Hey guys! Been trying DIY for about a month now, and wanted to share what I've learned for all those other noobs out there like me. Hopefully this can help those who need it and make all you DIY veterans laugh at my stupid mistakes. Most importantly, never forget that DIY is the best thing you can do for yourself to save money and have LOADS of fun, provided you do it right. So, on to what I've learned.
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ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS, read the side bar and FAQ on this sub reddit. Seriously. I thought I could read it just once and be fine. Oh boy was I wrong. The side bar is your best friend. Without it, you might be okay with your juices. With it? You'll feel like a master juice blender in no time!
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BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR NICOTINE. I'm sure many of you are like me and want to save all the money you can, so you ordered 100mg/ml nicotine. I didn't think it would be a big deal so I just wiped it with my hand and left it alone. I should have rinsed it off immediately and used a cloth+water to get it off but I didn't so that's entirely my fault. While this is great for saving money, if you fuck up, you will hate your life for hours. I ended up accidentally dropping this shit on myself and was sick with nicotine poisoning for about 4 hours. Luckily it was small enough that I didn't need to go to the hospital, but the puking, shakes, and fucked up heartbeat taught me a well needed lesson, which brings me to tip 3.
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PAY ATTENTION TO SAFETY. Some of you might be like me in that you think you'll be safe enough and don't need gloves or any safety gear. Don't be like me, spend the extra $20-40 on safety gear. It could mean the different between hours of pain and discomfort and a great experience with juice making. Like I said before, I got nicotine poisoning. I thought that my serious nicotine addiction and tolerance would keep me safe from the side affects of a few drops of 10mg/ml nicotine. Oh man was I wrong. The sickness isn't worth it guys, just get the gloves, the apron, and the goggles. It'll be so much better in the long run.
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Don't give up! Okay, so at first your juices might suck. No flavor, or even worse, bad flavor, can definitely happen. And thats okay! My first batch was the worst thing I had ever tasted. I almost just threw out all my supplies and gave up, but decided to stick with it. Now I'm making juices I love for maybe .50 cents a bottle! Sticking with this thing through the errors can lead to a lot of vaping happiness if you're willing to chuck your first few batches and learn from your mistakes.
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Google recommended flavor percentages! This is the most important tip I have to give regarding making good juice. At first I ordered a bunch of flavors from WizardLabs and just threw them all into bottles at 15%. I ignored the recommended flavoring amounts and ended up with several juices that were DISGUSTING to vape. For instance, the worse one was cinnamon. TFA recommends 1-3% of TFA cinnamon, yet I threw in 15% to make sure I could get "strong flavor". Well, it was strong alright. So strong I threw up after my first hit of my vape. Listen to the people who know more than you, they will help you make the best juices possible. After looking up the recommended percentages I made an excellent cinnamon juice that I fell in love with in no time at all.
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Consult the Subreddit. This is a great resource for you to look up new flavors, learn from people that have been doing this for years, and grow your flavor palette as well as picking up new tips to learn about juice making. For example, I never considered putting drop of flavor concentrate in a shot of water to try it out at first, but after reading this tip on the subreddit, I've found that doing this has helped me determine concentrate strengths to build flavors that are the perfect combo of different flavors and their percentages. Everyone here is incredibly helpful and knowledgeable, and thinking you can just do it all on your own is pure ignorance. Learning from the masters has helped me become a maker of good juice within a month, and all I had to do was read a free database accessible at anytime and put my own " I can do it better" idea behind me. Trust me, this is the best place for you to learn!
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Be accurate with your measurements! So some of you might be like me ( I know, I keep saying this but it's true) and think that you can just eyeball your liquid amounts and it'll be fine. This leads to some bad fucking juices! If you have a recipe, STICK TO IT. For example, I heard that I should add 1 drop of sweetener for every 5ml of juice. Well, when I was making a batch of juice, I decided that, "eh, a few extra drops is fine". I tried to rush the process and ended up with a few extra drops of sweetener in each bottle, about 20 bottles of 10ml juice actually. I assumed that a few drops couldn't really change things much, but after a week of steeping, I found every juice sickeningly sweet. I pitched the whole batch of juices because of how bad they were. This is when I learned that being precise and paying attention and not rushing were really worth the extra ten to fifteen minutes it took. When I remade the batch of 20 flavors with the right amount of sweetener drops they came out amazing, and I have never just guesttimated amounts of liquiods since. Accuracy is the difference between garbage juice and juices you love, so pay attention to detail!
Well guys, that's all I've got so far. I'm sure as I continue my DIY learning experience I'll have more info, but these are just some tips I wanted to share with other new people such as myself so they don't get discouraged on making their own juices. Juice making is fun! It's like completely rediscovering vaping, and it's great for your wallet. I hope these tips gave some of you old timers a chuckle and perhaps a moment of reminiscence on your own mistakes, and I hope it's helped all you new folk like me who get extremely confused and lost when you first join this subreddit. Good luck to all you juice makers, new and old, and keep on DIYing!
I'm gonna call BS on the nicotine accident. If you wipe it off right away there is no reason to worry. Safety is definitely the best when working with nicotine, but you are exaggerating here.
OP ate at Taco Bell, and was feeling the effects of bad enchiladas.
I've gotten it on myself and never got nic sick. I do usually wear gloves when transferring my main batch, but I don't when I'm using work bottle with a glass dropper. I do however get a bit of a skin irritation, itchy sensation that goes away if I'm dealing with it for a decent amount of time while mixing alot of bottles up.
I should've definitely added to my post that the reactions per person can vary. For me, nicotine sickness was a real thing, even after years of smoking and dipping. I should've respected the nicotine more and washed it off with water and worn gloves. This reaction won't happen to everyone, but it definitely happened to me. I wanted new DIYers like myself to know the potential problems and work on safety techniques so they never have to deal with nicotine poisoning like I did. I am 100% responsible for what happened to me and I can only hope it doesn't happen to any other noobs such as myself. That was the entire purpose behind my post, but thanks for explaining the possibilities of what could happen on a per person basis!
Oh I've gotten nic sick, just never from dealing with liquid nicotine concentrate. Ive been pretty careful. I've got it vaping 12mg out of a TFV8 the first day I got it lol. I'm vaping 3mg now and if I jump up to 6mg I'll get the shakes.
Now my dad was over the house one day and I showed him a bottle of liquid nic for the first time, he gave it a sniff and got some on the tip of his nose by holding it too close. About 30 min. Later he said he started feeling sick and needed to put his vape down. I told him no it's probably from the little drop of nic you got on your skin lol
I get the same, but that's due to the fact that I have insanely dry skin, and anything that isn't supposed to be on it irritates the hell out of it. (No electrolytes jokes)
It was my fault for not wiping it off right away. I didn't use a cloth or anything, I just used my hand. I probably rubbed it in more than anything, which is why I felt sick. Not saying it will affect everyone, but it can happen. I thought I would be fine so I didn't bother wiping it off properly or rinsing my skin. I should probably add that into my original post, thanks for pointing this out!
Dude did you like dump it all over your arm or something? Come on.
Yeah tbh I pretty much did. I had a bottle of nicotine and a bottle of juice I was making and I knocked it all over myself. It was entirely my fault for being careless and clumsy. I should've been more aware of my surroundings and what I was working with. That's why I made my post, to encourage others to be more proactive about their safety. I 100% fucked up and should've respected the sidebar more. I just wanted to inform new DIY vapers more about how they can best help themselves to avoid mistakes like mine. Should've respect the information on the sidebar more instead of deciding, " Oh I'll be fine, these rule are garbage". It was 100% my fault and I take full responsibility for my mistakes in DIY. You more experienced DIY vapers definitely should be consulted more than I I did. I appreciate you calling my situation into question as it helps other new DIYers like myself to learn more. Thank you for all you do for this sub!
I am about 8 days in to my DIY mixing, nice write up. I will have to start taking safety more serious (I have gloves & goggles!). Thanks for the flavor percentage tip!
I would add to find a decent app to help you mix the recipes and save your recipes. Right now I am using http://diyjuicecalculator.com/ but I started with ejuice me up.
I have also found that mixing by weight with a scale is by far the easiest. Pour liquid to desired weight then tare scale, next liquid and repeat.
Mixing by weight is definitely better. My careless " it's probably fine" approach could have definitely been made better by referring to weight instead of eyeballing mixtures. I'm glad you decided to listen to the sidebar instead of eyeballing juice like I did!
Just have some everclear on hand to wipe your hands off since you rawdogging it without rubbers
Totally not necessary. Wiping it off with a wet cloth/paper towel/soap and water is fine. There's no need to involve Everclear in this process
Maybe it's not necessary, but everything's better with grain alcohol.
60mg/ml master race
I was just going to say! I dont mix with gloves, but I do dilute my 100 mg/ml to 60 for my working nic.
> the puking, shakes, and fucked up heartbeat taught me a well needed lesson
I can easily imagine. Once I picked up my 100mg/ml without gloves and there was a drip along the bottle, had a few drops on my index and ringfinger. I felt it drilling down my skin instantly, rinsed immediatly and didn't feel it otherwise, I just didn't vape for 4 hours.
I'm not recommending it but I've accidentally slopped 100mg/ml all over myself and rinsed it off quick and didn't feel anything. I think you guys are being a bit silly about skin absorption. Obviously be careful, take safety precautions, but c'mon man it's not that bad. I'm calling bullshit.
It was my fault for not wiping it off right away. I didn't use a cloth or anything, I just used my hand. I probably rubbed it in more than anything, which is why I felt sick. Not saying it will affect everyone, but it can happen. I thought I would be fine so I didn't bother wiping it off properly or rinsing my skin. I should probably add that into my original post, thanks for pointing this out!
The all over yourself part is harder to believe than a drop of 100mg causing a tingling sensation.
When I was using nic patches a few years ago, they were 21mg and you wouldn't put it at the same place twice because it burns.
Getting nicotine through the skin is no easy task.
It requires dermal abrasion and dermal suffocation.
The patch suffocates the skin to get the pores to open, and an abrasive acid additive etches the skin so that the nicotine can pass through it.
Pharmaceutical companies spent big bucks figuring this out.
It would help if you didn't take my figure of speech in a literal sense. To clarify, it was more than a few drops but less than a 1/4 teaspoon on my hand. I've used the patch as well and found it to be irritating too. I wasn't taking issue with your comment as much as what you quoted from OP.
I'm really glad I came across this. I'm waiting for a last couple of flavours to come in the mail before I buckle down and start mixing myself, so your post is very helpful to me right now. I'm totally in the dark here, so every little bit of advice helps, especially the safety tips. I can be a bit of a chimp when it comes to this kind of stuff, so I'll really need to be mindful once I get started.
I definitely fall into the 'better safe than sorry' group. I vape really low nic (1 or 1.5) and nic lasts me a very long time. So I have stuck with ordering 48mg nic.
I always transfer 30ml at a time to a unicorn bottle... And even though I feel I'd have very little to worry about if I skilled some in myself in that process I still wear gloves to do so.
However, when mixing juices, I'm then adding nic straight from the unicorn bottle there is pretty much 0 chance of a nic spill.
Somewhere between numbers 5 and 7, I would add:
Single-flavor test your flavors. Don't just look at recommended %'s. Don't just consult the subreddit and take /u/ConcreteRiver's word for it. Test your flavors individually yourself. Preferably and various percentages. Get to know your flavors. Become intimate with your flavors.
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