix a higher nic juice for MTL? Is going with a 50/50 blend and all around better choice for BOTH styles of vaping?

2) What are the differences between nicotine brands? I was planning on assembling my first DIY "kit" from Wizard Labs (LOTS of flavors there), and was looking for opinions of their nic. How much of a difference does "high end" nic make?

Thanks in advamce. Really looking forward to going into this new hobby
 

Heartsdelight

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I’ve used Wizard Labs nic & i am currently using Vaperstek.org throat hit nic. And both are good to me. But I know some people can taste the difference & don’t prefer Wizard Labs nic.

Your other questions will need more experienced peeps. :)
 

nadalama

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Seems to me that if you use a recipe calculator, such as the one at e-liquid-recipes.com, your question about the base of your nic is solved by the calculator. I plan to make mostly 50/50 juice, so I bought 50/50 nic, but have used that same nic to make 40/60 and 20/80.
 

pulsevape

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it all depends on your palatte some people can't really notice much diffrences between different nics..other people are devoted patrons of a particular company's nic....and won't mix with anything else.
 

jojosvapes

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I have used wizard labs-no longer do. Now I stick with nicotine river smooth salts. It seems I mostly started vaping lower nic because I was chasing the never ending flavor dragon. Switched to salt and found the lack of throat hit was another reason I loved lower nic levels and now some time latter seems I keep upping my nic because I can do it smoothly and tend to vape a little less cause of the higher nic levels with salts.

Also with you may not run into this problem at first but I have at times ran into limits with lower nic mg bases and not being able to hit the pv/vg ratio I want due to the nic base and flavor precents. So 100mg helps with this as I have to use less of it in a mix.

I also stick with pg based nic cause its personally easier to mix with and add. VG in the fridge / freezer is a pain to work with especially if you dont give it time to warm up.

Wizard labs unless things have changed over the years was costly and the smaller amounts used to come in vials-then you even more in cost for pipettes / syringes. And if you start getting a tone of flavors scanning all those vials or coming up with label system was a pain.

With vendors like bull city flavors, ecigexpress and nicotine river are better labeled-personally I like the labeling better on BCF, the prices normally are better and they seem to ship faster than the others and dont try to butt rap you on shipping. Not to mention a great mixer on here spends most of his time their so it even more so supports the community. And if you donate to VU you can get a code for discounts for your orders :)
 

pulsevape

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I have used wizard labs-no longer do. Now I stick with nicotine river smooth salts. It seems I mostly started vaping lower nic because I was chasing the never ending flavor dragon. Switched to salt and found the lack of throat hit was another reason I loved lower nic levels and now some time latter seems I keep upping my nic because I can do it smoothly and tend to vape a little less cause of the higher nic levels with salts.

Also with you may not run into this problem at first but I have at times ran into limits with lower nic mg bases and not being able to hit the pv/vg ratio I want due to the nic base and flavor precents. So 100mg helps with this as I have to use less of it in a mix.

I also stick with pg based nic cause its personally easier to mix with and add. VG in the fridge / freezer is a pain to work with especially if you dont give it time to warm up.

Wizard labs unless things have changed over the years was costly and the smaller amounts used to come in vials-then you even more in cost for pipettes / syringes. And if you start getting a tone of flavors scanning all those vials or coming up with label system was a pain.

With vendors like bull city flavors, ecigexpress and nicotine river are better labeled-personally I like the labeling better on BCF, the prices normally are better and they seem to ship faster than the others and dont try to butt rap you on shipping. Not to mention a great mixer on here spends most of his time their so it even more so supports the community. And if you donate to VU you can get a code for discounts for your orders :)
you know I've been using NN nic salts and upped the mix to 18mg...60pg/40vg, and I've noticed that with tight draw atties it gives me a slight cough...have you had any similar experinces...I thought it might have something to do with a reaction to the nic salts.with open draws it seems fine.
 

jojosvapes

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have you had any similar experinces...
Not yet but the most I have mixed up is 10mg on my RDA's but done 40-45mg for the icare. I still have a chain vaping habit and 18mg would have me to dizzy I need to learn better control and put the damn thing down some times lol but DIY has made this worse cause I love the juice so much more.. damn the double edge sword :(
 

eStorm

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I agree with all of that but would like to add, that nicotine rivers customer service has gotten down hill in the last weeks/months. The respond time is slower, to a point of being at the border of unprofessional. Not sure if it was a one time thing or now their new business practice in general. Normally I'm very happy with the quality, professionalism, fulfilment on orders and extreme quick shipping. But I defiantly would keep an eye on that. If you plan on orders below $50 don't bother with nicotine river, the shipping cost will eat you alive, at 50 or above its free shipping tho.

I also agree with the VG based nicotine JoJo mentioned, I have to use it since I'm pg sensitive and would have a harder time reaching higher or max VG juices, but I'll have to rebottle my nicotine and keep a 30 or 60 ml bottle in my fridge, rest goes in the freezer and I do need to take it out 3-5 hrs prior of mixing, because otherwise you'll have a hard time getting good results. If you plan for that great, but if you see something here and want to quickly mix up that recipe, you'll be out of luck lol. Keep that in mind when deciding on the base.
 

jojosvapes

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I cant speak for customer service and I hope dont run into an issue that forces me to-honestly I am pretty laid back and dont care about a lot of stuff but with customer service issues go wonky it seems to drive me insane. As for shipping yep-it can be high. Honestly this almost had me walking away from my last nic order.

I almost got it from https://liquidnicotinewholesalers.com I ended up not doing and as odd as this was the only difference was like around a two dollars cheaper than NR (if I used similar shipping as NR and I am almost out so wanted the order soon). Part of the issue with NR is they use fedex ground or all shipping you cant pick another option. If I picked a similar shipping with LNW the cost was only like 2 bucks difference. They did process the order and ship the same day.

Had I not been in the scenario of wanting the nic sooner I would have gone with LNW and just waited for USPS-my next order will be with them. I used to be able to just get free shipping but I dont care for the all white generic labels they use for flavoring, I can see the vendor logo or the flavor but not both-again not an issue with BCF :) so I dont really have other items I can add to the cart to get a total high enough for free shipping.

So its order a larger batch of nic, which I just dont care to do-I normally get under 300ml then reorder. I dont have a valid reason for it, its just some odd preference I developed for some reason.
 

eStorm

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I mostly order 1 liter free base nic, 500ml nic salt because I use less since I never go over 3mg and mostly vape between 1.5-2.5mg. 1 or 2 gallon of VG depending how I feel that day, big bottle of purilum sweet strawberry, Purilum marshmallow. Free shipping and since I'm in California, takes about a day or two after they mark it as shipped.

Bullcity flavors, I can get up to 55 bottles of 10ml flavoring (depending on sale or manufacturer) and mostly pay only $10 shipping, sometimes even less and still far under nicotine rivers price, downside tho, they don't carry nic and the VG is a tad more expensive, all this gets shipped via USPS first class, and yet mostly arrives faster than FedEx and isn't even in the same state lol. So yea, I mostly do that especially if I need only a couple flavors. I would love to see some more lb flavors or ooo being added, than I could avoid the 3rd and 4th vendor all together.
 

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