I'm not sure where to post this to get some information or help, so hopefully this is the right place. I'm relatively new to DIY eJuice, mixed a couple juices before this but never had any problems until now.
So, as the title says I'm getting liquid separation when mixing Black Licorice and Extreme Ice from Flavor West.
I have tried mixing in both plastic and glass bottles but both have liquid separation, the one in a plastic bottle is cloudy and you can't see through it.
The one in the plastic bottle seems to mix when shaking for a bit, but it only takes an hour or so before you can see the liquid separation again.
The glass bottle sample just form millions of bubbles when mixing and if you let it sit for a couple minutes it starts to clear up and separate again.
Here's some photos of the two bottles:
- Plastic bottle, separation is there but not visible on the image.
http://i.imgur.com/i38I07B.jpg
- Glass bottle before shaking
http://i.imgur.com/WN6MrCV.jpg
- Glass bottle a minute or so after shaking
http://i.imgur.com/UTeVYiQ.jpg
The glass bottle sample was mixed just recently so maybe it will fix itself with time or with heat steeping. But the plastic bottle sample was mixed around 24 hours ago and has been treated with heat steeping but with no change.
Both samples are mixed the same way:
-
70/30 VG/PG
-
14% Black Licorice
-
1% Extreme Ice
The really weird thing is that I mixed a slightly different juice with Black Licorice and Extreme Ice prior to these and that one didn't have any separation, it was mixed in a plastic bottle and it was also cloudy but you could still see through it. That bottle is empty now though so I can't show a picture. It had the same VG/PG but with 13% Black Licorice, 3% Extreme Ice and 4% Key Lime as flavoring.
Links to flavors used:
http://flavorwest.com/index.php/black-licorice.html
http://flavorwest.com/index.php/extreme-ice.html
Anise, citrus and cinnamon flavors are prone to separation at very high percentages/high VG and cloudiness when they do mix well. No real fix to it but lowering the flavor or VG. I think someone somewhere sometime suggested trying 1% ethyl alcohol to make strong solutions stable.
Are you shaking your concentrates really really really well before you add them to your mix?
Also, heat steeping will ruin a lot of mixes. Please look at skiddlzninja's DIY Mythbusting post
If I were to make a list of every single flavoring I have ever seen and ranked them in order of most likely to try, I cannot think of one that would rank below those two. YUCK! GL with your issue tho.
14% Black Licorice seems extreme. Honestly I would lose the Flavor West flavorings completely and try some TFA Absinthe/ FA Anise with some TFA Koolada. FW doesn't deserve your business.
I'm genuinely curious, why does FW not deserve one's business?
They've been caught lying about what's in their concentrates a few times. First about diketones, more recently it was discovered many of their concentrates contain sugars like fructose that are probably unsafe to vape, but they didn't disclose this as an ingredient anywhere but the MSDS, while it should have been listed as food ingredient along side "PG, natural and artificial flavors, etc."
This happened to me with these two flavors. WAY more so with licorice. 20% Flavoring and 80 VG. I would shake the living shit out of them and within an hour they would look just like your pics. I just make sure to shake them really well before i put in a tank.