So, I have been meaning to get into DIY for a while, and last week I noticed my bank account was doing well, so I decided to start off with the starter kit from Liquid Barn. Yeah, I know I paid a bit much for what I actually got, and I know the flavors are non-standard and not really much use for any recipes posted online - already got a order of a bunch of FA flavors on the way :-)
Ordering / Shipping: Painless. Order shipped the next business day, default shipping was the FedEx -> USPS handoff thing, took 5 business days to show up.
Packaging: Pro as hell. The kit itself is three kits, and each is well organized and includes a manual that shows details about everything.
I ended up with 1000mg VG, 250mg of 48mg/ml Nicotine (In PG, I could have gone VG), tons of mixing gear (including a little electric mixer thing, doubt I would use it except for much larger batches), 10 bottles of 15ml flavors, a nice dry erase sheet for making batches, labels, a bunch of 15ml plastic unicorn top bottles and some gloves too.
This was a fun way to get a start into DIY. I've already made four little 10ml test batches, just to try LB's flavors and get used to the process of making my own. Had zero issues at all, the included instructions made the process super easy. Have already sampled two of the batches I made, and I am quite impressed. Keeping notes and learning what I like and what I don't like! :-)
Flavors tried so far:
Orange Banana - I made 10ml of this, max VG, 3mg/ml nicotine. I used 7% flavor and 1% sweetener (sweet also from LB, it was one of the ten starter flavors I ordered). This was really good, even right after mixing. It's not a candy or over sweet fruit. Feels like it would be really good with something else to add a bit of the depth. The banana is really natural tasting, and stronger then the strawberry.
Cola Freeze - I was excited to try this one. Made 10ml, 3mg/ml nicotine, max VG, 8% flavor. The cola flavor is REALLY good, i'm tasting a really natural cola nut taste to this. It's not very sweet at all, it's just a very base (and very good!) cola flavor, I bet this would be awesome with some red fruit or some vanilla added to the mix.
Anyway, I would recommend this to someone wanting to get into DIY and does not mind spending a bit extra to get everything needed to get started in one place. The starter flavors are nice to mess around with, but you should check out the sidebar and make a order from a "mainstream" flavor provider like TFA if you want to be able to follow common recipes you can find online. After making my first few test batches, I feel so much more comfortable with the process and can't wait for my TFA order to get here so I can try many more juices!
While it's great you enjoyed the kit from them, but I don't really recommend a kit. It's better and cleaner to mix by weight, and most kits expect you to mix by volume. They also usually include non standard flavors (as you stated) and not enough of the things you'll need tons of, like bottles.
Botboy wrote an excellent guide to mixing by weight, and if you lurk here long enough and search, there have been some fantastic posts about how to put together a kit, which the authors tend to link to in the new mixers thread.
Edit: Grammar
Liquid Barn flavors suck:( I know from personal experience :( they do have great nicotine so that's a plus for you.
I'm assuming you got the 3 in 1 kit which included labware as well? I really want to get into DIY and want a good starter kit that is not going to break the bank.
Great review. I started off with a kit from LB. Its a very good kit. But I soon moved to mixing by weight and now I only order my liquids from LB. If you are completely a newb and want to start off with a product that will have everything you need, I would recommend their kit. But as others have stated, its not necessary to go with a kit. And if you already have some knoweldge of mixing, I would just go with getting the liquid you need.
The only issue I have with that is I'm not sure what are essential components and what components I can do without.
In my (rather limited!) experience of creating juices to vape, I'd say that all I really "needed" to mix by volume was a calculator, some assorted syringes (1,5,10 are doing great for me), and a few plastic flasks.
And of course, you'll need VG, possibly PG, nicotine if you want it, and flavors!
You'll want bottles to store juice, labels for the bottles, get extra syringes as you don't really want to dip the same syringe into multiple flavor bottles.