I had toyed with the idea of mixing my own juice for well over a year now, having never pulled the trigger for a few reasons, such as thinking it would be a hassle, that I would never be able to come even close to the quality of "premium" commercial juice, that good recipes would necessarily be quite complex, requiring many ingredients in small, delicately balanced percentages...things like that. But I finally decided to give it a try, so I spent around $150 buying syringes, plenty of bottles, fifteen 30 mL bottles of flavoring, and enough VG and nicotine to last probably 2 years (a gallon of VG was only a couple of dollars more than a liter, and the same with nicotine -- 250 mL of 60 mg/mL nic was only a few dollars more than 120 mL).

 

They were all delivered Monday afternoon, so that means I've spent all of two days mixing. Now I'm hooked, and am kicking myself for not starting months ago. I had been going through around 5 mL of juice a day, and was spending on average $15 for each 30 mL bottle. So around $80 each month for juice including shipping. I was incredibly "stingy" with my juice -- I like to change the wicks on my RDA's at least once a day, and always was sure to vape every last drop before pulling the old wicks, taking shorter and shorter pulls until even a 1/2 second pull started to taste burnt. I even "primed" new wicks with unflavored VG before dripping precious flavored juice, because even if you vape the wicks almost completely dry, you can't get every last bit out. I wouldn't change wicks to switch flavors, just to save a few drops of juice.

 

Now that what I mix only costs a couple of pennies per mL, I don't even bother vaping the wicks dry if I want to change flavors. The deck could be almost full and I'll just pull the wicks and rinse out the RDA. This alone -- not having to worry about pouring a mL or two down the drain when changing wicks -- makes mixing worth it.

 

But I'm also very surprised at how easy it is to make very tasty juice. I started out by mixing a 5 mL batch of each individual flavor I bought in order to get a good idea of how everything tastes on its own. To my amazement, many of the flavors I choose are excellent just by itself! My very first multi-ingredient mix (8.5% TFA Berry Crunch, 3.5% TFA Bavarian Cream, 2.0% TFA Graham Cracker Clear) ended up tasting better than the commercial Cap'n Crunch with Crunch Berries juice I've been vaping a lot of recently. And that's just with one day of steeping!

 

I know I'll probably end up mixing a lot of "duds", many of which will not even be vapable and end up going down the drain (I got lucky with my first recipe). But tossing a 10 mL sample of a bad recipe only costs a few cents, so what does it matter?

 

So to anyone reading this, if you are browsing this subreddit trying to decide whether to start mixing your own juice, absolutely go for it! Even if it turns out that you are absolutely horrible at creating your own recipes, there are countless great recipes made by very talented mixers listed here. And if you don't have the ingredients needed to make those recipes, you can still whip up batches of juice with just one or two flavors that will be good or even great.

 

From the boundless wisdom imparted on us mere mortals by the exalted Nike.... Just Do It!

 

EDIT: Another good effect of starting to mix my own juice is that I'm moving back to dual coil builds (and the higher wattages they allow). I've been vaping almost exclusively on single coil builds, typically a 2.5 mm diameter 0.7 ohm single coil with 24 gauge Kanthal running at 30 - 35 watts. Going above 45 watts or thereabouts on single coil builds, even with twisted wire or parallel builds, can be tricky, but is dead simple with dual coil builds because you have twice the wicking action.

 

I used single coils because dual coils burn through juice quite a bit quicker, but you don't seem to get double the amount of vapor or flavor. Many of my RDA's also have no single-coil airflow option, so I had to resort to sticking a piece of electrical tape on the outside of the barrel blocking the airflow holes on one side, or in the case of my Holmes V2, shoving a piece of cotton down one of the vertical airflow "tubes" coming up out of the deck. Not exactly the prettiest or most elegant solution. But now that juice is so cheap, it doesn't matter if I burn through tons of it using dual coils at 60 watts. Now I am considering buying a more powerful regulated mod (my MVP 3.0 Pro "only" goes up to 60 watts), although I could just start using my mechanical mods more often now if I want to go up to ~80 watts or so -- a 0.2 ohm coil on a fresh battery gives 88.2 watts, factor in voltage drop and it's probably around 75-80 watts, and 0.2 ohms is the lowest I feel comfortable with, even though my Sony VTC4 & VTC5 batteries can go a bit lower.