I have some questions about avoiding lipids in my flavors. I was talking to another vaping redditor on /r/gifs and he said
>Making a natural citrus flavor without oils] is a chemical nightmare. E.g. sweet fruit generally works fine, but citric fruit needs at least triacitin as solvent to bind the essential oils so that things don't seperate... and because of those oils, the result also isn't suitable for vaping as in that case it's actually a lot of oil. Thus, they take the natural extract, toss away the stuff that can't be vaped, then go on and add synthetic aroma compounds to replace those essential oils.
So, I'm just wondering how you guys make sure there aren't harmful oils in your flavors?
I already got flavors, I'm wondering if the "natural flavors" in the juicy lemon with nothing artificial could contain lipids based on what I read. I got Juicy Lemon, Pear Candy, Cantaloupe, Vanilla Swirl, and some other similar flavors, all from Wizard Labs.
The guy I was talking to said you shouldn't try to go flavor shopping unless you're "at least a chemist", what do you guys think? I know I bought flavors that are used by people in this sub, so I figured maybe there's some knowledge here about the lipid/oils risk.
Not all essential oils are lipids
Certain flavorings will separate, especially ones with essential oils. They have been used for years, but decide for yourself.
I have seen that post. I bought some liquid from a company called Vape Organics and asked them, this is what they said
>Thank you for reaching out about our USDA-organic e-liquids. We certainly appreciate your concern and are happy to provide as much information as possible. Lipids are fat-soluble molecules; we extract almost exclusively water-soluble ingredients in our plant-based extraction processes, and at most, there may be trace elements of oil in some of our flavor extracts.
>Please keep in mind that petroleum-derived solvents, e.g. propylene glycol (PG), contain a very high amount of lipids. Not only are the bases of our e-liquids 100% VG but our e-liquids are absolutely guaranteed to be PG-free (due to our organic certification), meaning all of our flavor extracts and nicotine are uniquely free of any petroleum-derived solvents.
I trust what they said about their own stuff but I'm almost 100% sure that what she said about PG is false.
PG is polar which means it is not a lipid from what I understand. It is fat-soluble because it is not as polar as water or VG. So sure, PG could contain a bunch of lipids if those lipids were dissolved into it, but it doesn't contain any on its own. If it did every vaper would be dead from lipid pneumonia.
This is why I throw a fit about people doing extractions at home. Lipids will indeed often dissolve into PG. If you just throw some random plant matter into PG, you might get lipids in your solution and that's bad bad bad.
Edit: spelling
But if PG "contained a very high amount of lipids" as claimed in that email you got, we would all be very dead by now, so I agree with your assessment that that is incorrect. Perhaps she meant you will get a high amount of lipids if you use PG as your solvent when doing an extraction.
Edit: I hate people who use the term organic. It's almost always used incorrectly, and by people who don't know what it is even supposed to mean.
I've found that TFA Lemon Lime burns and tastes like ass even at <1%. I assumed it was due to oil, but didn't investigate and just stopped using it. However other citrus like CAP Sweet Tangerine doesn't seem to burn, so it's not all citrus flavors. I'm not the best person to answer this since I've about 15-20 concentrates I like and that's pretty much all I use. Basically, I don't think lipid content is listed and it's tough to tell without asking someone who has experimented with a specific flavor.
How would you tell besides the burning?
Not sure short of gas chromatography or mass spectrometry. Im sure there are probably other ways, but I think you may be overly concerned. If it was a huge problem you'd hear about people mixing those 30+% flavor recipes getting sick all the time. The media loves demonizing vaping.
Is this related to the lipid pneumonia scare? Because youd have to basically drink the concentrate and then aspirate it for that to actually be an issue
You do realize vaping is literally the same thing as aspiration right? Like, you're intentionally inhaling an aerosol containing whatever is in those concentrates.
Seriously, with the amount of liquid people go through, they might as well be drinking it.
Thats not true at all , what % by volume of a finalized liquid is actually lipids? If 5% of the concentrate was lipids (just pulled a number out of the air) and the juice is 10% comcentrate then were at 0.5% right?
Now whats a large amount to vape in a day? 15 or 20ml?
So how much actual "lipid" would that be? (And again , pulled 5% out of my ass) , and now its spread over your wntire lungs surface area
How much is that?
"They provide total surface area of about 75 m2"
So you have (in my hypothetical) 0.5% of 15 to 20ml spread out over 75 square METERS of tissue
HARDLY enough to cause lipid pneumonia (go lookup case studies - these people aspirated measurable quantities not what were looking at)
I recently bought some pink lemonade flavoring and it contains triaciten. It isnt really soluble in VG so I have a bottle of a sometimes murky, oily looking mess. The only thing about triacetin online in vaping I could find, was people saying that it is GRAS... but nobody can really say that about anything vaping so idk.
I haven't been able to reduce the layer of oily liquid that separates, but after shaking the ever loving shit out of it in my cubicle at work this week for a day, it is sorta emulsified, but looks like shit in a tank and re-separates if its left in my car ( I live in florida).
Im wondering if I can wait until it is separated again and just use a syringe to take off the top. There is no color, the ejuice leeched the pink coloring right out of the flavoring.
edit- some spelling. Ive avoided vaping it, but now that someone else is asking the same questions, what should I do?