What
Now this is a question I happen to thoroughly enjoy. It gives me the opportunity to see what people’s ideas are and the setups they have. It’s like getting a peek inside other people’s homes, who doesn’t like to do that? it’s just plain interesting. (What I wouldn’t do to see behind the curtain of the wizard u/ID10-T) So naturally, when I was asked if I would do a tutorial Tuesday on this exact subject, I happily agreed.
Why
If you’re anything like me, (or 100’s of other diyers), you have a collection of flavors that is growing by leaps and bounds. The longer you’ve been doing this the greater that collection is getting, yes? ~I myself have not been doing this very long, and I long ago sailed past a modest collection into how the hell did this happen territory. How long will it take until we all reach u/Apexified level of volume? (I’m hoping he will link his setup, it’s most impressive and one of my favorites.)
How
What do we do with it all? how do we store and keep track of everything? It’s been a common question lately, My suspicion is with vaping’s future up in the air, there are many many new diy members around these parts looking for ideas and inspirations.
If I could stress one point, I seriously think the sooner you start to organize things the less chaotic it will be going forward.
I can think of three ways off hand. Straight-up alphabetically, by flavor profile, or alphabetically by vendor. Well, maybe 4, as I’ve seen a number of people say they toss it all in a bag, drawer, box and hope for the best 😉 and to be honest, when I first started, I tossed everything into a makeup cube, but I outgrew that alarmingly fast and found I was annoyed by the constant hunt and peck of it all. The cube has since been relegated to the pepper, puke and coconut offenders. It also has the discontinued flavors. And flavors with unknown ingredients (cough tasty puff cough) But I digress...
Thinking of moving on from that insanity, I toyed with the idea of doing it alphabetically. Settled on doing it by flavor profile. It leaves a little room to be lazy, just put all the sweet creams together, no re-alphabetizing needed. And easier still, all the flavors with a yellow sticker go on an allotted shelf, no reading necessary, cleanup a snap. A little work in the beginning has made all the difference to me and my ability to enjoy this going forward.
Where
I’m fortunate enough to have a husband who has already turned our living room into his workshop to build rc airplanes. I use the term fortunate loosely, and it’s relative. Seriously, who tf wants a workshop in their living room? Anyway, I took the remaining area and started with relocating a piece my husband built for me to put skincare on, added a couple of shelves, and built my way up to a wall of flavors. This is broken down into three color-coded sections, or two sections and an amalgamation of three plus additional sections. This can be done in a closet, or a bookshelf, or a kitchen cabinet, even an assortment of boxes. The theory holds the same.
Notes
Now as satisfying as it is to look at a wall of color coded flavors and it is satisfying it would be of little use to me without an accompanying database Said database began as notes in a variety of little color coded notebooks. They included the all important single flavor test notes. That quickly became unmanageable. Looking for a better solution I discovered “numbers” on my iPad and find this is good enough to suit (my) needs. I can move rows around as needed, collapse all or one, add/delete rows, columns, have headers. I suspect any database you’re comfortable with will work and maybe better than what I’ve set up. I haven’t been able to figure out if I can sort things differently, like by vendor. The best I can do is keep a separate database, but that gets forgotten sometimes, so it’s not accurate.
More Notes
As a new diy member, the most important thing I heard, (more importantly, followed) was to do single flavor tests and take notes. Copious notes (I know) I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s hard to keep track of everything in your head. As your flavor stash grows, your personal take, your individual reaction to a particular flavor is important to you. And this; my favorite point to make, one mans ‘VT Sweet Cream’ dream is another mans coconut nightmare.(I’m looking at you Dave, with your promises of sucking the filling out of a Twinkie) Without notes, how would I/how could I remember that sweet cream over the 7 others I have.
Nicotine
Controversial:
There is also the question of what to do with your nicotine, everyone has an opinion. What makes the most sense to me is a refrigerator with unopened liters and broken down liters. Here’s my thinking, (and it goes against almost all recommendations I’ve read here) PG freezes at -74* Fahrenheit, VG -38* so I’m not sure how i could get it to freeze if I was so inclined. There is some question in my mind as to whether or not freezing and defrosting nicotine damages it. (Carolina xtract says NOT to freeze it for just that reason) So for me, I put it in a refrigerator that is subject to less fluctuation then a freezer trying to regulate itself. But I am by no means a chemist - or expert, so please, do your own research and do what you find makes most sense.
Final Thoughts
I find organizing these flavors, in any way that works for you makes the difference between “oh, I think I’ll make a recipe today and ah yeah, probably not”.
So feel free to share some of what you are doing to control your mayhem. I’d love to hear about any and all of it. Links would be great. Though who am I kidding, I myself only recently figured out how to add links, so no judgement. (And a word to the wise, make your vape storage related pictures on imgur hidden or you’ll get comments like.. you have some weird shit here, with a couple of downvotes.. )
And suggestions, if you have any, I’d love to hear them. Questions are welcome, but as I’ve said I’m pretty new to this too, so I don’t know that I’ll have any answers. Most of all, enjoy what you’re doing because boy oh boy this is fun, and isn’t it supposed to be?✌️💛
Honestly, I've thought about this a LOT, and without crawling too far up my own ass, I think I've got the most 'efficient' system I've seen. I have about 400 flavours now, and it never takes me more than a minute to collect all the flavours for even a 8~ flavour complex mix.
First and foremost - access your flavours vertically if possible!
I see a lot of people who are big fans of filling up a wall with shelves, or nailpolish racks - this limits you heavily, as you can only have one 'row' of flavours, otherwise you have to move stuff to get behind others, or god forbid knock off half the shelf.
Multiple small drawers, flat top glass bottles.
Grouped by profiles and subprofiles, colour coded by brand - alphabetization is a pain in the ass, and not worth your time.
Each drawer generally has a vague theme labelled on the front - BEVERAGE
Inside each drawer there are subcategories - TEA, SODA, JUICE, MILK
Lids have stickers colour coded by brand, with a shortened flavour name on the top - 'Lemon Tea', 'Grape Juice', 'Malted Milk'
Say I am making a recipe that calls for FLV Lemon Tea:
I know it'll be in the Beverage drawer.
It'll be in the Teas section.
Flavorah is Red/Brown
At this point, I'm probably only looking at 2-3 bottles, and the top will say 'LEMON tea' clearly. If you have too many bottles at this point, it's probably worth trying to subdivide a category again.
Here's an album from last time this was asked.
That’s a great system too. Anything that makes it easier. I thought about the shelves system and worried I’d knock things off. But so far so good. The shelves are narrow by design. I have 400+ flavors on them, with some room to grow. I didn’t do them by brand though, or alphabetically. I really like your idea of color coded by brand, that’s one I hadn’t thought of. I may have to rethink things if I’ve used all the available wall space. Which is a distinct possibility. 😊☺️
Thanks for the kind words.
As I said, I spent a long-ass time thinking through this, and looking at everyone elses setups and spotting what I didn't like about them.
I spent about a month of my life with 250~ bottles crowded around my desk, which was the real kick in the wrists I needed to craft a proper solution.
I think the biggest consideration is working out effective flavour profile groups - which is why we've all wanted 'flavour tags' on ELR/ATF for the LONGEST time, so we can all come together and come up with a comprehensive and centralized list of whats in each flavour, and useful subcategories.
'TEA-Herbal' and 'TEA-Sweet' once you end up with 20 teas. 'CUSTARD-Vanilla' is huge in itself, and I have no idea how to divide up the world of Strawberry.
Obviously, this level of subdivision makes colour coding by profile impossible at scale. Brands are limited, and don't really change - I find it helpful to colour code them as best I can based on their logo.
Wonder Flavours is a dotted purple circle for me, kinda like the O in their logo.
One on One is the Red/Orange/Green in a ( = ) sort of pattern.
TFA is a blue square, etc.
That’s very clever color coding. I agree the sub categories get to be confusing. Strawberries was the hardest for me too. Ultimately, outside of straight strawberries, they are mixed in with the accompanying profile. Like strawberry yogurt, went into flavored yogurts, strawberry milk into flavored milks, strawberry cream into flavored creams. Then, I have a fruit bakery section. It was the best I could come up with. The same for the other fruits. Second hard one was vanilla, I have straight vanilla, and the vanilla creams followed the same patterns that the strawberries did. As did lemons and all the rest. With the exception of tobaccos, mints, and coffees. They have their own categories.
Does this help?
Interesting topic!
My storage is usually a complete mess, with my ~20 most used flavors spread around the scale. I do however have 4 boxes; two for fruits, one for creams/bakery/nuts and one for "misc" aka tobacco/sweeteners/coolants/etc. This works great for me, as I have a lot of fruit flavors, and less of the others.
I keep track of them by having an excel sheet with different categories;
Citrus, Berries, Fruits, Floral, Candy, Creams, Tobacco/Booze, Bakery, Nuts, Chocolate/Caramel, Spices/Etc. So whenever I want to make a new mix, I just open the sheet and I can get a nice overview of what I have available for different scenarios.
I know it's not the perfect way of sorting, and lots of people would probably have different categories. But for me this works great, as I have a lot of citrus and berry flavors.
That’s perfect. It’s not about what works for others, but what works for you. I’m the same with the fruits, I have a lot of berries and citrus, then the “other” fruits. Excel probably works better than numbers. Or at least on par. Now tell the truth, don’t you just love playing with all of it? When I get bored of looking up or making recipes, I go to my database and see what I can add, or go looks at the flavors to see if I can do better. Then back to creating recipes. I really find it comforting and satisfying. Then in the end it’s delicious 😋🤤
Living in a one bedroom with my girlfriend, having a room dedicated to mixing or being able to use wall racks was out of the question. Space is an issue and she simply would not agree to that. So I had to find a way to make the collection mobile so it could be tucked away. It started out with one 6 quart sterilite plastic bin. I would put the first letter of the flavor around the lid of the bottles. Then use spacers to organize alphabetically by flavor house.
I still use plastic bins but I now also use a 3 drawer versions of this https://www.amazon.com/HOMZ-Plastic-Drawers-Casters-Included/dp/B071CLZG8T
The two small drawers house 10/15ml bottles. With a cardboard square within the drawer I made because it's impossible to reach the back of the drawers and the cardboard spacers, I can fit roughly 180 flavors per drawer. I still use the first letter of the flavor and sort alphabetically by flavor house. A flag made out of a toothpick and tape shows where the next flavor house begins. I can find most flavors relatively quickly though there are some trouble spots... I'm looking at you (WF) "C" section! I will most likely need another 3 drawer bin if/when my flavors reach the 700 mark. At 500 or so right now.
On notes, I use Evernote. I heard Wayne mention this before I got started and it really made note taking simple. Also every (bad) recipe I've tried to create is there.
For nicotine, I use the most recommended storage. 30ml amber glass bottles and poly cone caps. Stored in freezer. The one in use is in the fridge.
Sheesh, that was a pretty long winded comment. Although this account is over a year old I have no clue how to use reddit. I came up with my handle after I tried to make my first recipe, sort of. It was a mix with most likely too much JF honey peach and when I tried it I said, Ugh this tastes like a pair of musky dog balls. That's when I made an account figuring I could probably use some help :) Luckily, I learned what a wealth of information is already available if you just search for it.
So to anyone whose post or comment has helped me in the past. Thank you!
This is a great comment, and given the limitations you face with space, you came up with a fantastic solution. Yes WF c section, they should be ashamed of themselves. Evernote’s, I forgot all about that one. 500 flavors is getting up there. Good on you for your diligent hard work, it’s paid off. Feels good right?
Haha, it does. I would have definitely supplied photos if I knew how.
That’s the boat I was in. Go to Imgur, set up an account. Up load photos, there’s a choice you can make to copy link. Here on reddit there’s a double circle right above the keyboard, click on that, the link setup pops up, give it a name, paste the link. There you go. 👍
For now i have controlled chaos..
Just over 100 flavors, spread over 3 small boxes.
For now sorted by brand:
Box 1 = TFA and CAP
Box 2 = INW, FA and FLV
Box 3 = misc like LA, LB, FW, VTA and additives (smaller number of bottles per brand)
Also in a clear bag i have restock stuff waiting to refill the boxes if something runs out.
Not the best way for sure, but for now i know where everything is, to a degree.
I'm one of those people that like to have a messy desk and/or house/workspace.
When i clean up, i can't find anything, i need mess so i know where i put everything.
Some say that's the sign of high IQ, i just call it lazyness and a good memory.
​
For future redo-ing of this "system", i ordered some small 6mm colored round stickers so i can color code my bottles. For now i sort of now where my Fuji is or my Shisha Raspberry, but when i add more and more i will hit a point where i need to look at every bottle in that box. Colorcoded with numbers or signs will help that. I hope.
I like controlled chaos myself. I find it comforting to have everything out and about. And I can pretty much tell you where everything is. Until my husband comes and “cleans” up my stuff. Then we have a conversation that goes like this
Me... have you seen my... Him.. nope, never saw it didn’t touch it don’t know what you’re talking about Me... sigh Because I know this means he’s tossed it in a box and stuffed it in the attic or worse just thrown it out. When he cleans up, he likes everything to disappear, I like to have it out at my disposal.
Anyway, color coded stickers will help. They helped me. Just curious, how do you remember which flavors you like or don’t?
You could also, put containers inside the box to further organize the flavors.
Nobody is allowed in my mix room/home office except for me.
My wife doesn't touch my stuff, if she does, i know i'm gonna be look for all my stuff for ages.. So it's off limits haha.
I just remember what i like and don't like. I also mix a ton every day, like 2-10 recipes each day, so i know my flavors by now and what works with what. Just a lot of mixing and trial and error.
Here's a pic from box 1, it looks like shit but i know where everything is believe it or not haha
https://imgur.com/gallery/FkRVh2b
That doesn’t look like shit to me, it looks totally controlled. I wish I could train my husband to keep his hands off my stuff. We have such different styles and ideas of what cleaned up looks like, I just sigh and move on. It’s not worth the aggravation of arguing, we are just different. So far he hasn’t “cleaned up” my vape stuff, so I feel fortunate about that. I too make up to and around 10 recipes a day, but for the life of me, outside of my absolute favorites, I can’t keep it all straight. ✌️
I put all flavor in alphabetically order. I wanted to use ATF for the batch inventory but didn't want to pay those people. So I keep an excel spreadsheet that tracks inventory
Awesome write up. It's really cool to see how others deal with the madness. Im at 400 plus after 2.5yrs mixing, flavor ADD big time.
http://imgur.com/a/Rhqk2ek
I agree that alphabetically is a pain in arse but each time I get a batch in to file I get to go thru my flavors and it's always an inspiration as there's always flavors I haven't touched in awhile. Ive got them inventoried of course but find it useful to go thru them occasionally. Thanks for the post. Pretty cool.
That’s really satisfying to look at. Do you have a place where you’ve written down the flavors? That’s how I usually find the inspiration to create a recipe. Your setup is very nicely done!
Edited to add, I have 400 plus flavors, I’m worried where this all leads.😳😳 I’ve on,y been doing this a short while. Though I am comforted by the idea that I have just about every flavor I could want. Now if they’d just stop making new ones.. 😂😂
Actually I haven't written down my complete inventory. If both sites go down I'm screwed. Lol. It is something I need to do. I have scribbled on tons of note sheets flavor notes and profiles.
Ooh you poor thing. Seriously, you have your work cut out for you. Perhaps going forward you can make all new notes in one dedicated place, and for every new note, grab a couple older ones and right them up too. 400 flavors? Well, you should be caught up in no time. 😉😉
This is the dreaded write up I've been fearing for the reason it makes me face my flavor flaw. I dont have the room at the moment to make such a beautiful flavor mixing studio as I have seen and or described here. Mine looks more like a Jammed Filled High School Locker. Pure Unadulterated Chaos! But I do know what I have... One of these days I will make the time to change it to as others have said, Controlled Chaos 🤣
What a fantastic post and thread. Glad to know I’m not the only one who is envious of apex’s setup. I just took the clothes out of three large dresser drawers and have stuff in plastic bags in bins. The bags are in flavor company for fruits and sub categories for the rest. Chocolates boozes drinks florals spices caramels etc. then the bacco section by flavour company with a separate section for NETs.
First: in bags after a long slow leak of flv red burley did its magic for a few weeks unattended.
Second, it’s expandable. So when I decide I’m say, going down the ry4 rabbit hole, they all get transferred to their own bag instead of being mixed in with flavor house. Works for me.
The only flavors I can kind of never find are the ones that I end up with larger bottles of (I have a sloppy overflow 30ml section) and the ones I generally never use. Those mostly because I’ve never really thought out the differences between them and they are often poorly grouped.
Thank you so much for this thorough and entertaining write up. Your setup’s nothing to shake a stick at. Organization is one of those things that, like you said, the sooner you deal with it, the better off you’ll be when a big order comes in. New orders for me sit on my bed or in the box until I can mentally wrap my head around where they belong.
Ps love that you consider yourself ‘new’ but have a wall of flavors in what looks like flavor Santa’s workshop. :)
Ok, first of all, I just love that your new orders sit on the bed with you until you can mentally wrap your head around it, I will laugh at that forever. Second, only a fellow diy mixer would think a wall of flavors looks like Santa’s workshop. What a wonderful response. 💛
I am new, I started mixing the end of October. But I have this thing in my brain that when I’m interested in something I go all in. I want everything so I can assess for myself what works and what doesn’t. If I decide I want to make a blackberry apricot marmalade croissant, I want to have what I need to make one I will like. Which means having tasted ahead of time all the possible flavors and combos. This can be an all consuming hobby if you let it. But it happens to satisfy-or engage- so many parts of my brain, and the end result is its sweet rewards, literally. The only other hobby that does that is cooking (or baking more precisely), and well, this is certainly better for my waistline.
You said you had a separate section for NETS, and I can’t figure out what that is.
I’m not going to talk about the leaking... but really, can’t that be figured out? It’s the worst with the squishy bottles.. but hard ones leak too.
Thank you for your response, you made me laugh and smile. I appreciate it. 💛
Sadly, I let that red burley lie on its side so it was really my bad :(
NETs are just naturally extracted tobaccos. I rather enjoy them, myself. Not for everyone, for sure.
It TOTALLY engages the senses. I think there is something very deeply satisfying about mixing and vaping that is almost the opposite of actual smoking. It really is deeply engaging of the senses... mouthfeel, taste, smell, all of it! In a way, it is also *just* like baking. You pop the flavors in the 'oven' (bottle) and wait until it pops out something wholly different. except you get to taste it as it rises and there's a lot less kneading :)
what a lovely thread. I look forward to your June 9th submission ;) 4 Weeks? You got this!
Does anyone has the problem that different flavors in the same container fusion in flavor? My whole flavor art box smells like Tahiti vanilla.
I'm too new right now to have organization problems but I've already started sorting flavors into baggies by type. Vanilla type flavors are double-bagged because those aromas seem to escape the bottles. I picked up one of those sterilite drawer things on wheels and now that I read the great tips about color coding I suppose I'll start tucking the flavors into those and separate it by brand. Thanks for sharing pics it really helps to get a visual of what can be done.
You’re off to a good start. You’ll find what works for you as you go forward. It’s nice to hear the pics helped. Also don’t forget to take notes, keep notes. It can get confusing as the numbers grow. Anyway, welcome to the wonderful world of diy. I hope you enjoy it as much I do. ✌️
After amassing over 250 flavours, I found myself being overwhelmed ANY time I wanted to mix - and I hated it. I couldn't stand knocking other flavours over going to grab another one, and searching for 10 minutes to find the correct one.
I found a solution that works amazingly well for me.
First, I grabbed some of these bins. They are pretty damn handy, and I've found can hold 20 10mL bottles in total (21 if you are good enough lol). I was then able to organize each bin by brand, along with each flavour having a sticker with a number (along with a colour code) that I can reference too in a spreadsheet.
My whole setup looks like this. Anything that I can't fit in those bins goes on the top shelf where its all tiered so I can see everything anyways. My spreadsheet, if anyone is interested in that - looks like this.
Overall I'm pretty happy with my current setup and I don't spend ages looking for flavours. Them being in the bins makes sure they all stay upright and I don't knock a bunch over when I have to go in the back to grab a flavour either.
This is a great setup. And I see you use advanced vape supply wires, me too, and I get their coils. 😊☺️ your setup is tidy. Those bins were a great inspiration. And very organized.. I can’t tell, can you click on the flavors and get info? If not, how do you remember which flavors are the good ones? I ask because I wonder how long it will take me to memorize mine. Just wondering if it’s possible to do. Any way, I really like your setup. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you!
I have a different system for SFT Notes. I could link them to each flavour and have them show after clicking, but now it would take a LONG time hahaha - that would be best to do if I did it when I first started out.
Personally, if I think a flavour is complete garbage - it just goes in the trash. I don't find any use keeping those things around, simply because it takes up space and I'm already working with a limited amount.
I also typically can remember off the top of my head what is the "best" in each category (of course, best is subjective lol).
Best is subjective absolutely. That’s why taking our own notes is so important. You could always link them going forward, and eventually have it completed. But honestly, to me your setup looks pretty complete and under control.
I do weed out the flavors I abhor pretty quickly. What I find a hard time letting go of are the ones that are not the best and not the worst. Thinking I’ll find a use for them. Sometimes I go ahead and use them but I’ve made a conscious decision to use one outside of my scrumptious favorites. It’s also not lost on me that our tastes change, or evolve and I may one day prefer one I deemed mediocre to one one a labeled best.
I’ve gone on too long again.
Thanks for sharing your setup. ✌️
Hi guys, you all inspired me to set this up a couple months back, so thanks! https://bit.ly/33E1zdU
That’s great. I see you’re a dotmod fan, as am I. That and psyclone are pretty much all I use. Good job on your set up. ✌️
Thanks! and yours too! The only issue now being that I'm gonna have to fork out some cash very soon for a fourth set of shelves! Yeah I'm a dotmod freak haha. We will have to chat coils on the dotRDA then..
The dot rda, I have 5, as at the time it was better than anything I had. But since then I find the citadel really does give the best flavor. The dotrda is a little sharp. (Is that spit back?) if you have any pointers I’d love to hear them. The coils they supply with the rda are the best I seem to be able to do. But no where can I find info on them, like the metal they use.