Happy Monday my fellow mixers!
Today, we talk about storage options. If you've been following me since the beginning note, chances are you now have more flavors than you know what to do with.
It you started off like me, you probably just kept your flavors in a small box and tucked them away when you were done mixing. However, at 350+ flavors, this makes mixing an incredible pain in the ass. Admittedly, it discouraged me from mixing at a certain point. Spending 15 minutes to find 4 flavors isn't worth my time and I would often put it off to I absolutely had to make more e-liquid.
Having already been through this endevour years ago when I tried to solve the storage issue for hobby paints, I think this would be a good topic to drop some knowledge.
#Stationary Mixing Center
Desk/Table
If you are primarily mixing in your home, then a dedicated mixing station should be your first priority, if possible. I understand people with kids may find this difficult. However, having a place where I can organize and store my flavors without them being disturbed was a great deal of help. Any large desk or table will do. It does help to have a cabinet or storage box for your miscellaneous items.
Racks
Nail polish racks are going to be hands down your best choice for a stationary mixing station. They are relatively cheap off Amazon or eBay. They come in a wide range of sizes and shapes. The bottle count there are rated for is typically pretty close to 30ml sized bottles. For 10-15ml bottles, they will hold roughly 1.25-1.5x as many as they say they will. The new 4oz flask style bottles that BCV sells do fit the width of all the racks that I have tried.
There are two main styles as well. Wall or table top.
- Wall Mounted
The wall mounted racks are a great space saver if you have the capability of putting one within reach of your mixing station. The only thing to keep in mind is that it may not hold your larger, tall bottles if you have a lot of them. I consider this the better of the two options.
- Table Top
The tiered table top racks are what I personally have to use. They are a bit more spacious, but still do a great job of keeping everything organized. Just make sure to get the ones that are sorted by level, and not slotted along with width. If you have a lot of 10-15ml bottles, this kind of rack will just result in wasted space.
#Portable Mixing
Whether you prefer to do all your mixing at your friend's house, drive a truck, or just want to be able to keep your mixing supplies out of sight when not in use, having a good setup can save you a ton of time and headache when mixing.
Fishing Tackle Box
It can be a very difficult task finding the perfect tackle box. There are two main styles you want to keep an eye out for.
- Hard Case
There is the classic accordion style pullout tackle boxes. The hard shell with the multiple layers that fold out. I keep the flavors on their side, label facing up for quick reference. There is usually some space in the bottom of this style of tackle box, which is convenient for holding your scale and other mixing equipment. These can be expensive, and they don't seem as popular as they used to be. This is my preferred style of portable "mixing lab”, but may be hard to come by one that is affordable, the right size slots so there's not much wasted space, and a high enough capacity.
- Soft Case
The other style of tackle box that seems to work well is the canvas bags with the clear plastic box inserts. Same as the other style of box, you unfortunately have to lay your flavors on their side with the labels up.
Though the benefits of these is that some of the bags are a modular style allowing you to add additional boxes as your collection grows. It also saves a little bit of space since it's not unfolding and getting in the way. You just pullout the sleeve you need and keep the rest stacked in the bag. Though this style of tackle box is cheaper, it can just as difficult to find the perfect one that your flavors fit into perfectly.
#Conclusion
There may be other storage options, but these are the ones i have found to work best for me over the years. If you're anything like me, you hate having to fumble around trying to find a certain flavor, so an organized system is very important.
As for how I organize my flavors, I go then by brand in alphabetical order. This works for me very well. Since I know the flavor profile on most of my flavors fairly well, I know what they taste like and just need to know where to find them. I didn't care for the disorganized look of doing them by flavor profile.
I'll be sure to add pictures for easier reference once I have full access to a computer.
Be sure to catch Beginner Blending tonight at about 9:15 EST on www.mixlr.com/inthemix-podcast
You can find all my previous Modest Monday posts at /r/ModestMonday
I have the wall mounted and table top acrylic nail polish racks and now my amazon recommendations are all for makeup and nail polish. :\
But my flavors are "organized" so I've got that going for me...
Ok, I fucking dig this setup! Great work!
I need this in my life I have one box that works really well it is the smaller child size tackle box 30 mil bottles fit in the bottom perfectly and smaller bottles 10 and 15 milliliters sit up top standing up when I close the lid fits perfectly into my cupboard problem is I need like 7 more of these!!!!
I'm using a tackle box right now but am out of room already, so I'm thinking about getting a rolling plastic drawer set with nail polish holders or some other drawer divider.
Anyone done something like this or have better ideas? In a one bedroom apartment with my SO, so not a whole lot of room for big desks unfortunately.
I use a rolling plastic drawer set and I find it works pretty well, but probably not the best. Since you have to pull drawers out, you can't really expect them to stay upright, which means I have to look for maybe a 1-2 mins extra through all the flavors. I have noticed that the more frequently used ones are generally toward the front and others toward the back, which helps me gauge where they are in the drawers.
It is definitely better than my initial storage solution, which was just leaving them in the bags the came in, and maybe pairing them by recipe lol.
If you decide to build your own, check out local stores like Lowes/HomeDepot/etc for things they might be getting rid of, eg fence pieces, wood, etc. I built my perfect box out of extra decorative fence lumber they were throwing away. $5 for a box of nails and a hinge/latch and good to go.
Noobish mixer here, 1st post on Reddit.(sidebar read and read again) I am lucky enough to have a desk as a mixing station. I have 90ish concentrates in a single draw that has small boxes in that. I sort by fruit, bakery, cream etc. The smell when I open the draw is overpowering. Just wanna say I love the podcast, thanks. How long from right now till it starts? I'm in Australia, have the day off, wanna try and catch it live.
I just grabbed a tiered hardware cabinet (cheapy plastic guy) that will accommodate the 30mL bottles. Going from a 3-tier tackle box. I'm in the process of swapping to it and labelling all the compartments.
I'm in Canada and bought the thing on sale at a Princess Auto!
Do you think RipTrippers would know anything about THE PERFECT tackle box? Jokes aside, solid post, I just hit the point where I'm setting up a dedicated station and this gave me some new ideas. That said, I use pencil cases (found some for 40 cents/per), they stack, they keep the majority of the scent in and they are easy to clean. I like to sort them by flavor group (fruits, additives, nuts/savory, tobaccos, creams, etc).
I use a nail polish tiered rack from amazon, some white stack-able containers from Muji and a round metal cookie tin left over from an x-mas past for my 4 oz BVC and FW bottles. I wanted a wall mounted rack but found this more practical for just having all the juices in front of me as a mix by weight. I also use vape boxes (from chargers, vape mail, etc.) for portable mixing as they all stack neatly in a larger box or cloth grocery bag with my scale.
I gutted a big roll-top desk that my mom gave me, and have nail polish racks inside of it. When I'm not making juice, I roll the lid down and lock it. My daughter thinks I'm a dork for having all this vape shit taking up my entire bedroom.
Does the nail polish racks hold 4oz bottles or just 30s use a plastic drawer from iris and it works but the bottles don't stay organized.
You forgot makeup kit for portable option. Imo, better than tackle box.
The racks fit 56 or so 15mL bottles. 30mL fits as well and of course you could put 60mL bottles sideways as seen in photo. I store 2 500mL bottles in the bottom (underneath the thermometer) and using some dividers I also have room to put my small digital scale, labels and some other odds n ends. Definitely worth consideration.
What you said about not wanting to mix because you have to spend 15 minutes just to find the flavors is spot on for me. Sitting here on my day off and have so many recipes I'm wanting to mix but can't find the motivation to go through my drawers of unorganized flavors. I've been trying to think of something, nail polish racks would work but I don't really have space in the apartment to keep them. Hopefully I will be moving soon to a 2 bedroom instead of 1 and plan on setting up a mixing station in the 2nd room. For now it's TFA in one drawer, FA CAP INW FLV in another, and a 3rd drawer with my last order of concentrates. I'm thinking I may just separate them into plastic bags by manufacturer / flavor profile to make it a little bit more manageable for now.
Then a mini fridge with 40 more flavors
Then a mini fridge with 40 more flavors