I've been mixing for almost a month now and as much research as I did, I wish these points had been more stressed so I just thought I might share.
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However much VG you plan on buying, buy double. I bought 500ml of VG, thinking it was a ton I mean half a liter was relatively speaking alot. It only lasted about 20ish 30ml bottles of juice, which is a good amount of juice but now I'm stuck waiting for more.
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WEAR GLOVES. Cannot stress this enough, I bought gloves. Forgot to put them on. Got a drop of 100mg of nicotine on my skin. Thankfully I flushed it quick and had no noticeable reaction, it will find a way to you no matter how careful you are. I even used syringes and still got it on me. You can die from nicotine exposure on your skin.
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Mix by weight. Just do it. I tried mixing by volume, it was a nightmare and took 30 minutes to mix a bottle, mixing by weight it takes 5 minutes to whip up a bottle of juice.
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Buy nicotine in advance, I received my flavoring long before I received my nicotine, 2 weeks before to be exact. You can still vape it, but it won't replace your nicotine fix. Thanks nude nicotine. Special thanks to Carolina xtracts that got to my door within 3-4 days of ordering, instead of 3 weeks with nude nicotine.
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Maybe don't buy 100% VG nicotine. I prefer VG, so it made sense. I regret it now. It's extremely thick and hard to work with, pulling it out of the freezer is a nightmare. It's unusable unless you give it 2-3 hours to warm up.
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Use the app vape tool, it makes mixing pretty straight forward, logs your juice inventory and you can save your recipes. I especially like that it shows me the cost of a bottle of juice, makes it easier to rationalize the time spent mixing compared to buying juice.
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Reuse your old juice bottles, I had tons of old juices I didn't enjoy. I rinsed the glass bottles and immediately had 20+ quality glass bottles that were awesome to mix with.
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Keep lots of napkins near by, you will get a drop somewhere. It's nice to be able to immediately clean it up.
All good points, isn't most of it in the guides in the sidebar though or is it unclear or buried in less relevant stuff?
I need to address two of the points though. Don't keep putting your nic back in the freezer, you only do that once. Split it into smaller containers, enough to last a few months, and pull them out one by one as you need them. As for gloves, rather safe than sorry, but a drop of 100 mg/ml on your skin won't kill you. If you get some on you, do wash it off, but unless you get absolutely soaked in it and have a heart condition, all you might get is a faster heartbeat and a headache. If you get any in your eyes however, you'll have a very bad day, same with concentrates. While you could wear goggles, gloves, a hairnet, a hazmat suit, a bit of care and caution is all you really need :)
That was more so my point, spilling it all over yourself like the bottle and dropper separating in your hand and it soaking your hands. A drop isn't going to hurt someone but a knocked over bottle would if not washed away.
I do think that slight precaution should be taken though, at least a pair of gloves.
put a drop of nic on the table. Now rub your gloved fingertip on the drop. Rub that fingertip on the next fingertip and so on until you're out of fingertips. You should have the most minute of nic residue on your finger, likely undetectable by the human eye.
Actually it is detectable by the human eye, even if you can't see it. go ahead and stick that finger just to the edge of your eyelid, not even in the eye.
Yeah, ditch the gloves and wear safety glasses. Just be sure to wash thoroughly before and after mixing.
All of your points are valid except the nicotine on your skin. I have dropped it on myself multiple times, and having a few drops on you for a few seconds isnt going to cause harm.
No need to scare people. A quick rinse and you will be fine.
I had a pipette pop open at the seam on me and got like 0.5ml of 100mg base on my hand. I finished mixing my bottle of juice before I washed them off completely. I didn't even get a headache. I think the 100mg scare is a bit overblown.
It is extremely overblown. It takes time for it to absorb. Im not saying you do not need to rinse it off, but there is no need to panic. If you spill a bottle down your body, stripping down and showering will most likely prevent harm. I think that is pretty much worst case scenario for us mixers.
Well, worse case is prolly breaking the bottle and slicing yourself and having the nic base in the open wound, but even then you bleed out, not in. That should prevent massive absorbtion. If the wound is that bad you should seek some form of medical attention anyway.
Edit: If the person is transferring their nic into dropper bottles as they should be, it really limits the amount that can spill out in a couple seconds. Having an entire 30ml bottle tip over and splash you will result in 2 or 3 ml leaving the bottle at most. It will not magically dump all 30ml and soak your body.
Indeed. This is a completely overblown fear. Nicotine is a hazardous substance, and should be handled appropriately (the same could be said of bleach, and of many substances we handle every day.) It's not as hazardous as many believe though. I don't wear gloves when mixing, occasionally get a bit of 100mg on my hands, and don't worry about it at all.
Actually, I have tested new batches of 100mg nic by tasting a drop of it. I never suffered any ill-effects from that (but please note that I don't recommend you do that. Individual sensitivity to nicotine varies widely.)
A better recommendation, IMHO, is to mix standing up, or at least handle large volumes of nic standing up. A drop on your skin is unlikely to hurt you. Accidentally dumping a liter of 100mg in your lap might not be great (though I doubt you would suffer any lasting harm if you immediately took your pants off and took a shower.)
I'd also recommend taking precautions to avoid exposing pets and children to nic. My cats, for instance, weigh about 1/20th of what I do, and have cat biochemistry (onions, for instance, are quite poisonous to cats,) so I make sure not to expose them to more than trace amounts of nicotine.
I didn't mean a drop would kill you, I meant more so like knocking over a bottle on the table and getting it all over yourself. Spilling a bottle of 100mg onto your lap or getting it let's say all over your forearms from getting spilled on a table wouldn't end well for most people.
My response was to your point, which was wearing gloves. Gloves do not protect your lap or forearms, which makes that moot.
Sorry about not elaborting as well as I may have to the other comment. I was implying a level of safety should be observed with nicotine. Gloves are a basic step and can prevent a bottle and dropper from separating and possibly spilling into your hands. Or even pressing on a dropper with a full bottle and having the backflow run out onto your hands.
Removing a dropper from a bottle even, the dropper itself is surrounded by nicotine not just the interior of the dropper. All of that has potentional of getting on your hands. I'm not saying it's a requirement but I'd rather have the safety on a loaded gun then no safety at all.
I get that some people have been doing this a long time and have gotten good at not wasting any nicotine. But I myself in particular when I started mixing would get alot of run off and/or drips from the dropper. These situations can be solved by simply wearing gloves, I mean that should be common sense.
2.) Put the nicotine into a 30ml plastic dropper bottle for dispensing and never have to worry about spills again.
5.) VG based nicotine is fine. do the same thing as i said above, put it in a bottle for dispensing. only put enough in for a week or two of mixing, put the rest in the freezer. just shake it before you use it.
6.) just use ELR or ATF. visually determine if you need more flavor or not.
What's the name of the app?
Vape tool or vape tool pro if you don't mind spending $1.99 for cloud storage of your juice mixes and no ads.
I don't see anything in the App Store (iOS) called vape tool. Top result is "coil builder"
- Before going on a flavor buying binge think about what flavor profiles you like, then find some well rated recipes on this sub and just buy those flavors. Mix the juices according to the recipe. Since you are new it will take time to learn how to use flavors correctly and which brands to use. There will always be time to reorder more flavors in the future.
>Maybe don't buy 100% VG nicotine. I prefer VG, so it made sense. I regret it now. It's extremely thick and hard to work with, pulling it out of the freezer is a nightmare. It's unusable unless you give it 2-3 hours to warm up.
Try filling up a jug or your sink or just something with warm water but not hot and set the nicotine in that 20 mins before use. won't really harm the nic.
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