What Is DIY E-juice?

Before you can learn how to make DIY vape juice, first you must understand what it is.“DIY E-juice” is the process of making e-liquids using four ingredients: PG, VG, nicotine base, and flavorings. DIY Vape Juices use the same ingredients as commercial brands but are typically mixed at home in a non-professional setting. Realistically, you can think of yourself as a “vapetender” when attempting to DIY e-liquid. Instead of buying expensive drinks at the bar, you can make them yourself and put them in your trusty flask for later consumption! The greatest thing about DIY is it gives you complete control over your vaping experience. You can choose to create vape juice with or without nicotine, or even an unflavored e-liquid. Your options are limitless!



How to Make Vape Juice and Why?

Even though Om Vapors has offered DIY vape juice products since our inception, many of our customers are still uncomfortable with making e-liquid.

The reasons that people choose to DIY are vast. The main reason that people choose to DIY e-liquid is to save money. Let’s face it, purchasing “premium” e-liquid is expensive, especially if you use a sub-ohm tank. Many commercial brands of e-juice are around $20 a 60ml and with added expenses such as the 40% vape tax in Pennsylvania, vaping can become a burden on your wallet. You can easily spend hundreds of dollars on vape juice per month.

While this isn’t a problem when purchasing from Om Vapors, the cost of vape juice is a common complaint within our industry. According to a recent study by the Heartland Institute, increasing the cost of vaping deters smokers from making the transition to vaping and has little effect on teen consumption. In addition to this, newer vapers can be scared off by the upfront costs of purchasing vape mods and accessories.

Others may DIY simply because they enjoy the art of crafting their e-liquids. The remaining reasons for DIYing range from crafting a flavor profile that doesn’t exist, adjusting the nicotine concentrations that may be too high or too low, and changing the flavor intensity of a blend by using premixed concentrates.

Our how-to guide for making DIY e-liquid is a long time in the making and the most comprehensive guide for making DIY Vape Juice on the internet. Whatever your needs may be, Om Vapors DIY Vape Juice Guide will answer all of your questions and get you on the right path to making premium DIY e-juice at home.

We will begin our DIY e-liquid guide by answering a few of the most commonly asked questions and then move on to the ingredients and materials that you need to get started.

What Do You Need to Make Vape Juice?

When it comes to DIY, there are only a few pieces of equipment that you will need to get started. We covered vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, flavorings, and nicotine earlier, and now we will go into more detail on the other items that you need. First, we’ll start with safety equipment.

Safety First

A Tray – Make sure to have a decent-sized tray to contain any spills that you may have. Wash it thoroughly before and after each use while wearing gloves to make sure that you do not get nicotine on your hands.

Gloves – Make sure to pick up a package of disposable gloves. When nicotine gets in contact with your skin, it is easily absorbed within 10-15 minutes. To prevent nicotine poisoning make sure that you always mix your e-liquid with disposable gloves.

Goggles -Similar to using gloves, goggles protect you from getting nicotine in your eyes. If you get nicotine, flavoring, or any other substance that we use to mix e-liquid in your eyes, it will burn. Another not so fun fact is that nicotine is absorbed more quickly when it makes contact with a mucous membrane such as your eyes, making goggles crucial for mixing.

Long Sleeve Shirts, Pants, and Closed Toe Shoes – These are essential to making sure that nicotine does not come into contact with any skin.

If you expose any part of your body to nicotine, wash it immediately. If nicotine comes in to contact with your eyes rinse them with cold, running water for 15 minutes and call the poison control center at 1-800-222-1222

Fun Later

Ingredients Necessary to DIY

Now that we have gotten the safety precautions out of the way, you can begin gathering the equipment and ingredients that you need to start making vape juice.

Vegetable Glycerin (VG) – This is arguably the most important ingredient in vape juice. Vegetable glycerin is a slightly sweet, viscous liquid that is used in a large variety of foods that we consume. It is a byproduct of processing vegetable oils. VG is also responsible for rounding out the harshness in the vape and producing thick, luscious, clouds. For these reasons, most vapers, especially those who sub-ohm, prefer high VG e-liquids. Some even prefer to have 100 percent VG ratios if possible.

Propylene Glycol (PG) – Is a synthetic, colorless liquid. Although PG is thick it is not vicious as vegetable glycerin. Propylene glycol is also odorless and has a slightly sweet taste. In addition to this, Propylene glycol carries flavoring much better than VG but is also much thinner. Since PG is a thinner liquid than VG, high PG e-liquids tend to produce smaller clouds. Due to this you usually never see vape juice with a VG/PG ratio of less than 50/50. While being vaporized, PG evaporates much more quickly than VG and has a much harsher throat hit. As a result, PG does not provide as much of a “full-bodied” vaping experience as PG.

E-liquid Base – An e-liquid base is usually made up of a combination of vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol. However, there is a small selection of e-liquids that are 100 percent pure VG. VG/PG ratios found in e-liquids typically include 50/50, 70/30, 80/20, or max VG. Vape juices are considered Max VG when only flavorings and nicotine are added to a 100 percent VG base. Pure VG e-liquids differ from Max VG e-juices because Max VG e-liquids usually contains extracts that are dissolved in propylene glycol. On the other hand, e-liquids that are 100 percent VG use flavorings that are suspended in vegetable glycerin. As a rule of thumb, higher VG ratios will produce larger clouds while higher the PG concentrations produce more flavor.

Water-Soluble Food Grade Flavorings – Making sure that you choose the proper flavorings for DIY e-juice is vital. You want to make sure the flavorings you use are food-grade, high temperature resistant, and water-soluble so that they will mix properly. In addition to this, there are thousands of potential flavors to choose from and in general, one manufacturer’s vanilla extract won’t taste the same as another’s, so there is a lot of trial and error involved.

To help minimize the effort that you put into creating your blends, we provide a variety of complex, e-juice flavor concentrates, that are pre-mixed for your convenience. However, if you’re feeling adventurous, we recommend the following flavor manufacturers to get started:

Flavor Art (FA)

The Perfumers Apprentice (TPA)

Capella (CAP)

Flavor West (FW)

Falvorah (FLV)

Whenever you are shopping for flavor concentrates you should avoid flavors that contain sugars, oils, or diketones.

The reason you want to avoid sugars is simple. When a vape juice that contains sugars is heated up, the sugars are left behind and can cause caramelization on your cotton. After the sugars are caramelized heating them beyond a certain temperature will cause them to burn and as a result, release carcinogenic compounds.

Oils are a no-no in vape juice because they increase the risk of acquiring lipid pneumonia.

Lastly, you also want to avoid diketones. Common diketones in e-liquid include diacetyl, acetoin, and acetyl propionyl. You should use diketones with caution because of the correlation between the health condition called “popcorn lung” and diacetyl exposure.

In a study from the early 2000s, the Missouri department of health noticed that a significant proportion of popcorn factory workers were developing COPD-like symptoms. Although the sample size was somewhat small, the study did find a low correlation between diacetyl exposure and developing popcorn lung. As a result, we do not use any diketone in our e-liquid, or our e-juice flavor concentrate shots.

A Good Recipe – To mix e-liquid properly, you will need a recipe. Mixing DIY e-juice is an art that takes time and patience to get perfect. If you haven’t mixed before I suggest doing single flavor mixes to start, this way you can avoid wasting time and money. If you really want to blend more complex flavors, I recommend using pre-mixed flavor concentrates. This way you can get all the benefits of a complicated DIY recipe without the endless trial and error.

Diluted Nicotine Base – To begin mixing it is suggested that you find a reputable source for diluted nicotine. If you visit our nicotine base page, you’ll be able to find a wide variety of nicotine bases ranging from free-base nicotine, whole tobacco alkaloid (WTA’s), and nic salt bases. The nicotine that we use in our bases is USP grade and 99.7-99.9 percent pure. Please note that as you increase the nicotine strength of your e-liquid, the throat hit of your vape juice may be harsher and the flavors in your blends will be less noticeable. If you purchase our nic salt base, the flavor is much more consistent at higher nicotine strengths. If you are planning to make max VG or pure VG nicotine e-liquids, we suggest that you purchase our VG base to get started. Purchasing a 100 mg base is suggested because the measurements are much easier to get correct. Pure nicotine, on the other hand, is 1000mg of nicotine. We highly recommend against using pure nicotine, since you need a fume hood and a hazmat suit to process this properly. Even a few drops can cause bodily harm or death. If you are not comfortable handling pure nicotine, you should start with 24 mg or 48 mg bases work your way up.

Storage Bottles – You can choose any bottle type that you like to store your e-liquid. Common types of bottles used to DIY e-liquid are glass, pet, and LDPE. Some people prefer glass bottles since the juice can keep for several years in a cool environment and for the handy fact, they are easy to clean reusable. In our opinion, plastic bottles with drip tips are the best option for the sake of convenience and cost. We offer our LDPE squeeze bottles in 10 ml, 30 ml, and 120 ml sizes, as well as 30 ml and 120 ml chubby gorilla for those looking for something different. We recommend making bigger bottle sizes so that the measurements will be much easier to get correct.

Syringes – Syringes are used for mixing by volume. We recommend using a 10 ml syringe to measure your base and primary e-liquid flavorings. While a 1ml syringe will be handy to keep around for your secondary flavor concentrates. You can purchase different sizes of bottles and syringes here. If you are having trouble measuring VG with a syringe, give 14 gauge needles a try.

A Scale – Scales are used to measure DIY vape juice ingredients by weight. We recommend a scale that goes up to at least 200 grams and has an accuracy of at least 0.01 grams. Even 200 grams may not be enough when you start mixing bigger batches. If you plan to take DIY seriously, consider purchasing a scale with at least a 500-gram capacity. When mixing using a scale, you will still need a syringe for your nicotine and transferring smaller amounts of concentrates without spills.

Labels – To keep track of all your supplies and finished products, I suggest purchasing some cheap waterproof stickers or a label maker. Good organization is key to getting the results that you want and most importantly knowing what’s in each of your bottles keeps you safe.

Where to Buy DIY E-Juice Supplies

DIY vape juice supplies are some of our most useful products. Within the DIY e-juice category, you find all the quality ingredients that make the Om Vapors brand popular. For those not familiar with how e-juice is made, it is a combination of four common ingredients. The components are propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, nicotine, and flavoring.

Propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin make up the vast majority of what you find in e-liquid and is marked as safe for human consumption. All our vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol are 99.7 percent pure USP food grade and processed in a kosher facility. Below we will delve deeper into some of the common uses of DIY e-liquid ingredients

Propylene Glycol

Propylene glycol is typically found in frosting, spices, soft drinks, cake mixes, food with natural flavorings, and even inhalers.

Vegetable Glycerin

Vegetable glycerin is found in everyday foods such as processed vegetables, dairy, wheat, grains, and unsurprisingly, fog machines.

So, with this information, one can surmise most people have consumed products with vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol their entire life!

Nicotine

Nicotine is usually extracted from tobacco but is also found in other plants other such as tomatoes, eggplants, and potatoes. In its purest form nicotine is very poisonous and should only be handled by a chemist or an experienced professional with proper training. The lethal dose of nicotine is 50-100 ml depending on your age, weight, and general health. For this reason, we do not sell pure nicotine to our customers. It is important to note that nicotine is a highly addictive substance and is also the chemical responsible for addicting smokers to cigarettes. The upside to vaping is that you aren’t exposed to any smoke or chemical additives when you transition from smoking. However not vaping or smoking is the best choice for your lungs.

The nicotine that we use is USP grade 99.7-99.9% percent pure and extracted from tobacco. Our WTA nicotine is 95% nicotine, 5% trace alkaloids and both are free of any TSNA’s. We sell a variety of free-base nicotine, WTA’s, and nic salt bases up to 100 mg/ml.

E-Juice Concentrates

E-juice concentrates are an essential DIY supply. You can choose from several dozen award-winning Om Vapors branded flavors as well as mixes from our sister brand, Umba Vape. Flavor concentrates are available in 10 ml and 30 ml bottle sizes. Whether you are looking to enhance the flavor of our juices, create a custom VG/PG ratio, or mix any of our flavors from scratch, the possibilities are endless! In addition to offering our premixed premium flavor concentrates, we work with major flavor concentrate companies such as Flavor Art, The Perfumers Apprentice, Capella, Flavor West, and Flavorah.

Bottles & Syringes

Bottles and syringes are other necessary items needed to begin mixing DIY e-juice flavors. We carry 1 ml and 10 ml syringes to ensure that you can get the most accurate measurements possible while blending your e-juices. In addition to syringes, we sell all the bottles that we package Om Vapors e-juices in on-site. Choose from 10 ml and 120 ml squeeze bottles, or 30 ml and 120 ml chubby gorillas. Each bottle comes with a drip tip and a childproof closure.



Finding Your Recipe

You can check out e-liquid recipes for a comprehensive list of any flavor that you imagine! 99 Juices are another excellent place to get recipes. If you are a beginner, it is best to stick with pre-made concentrates such as our Om Vapors flavor shots.

Vape Juice Calculators: A Valuable Tool In Perfecting Diy

When you are dealing with a ton of unique ingredients, the math behind creating great e-liquids can get tough. Not only do vape calculators take care of the most difficult part of mixing for you, but they also help save you money by not needlessly wasting ingredients. As the old saying, goes, measure twice, and cut once. That same golden rule applies to e-liquids as well.

There are a wide variety of vape calculators on the internet that you can access via your web browser or smartphone app. However, as plentiful as these tools may be, some of them aren’t the most user-friendly. So we took our time and scoured the internet for the best vape calculators.

Whenever you input the percentages and ratios for your recipe in your calculator you’ll a well-organized list of ingredients.

Let’s assume that you want to create an e-liquid with a 120ml bottle of e-liquid with 3mg of nicotine, that is 75/25 VG/PG, with 20% flavoring made from 12 different ingredients. Normally this would be somewhat complicated for most people, but all you have to do is input the total volume, the ratio of VG to PG, the nicotine concentration, the flavors used, and their percentages into a calculator.

A few of our top vape calculators are listed below:

E-liquid-recipes.com (eLR) – This was the first place that I learned how to mix e-liquid and you can see that it paid off. 😉 E-liquid Recipes, also know as eLR features one of the most comprehensive e-juice calculators on the net along with an amazing community of DIY pros. The best thing about eLR is that if you create an account you can save recipes for future reference. In addition to this, you can share your recipes with the community to see how well people take to your mixes. We all know friends and family tend to exaggerate how good or bad, you are at something., so why not put your e-liquids to test against strangers that have perfected their craft! TodMuller – Although this isn’t the most powerful e-liquid calculator, Tod Muller’s vape calculator is very popular and easy to use. Tod Muller’s e-liquid calculator allows you to input your targeted nicotine concentration, flavor percentage, and total volume of e-liquid. The main drawback of this calculator is that it only measures out 50/50 VG/PG e-liquid and can seem a little dated. Other than that it is a great place to start for people looking to get into DIY.

eJuice Me Up — ejuice Me Up’s vape juice calculator is one of the most powerful DIY tools that we have ever seen. Unlike eLR and Tod Muller’s calculator, eJuice Me Up is a desktop application that allows you to customize every component of your e-liquid down to the number of flavors, VG/PG ratios, and nicotine concentration. In addition to this, eJuice Me Up allows you to mix by weight, which can make the DIY process much faster and even more importantly, more accurate.

Juice Grinder — Juice Grinder is another powerful desktop app that allows you to mix up to 20 flavors at once. It has a very modern user interface and is most importantly free! You can, however, pay $15 to unlock the inventory management feature which can come in handy.

E-Liquid Calculator – Vape Tool — The E-liquid Calculator is available for android and allows you to mix up to eight flavors at once. My only complaint about ELC, is that the advertisements can be somewhat distracting.

Once you have used the tools above to determine the proper ratio of ingredients in your recipe you can choose your method for measuring out your components.



Ways to Mix DIY E-Juice: Measuring Ingredient By Volume or Weight

Mixing by Weight

If you decide to combine your vape juice by weight, it is best to use the metric system. The best unit of measurement for getting the most accurate quantities of vape juice is to measure in grams by a scale. The first step is to place your empty bottle on your scale and tare (zero) it out. If this doesn’t work for you, you can write down the weight of the container and subtract it from the total weight of your finished mix. My recommendation is to tare the scale-out while the bottle is on it so that there is are fewer chances to make a calculation error.

Mixing by Volume

When you mix e-juice by volume, you usually use syringes or pipettes. To avoid cross-contamination of your flavorings, I suggest using a new syringe for each flavor. If you don’t have enough syringes, clean the syringe that you plan to reuse thoroughly with PG. You can do this by sucking up PG with your syringe and squirting it back into a 10-15ml container of PG used solely for cleaning your syringe. Please be aware that flavors such as menthol may not be flushed out of your syringe very easily.



How to Make Vape Juice

Step 1. Get Your Materials Together: Preparing the Perfect Blend

Before you blend your DIY e-liquid, make sure that the area that you are mixing in is clean, free of distractions, and not accessible to kids or animals. Once you have a safe space to work in, you are ready to start mixing.

Next, reference the recipe that you want to create. Use your preferred e-liquid calculator to figure out the amount of each ingredient that you will need to create your e-liquid. To use the calculator, you will need to know your preferred VG/PG ratio, nicotine concentration, and the percentages that each flavor in your recipe needs. Once you have this information, print out your recipe and bring it to your work station.

Gather all the items that we mentioned in the “What Do You Need to Make E-liquid Section” and bring them to your work area. Before you handle any ingredients, make sure that you are wearing goggles, disposable gloves, long sleeve pants, a long sleeve shirt, and closed-toe shoes.

Arrange all your DIY items neatly on your mixing tray and proceed to step 2. It’s time to get mixing!

Step 2. Measuring Out the Nicotine

Using your preferred method, measure out the appropriate amount of nicotine base that you need for your desired mg concentration. Once you have the correct amount of nicotine, carefully add it to your bottle using a syringe and wipe up any spills that may occur.

We chose to add the nicotine base first because it allows for uniform dispersion. Adding the nicotine base to your bottles should always be your first step.

Step 3. Mixing in Your Flavorings

The most exciting part of creating DIY e-liquid is blending in the flavorings. If you are creating a new flavor, best of luck to you! There is a lot of trial and error involved in the process of creating a new recipe, but the rule of thumb is less is more when it comes to flavoring. It is impossible to remove flavors from a mix, but relatively easy to add more. In addition to this, adding too much of one flavor, may drown own the others and produce an unpleasant taste if they are too concentrated. When embarking on creating your e-juice make sure to follow your recipe carefully and notate everything that occurs. For those of you who are just beginning, we recommend creating a single flavor e-liquids or using premixed concentrate such as DIY e-juice concentrate shots.

Refer to the printout of your recipe from your previous step to ensure that you are adding the correct amount of each ingredient. If you are working with multiple flavors, make sure to use different syringes. If you are unable to use various syringes, rinse your syringe thoroughly with PG between each flavor.

Step 4. Add Your PG and VG

After you blend your nicotine and flavoring together, the last thing that you need to do is add Vegetable Glycerin (VG) and Propylene Glycol (PG) to your mix. Your recipe calculations should have the exact amount that you need to achieve your desired VG/PG ratio. Combine the remaining ingredients and insert the tip and cap back into your bottle.

Step 5. Shake-Shake It Baby!

The final step to creating your e-juice is to shake the bottle so that all the ingredients mix properly. Make sure that the drip tip and cap are inserted securely on the bottle. Shake your vape juice vigorously until little bubbles start to form. Repeat this a few times throughout the day and put your e-juice up in a cool dark place between shakes. Repeat this for 7-14 days and you are good to go!



Post-Mixing Pointers: Labeling, Storing, Steeping, and Testing DIY E-Juice

Labeling – Whenever you finish mixing an e-liquid, label it so that you know what you are vaping. Using a sticker attach the name of your blend, VG/PG Ratio, nicotine concentration, and bottling date so that you can reference it later. Make sure to save your recipe in a binder, just in case you determine that your new mix is a winner. Unfortunately, we’ve lost a few recipes that will never see that light of day due to poor record-keeping. Organization is key!

Storage – Make Sure to store your vape juice in a cool dark place. Heat and especially sunlight cause vape juice to age faster – which is a process known as oxidation. While a little bit of oxidation helps juice blends to stand out more, too much heat and sunlight will ruin the taste. Most importantly, remember to store your e-juices in a place that is out of reach from children and pets.

Steeping – Not only is steeping an integral part of DIY but it necessary when purchasing e-liquids as well. At Om Vapors, we pre-steep all our e-liquids, so our customers don’t have to wait. To steep your e-liquid shake it vigorously for 2-3 minutes. Take the cap and tip off the bottle and allow it to breathe for a day. Re-attach the tip cap to your e-liquid and let it sit in a dark place for another week. Repeat up to 3 times or until you achieve your desired flavor. You can find a more detailed tutorial of how to steep your e-liquid here.

Testing – Between steeps, test your e-liquid on an RDA. Once it is to your liking, you are ready to go. Please keep in mind that the taste of your juice will vary with different set-ups.



DIY E-Juice Advice and Tricks

Tips on Making a Great Tasting Vape Juice

Use all the online tools and calculators necessary to obtain the most accurate mix. There are tons of forums and communities available to help you perfect your craft. The Reddit DIY forum and e-liquid recipes are amazing communities to start socializing.

Start with simple single flavor recipes or pre-mixed DIY concentrates.

Make sure that you take notes and keep a record of your mixes to reference later. Proper note-taking lets you know which flavorings to enhance and whether specific VG/PG ratios are working for your recipes.

Only purchase flavors from reputable vendors. Avoid flavorings with diketones, sugars, and dyes.

Start out making at minimum 30ml bottles of e-juice and work up to larger sizes. This way your measurements should be accurate while preventing you from wasting too much juice if you are unhappy with your recipe.

Use small amounts of flavoring and work your way up. If you use too much of one flavor, you risk muting all the other ones in the blend.

Be aware of how potent each brand’s flavor concentrates are. The potency of the ingredients use flavor to flavor and even more from brand to brand. Take into consideration the flavor strawberry ripe and acetyl pyrazine. Each of these blends has unique potencies, 5% of acetyl pyrazine will be much more potent than 5% of strawberry ripe. E-liquid recipes website has tons of data from DIYers and makes finding the starting percentage of a flavor easy.

Don’t substitute one brand’s flavor for another. For example, Flavor West’s blueberry is much different from Capella’s blueberry flavoring.

For a larger throat hit, increase the amount of PG in your mixes.

To lessen your throat hit or, to create more massive clouds, increase the amount of VG in your mixes.

Vape juices that contain a lot of VG are meant for sub-ohm vaping and require high powered vaporizers.

Make sure to follow all our safety guidelines when handling nicotine. Before you start mixing make sure that children and pets are unable to interfere with your work.

That’s the end of our guide! Remember that with anything in life it takes practice to become great. Start out with single flavor recipes or using premixed concentrates is a good launchpad into the world of DIY vape juice. Once you understand the process of creating flavors, all types of wonky combinations become much easier to pull off. Whether you are looking to use other people’s recipes or create your own, the sky’s the limit!

“Breathe Easy” Om Fam!

Les