Hello everyone!

Over the past few days, and thanks to a lovely post from /u/Vurve from a few nights ago, it seems like we have a nice influx of new members to the DIY subreddit. So first, I'd like to say hello.

This sub is a fountain of knowledge that can all be obtained with just a little effort and dedication. Creating your own e-liquid does not have to be scary or intimidating, although it may occasionally look that way due to the intense work our moderators do to keep the place tidy. I've seen plenty of posts over at other e-cigarette subreddits that claim our community to be elitist or power-hungry or any other negative connotation that really only stems from a focus on organization.

Warning, your post may be removed!

Now, if this happens, don't let it get you down. Most of the time, if you ask a moderator WHY a post was taken down, they'll give you an explanation which will hopefully help prevent it from happening again. This post from me is just an attempt to help you prevent that shit from happening in the first place. Because, well, when a post gets removed, it's actually to help the community keep this as a focused sub where information can easily be found!

Above all, this is a community based around the recipes. A community focused on mixing delicious e-liquid. If you want to talk about mods or gear, e-liquid reviews (this is different than detailing your flavour notes), or just general vaping discussion, you may want to head over to /r/Vaping or /r/Electronic_Cigarette.

So let's dive right in to why I'm posting this in the first place, shall we?

Plain and simple, no amount of post deletion from our mods, berating from /u/abdada, or references to the sidebar are going to prevent new members from just flippantly posting whatever they please. However, there's no real excuse for not seeing a hopefully stickied post that sort of can act as a central hub for that information.

Oh you're on mobile? Well this post would be right there at the top of the posts. No need to fumble through "trying" to find the sidebar or the search function. Just find what you need and get to reading.

So let's break it down even more.

You're new. You may have very little knowledge on where to go or what to start with. While some people think that new mixers should start with mixing by volume, I'm going to go ahead and disagree with that. Volumetric mixing, or mixing with syringes, is a sure fire way to get discouraged. The amount of time it takes to even do a flavour test sample, the amount of effort that goes into cleaning and sanitizing syringes after each use, and the heightened room for error is actually what caused me to give up on DIY for months. If someone had told me from the beginning to start of with mixing by weight, I'd have been in a significantly better place earlier on.

Here are two great videos from this community that will tell you everything you need to know about mixing with a scale.

DIYorDIE mixing tutorial and New Amsterdam Vape mixing tutorial

So yeah, mixing by weight WILL create a little more of an investment from the startup, simply because you'll be spending a little bit more money on this scale, but trust me, you'll probably be spending roughly the same amount to purchase enough syringes to get started anyway.

Mixing by weight is more efficient, significantly cleaner, and will allow you to be just a touch more accurate with your percentages.

Now let's get into what else you'll need to get started. I see a lot of people posting here asking what they should get in their first order to get into DIY. Well, let me try to help.

#FIRST ORDER INFORMATION

VG - Vegetable Glycerin - this is the thick part of your e-liquid base. The VG is what creates the vapour cloud, and also provides a little extra sweetness to your mix.

PG - Propylene Glycol - the thinner part of the e-liquid base. PG is what is carries the flavour into your mix, while also providing some of the throat hit you want in vaping.

Nicotine Base - obviously you know what this is. I would recommend, as a new mixer, starting off with a slightly lower nicotine strength. 48mg/ml is where I started out, and it worked just fine for me. Eventually you could move up to 100mg/ml when you're more confident handling a dangerous product. Nicotine can harm you. Please be sure to practice proper safety procedure while handling nicotine.

While we're talking about nicotine, you might as well pick up a box of Nitrile Safety Gloves to wear while handling your nicotine.

Now, the fun part. Your flavourings. Some people like to order directly from the company that manufactures their favourite flavours. But if you're mixing by weight, ordering from TFA (The Flavour Apprentice) directly will cause you some problems. They ship their flavours in little glass vials that almost force you to use syringes. No good. Here is a little list of the best flavour distributors that are tried and true.

ECigExpress - GremlinDIY - Bull City Vapor

Okay, now you have some decisions to make. Do you want to roll the dice and pick up some flavours that sound good to you? Do you simply want to recreate some tried and true recipes from the community? I would suggest a blend of both! Find a few recipes that intrigue you, pick up the necessary flavours to mix those up, and then grab a few others that you think you'd like to experiment with! That way, you won't only have flavours you don't know how to mix with, leaving you with shitty e-liquid that makes you want to drive out to the B&M and spend more money on subpar juice. Right now, I'd suggest heading over to All The Flavors and looking through the growing catalogue of recipes for something that sounds good to you.

Personal recommendations to start with? Mustard Milk by /u/Fizzmustard, Pebbles by /u/NotCharlesManson, Cliche by /u/skiddlzninja, and Dreamsicle by /u/Vurve.

Not only will these recipes provide you with a good majority of the "essential" flavours you'll want in your arsenal anyway, it will also consistently give you an enjoyable vape while you work on your own mixing style.

Okay, now we have the first order fulfilled. On to the next part.

#MIXING

Well, you have the shit you need, but what do you use to actually formulate how much of each ingredient to put in the mix? There's a few resources here, some better than others. I'll do a little breakdown of each right now.

dot1ml e-liquid calculator - probably the best starting point for any new mixer. Simply plug in the pg/vg ratio, desired nicotine strength, and flavour percentages and the website automatically sets the numbers for you! The issue here is that you'll only be getting the volumetric amounts, so mixing by weight isn't going to be as easy using this method.

eJuice Me Up - simply download the software to your computer, and get to mixing. Some things to pay attention to with eJuice Me Up, there will be a little troubleshooting to do on the first time using it. Using Botboy141's Guide to Mixing by Weight, you'll see a list of the weight values of each individual ingredient in your e-liquid. Using those numbers, you'll want to go to the "tools" section of the eJuice Me Up program and select "Grams Set." Here, you'll just plug in the values where they belong.

All The Flavors - your one stop shop for mixing. No fiddling with ingredient values. No outside software to download. Just do what you'd do with any e-liquid calculator, but ATF just does it better. Mixing a recipe using the calculator is free, but if you want to save more than one recipe, you'll need to pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee. But this way, you can save your recipes directly to the website and never worry about them. If paying for a calculator isn't your thing, just mix up the recipe, and write everything down so you have it saved SOMEWHERE for future reference.

#NEW MIXER POSTS

So you've mixed something up? Awesome. That's an accomplishment in and of itself. But what to do now? Well, if you think the recipe is perfect, post it! If you think the recipe is mediocre, post it! If the recipe fucking sucks but you want to make it work, FUCKING POST IT.

The issue here isn't about posting your recipes, it's how you post them. I'd always recommend posting your recipes from a computer as opposed to mobile. It's easier on formatting. There's a little link on the bottom right of the text box of the post submission page that says "formatting help." Click that, and now you'll see the different ways you can format your recipes. I'd recommend using the bullet points when posting the ingredients and percentages in your recipe.

But here is the crucial part to not only keeping your post alive, but also helping you grow as a mixer...

#POSTING FLAVOUR NOTES

...just do it. Whether you feel like you aren't experienced enough to pick up the subtle nuances in a recipe or you're a fucking professional chef and can taste shit that isn't even there, let us know! Not only does it help us better understand your recipe, it will also help new mixers get a feel for how certain flavours work at certain percentages! Not to plug myself, but take a look at any of the more recent recipes I've posted, or any of the multitude of recipes from users like /u/Vurve, /u/TheCatHimself, or /u/NotCharlesManson to get a better understanding on how to post and formulate your flavour notes.

#OTHER SHIT

You're a new mixer, I'm sure you have a million questions. No problem! Before you go making a separate post about something simple, do a quick search in the search bar about it. If that doesn't provide the answer you seek, post it up over at the Weekly New Mixer's Thread which can easily be found at the top of the sub. I'd link it, but I believe the hyperlink to it changes each week. This thread is a safe haven for anything you may want to ask. I will be making a better effort to check that thread at least once a day to help out any new mixers with questions they may have. And finally, if all of those don't seem to help, always feel free to message me directly. I'll help you out as best I can. With that, every Monday Night at 9pm EST, /u/Vurve and I run the Beginner Blending Podcast where we do our best to help out new mixers with flavour notes, mixing techniques, recipes, and really anything you may want to ask. It's a friendly little get together where Vurve and I bullshit for an hour and try to help out you new mixers. Come hang out, I'll be getting drunk, and you can ask anything you'd like and we'll answer to the best of our abilities.

Maybe you have a recipe you like, but you don't want to go through and post the flavour notes. You just want to get it out there and get some critique? Post it up over at the Monthly Recipe Thread! If you format the posts with the "HOT" tab, as opposed to the "NEW" tab, you'll see that the monthly recipe thread is always stickied at the very top.

Looking for some simple recipes to start with? These threads all are recipes including only flavours from a particular vendor!

[TFA Recipe Thread] (https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY_eJuice/comments/45jlih/tfa_only_recipes_the_update_weve_all_been_waiting/) - Capella Recipe Thread - Flavour Art Recipe Thread

#IN CONCLUSION / TLDR

Again, welcome to the sub! I, as well as the majority of the community, hope you enjoy your time here. To keep this last part simple, just keep some key things in mind when visiting here:

• almost EVERYTHING you need can be found with a search or by using the sidebar
• if you're posting a recipe, keep the formatting clean and provide some detailed flavour notes
• keep the discussion posts productive, beneficial to the community, and as neutral as possible. But please remember, this IS a sub for the creation and mixing of e-liquid, so if a discussion doesn't directly pertain to that, it may be removed.
• we're all here to help each other, but if something you post causes you to get called out, downvoted, or removed, don't immediately get salty about it. The easiest way to discredit yourself here is to start off by being defensive or just an all around dickhead.

Well, this was lengthy. Hopefully it provides a little central hub for any new mixers to find some quick links for any information they may need. If anyone has anything to add, please do in the comments.

Happy mixing, everyone.

Cheers!