I opened my shop about three years ago and had been mixing my own juice for about six months before that because there were no vape shops in the area. The bar was much lower then and most of our juice was stand alone flavors and a few with a little sweeter. Most of those early flavors some that have been enhanced slightly are still mainstays at our shop. It was mostly just a matter of figuring the percentage of flavor to use. Juice was all 50/50 pg vg. Simple and easy.
Over time we added more single flavor juices and about thirty of our own more complex recipes that sell well. But out of them all we have seven that I feel are to the standards of some of the best known brands for uniqueness and fantastic flavor. They make up our own in house premium line. It takes time. So get started and develop some juice. You will know when you have something outstanding when almost everyone who tries wants some. And remember that you are mixing for others not yourself. Most of the recipes on line are poor and sometimes you can even find a single stand alone flavor that is superior. To begin with there are four flavor companies to mainly consider. Flavor Art, Capella, The Flavor Apprentice and Flavor West. We use a lot of Flavor Art and Flavor West because our customers prefer juice made with them most often. Personally I like making concoctions with Flavor Art for the most part. At least that's what I usually start with when working on something new. If you start by building up the full range of Flavor Art flavors you will have every thing you need to make some killer e liquid to meet most any profile. They are mostly more concentrated than the others so you can often make very high VG juice if you want.
To start try RTS. All the fluids, NIC and supplies you need. They are a great company and have inexpensive small bottles of flavoring and they sell in large wholesale quantities as well. I like Hartland a lot too. Not as big and comprehensive as RTS but they have great prices, and we like their NIC. The price is good, it's clean and crystal clear and has never fucked up our flavors. Except sometimes at 18mg NIC or higher but they all will at those higher levels but you can do things to compensate for that to a degree. We buy most of our flavors in larger quantities directly from the manufacture but to start with that's not necessary at all.
As far as the FDA goes there is some very bad shit coming down and if it is not stopped or radically altered most all of us, stores and Juice Companies alike could be and very probably will be toast by early 2016. DIY might will most likely go the grave yard route as well. Forget the two year grace period for E Juice. We have had several vape shops in our area who sick of living under the cloud just said fuck it and just closed up. There's another in a small town about 15 miles down the road who is fire selling everything and she's closing the doors for good at the end of the month. SFATA and CASSA got caught by surprise on this one and have been pretty much toothless anyway so don't bank on them to protect us.
But don't worry about investing in Juice making supplies, you will be able to use it yourself or take it underground and be able to make a killing tax free. If you can afford it stock enough to hold out until you can develop a cash only untraceable source of supply. You may have to hunt it down but that source will emerge in short order. This regulation crap is a huge opportunity for those with some smarts and big enough balls to take on the risk.
As for me I've got a store full of NIC, VG, PG, flavors, equipment, parts, and supplies that will last a long, long time when I have to close the shop. I plan to hold out until March if possible when my store lease is up. In the remote chance that the FDA BS gets stopped or we get two more years then we can renew and move forward. We should have a good idea of what all additional horrible shit we really face by then. My wife and I are considering a new business not Vape related but we know that like the Vape shop It will consume almost all of our time and energy and the government still will fuck us one way or another so we are not sure if we want to do it. Since I have a paid for home, cars, truck and zero debt, we can live modest and I could just go back to being a carpenter and get fucked a little less hard by the general contractors instead of the government like I did before this wonderful Journey in Vape Land.
