i knew the end was in sight for some months, but really had too much going on to start ordering. now we're staring down the barrel, but what's stopping me is that i don't want to drop hundreds on nicotine to see it destroyed in transit. it was 105f here yesterday.
thoughts? advice?
i nearly dropped $400 at liquid barn last week, but couldn't bring myself given the fact that they don't guarantee product will survive shipping and it doesn't look like they would replace it.
i know there are arguments about whether nicotine should be stored in the freezer, and carolina xtract claims room temp is fine. is their (expensive!) stuff any more likely to survive shipping, or not really?
You have time. The tax bill hasn't advanced past the house. And then you'll have a good 2 or 3 months after that.
To buy large quantities of nicotine??
Yes. The nic tax bill hasn't even passed yet.
Personally, I've always bought my nic between October and April for just that reason. Of course you don't want nic exposed to 100F temps - but it's much higher than that inside the 18-wheeler that it's being shipped in (aka a giant metal box)
Nic isn't going away next week. Maybe wait until at least September - another plus to that is maybe you'll hit some Labor Day sales ;)
the truth is that it probably will effect it to some degree.
I work for a manufacturer, and for 8 months out of the year we have no complaints. during the 4 or so hot months, we constantly get emails like "hey did the recipe change on this flavor? tastes off." or "tastes like chemicals somebody fucked up, can you send me a new one"
when in reality, it's literally just the hot trucks making the nicotine oxidize faster and taste foul. nothing can really be done about it other than paying an ungodly amount more for freezer trucks.
so do i gamble money i can't afford to lose? order last last minute? something else? thanks for your response, btw.
I would purchase a small amount of nicotine, like TODAY, from either liquid nicotine wholesalers or nic river as it's generally cheaper than others, and see what it's like when it arrives. then decide whether or not you are happy with it's quality before you purchase a larger quantity
Pay the cash for overnight shipping, probably your best bet to limit the exposure to hear during transit. Just don't order on a day that would cause then to ship near the weekend.
I've had multiple bottles of nicotine delivered to me in the recent warm months (I'm in Florida) and they all taste fine. In all honesty there is no possible way they didn't get damaged by the heat but it's not enough to notice just yet. Pay a little bit extra to get FedEx delivery and you should have nothing to worry about!
I’m glad I’m not alone on this thought process. It struck me the other day when my package from BCF showed up (and trust me I was at the window like a cat all day waiting for it) and the package was really warm. I figure there’s no real way around it and stuck it on an ac vent ASAP to cool it down. I’ve mixed with the flavors and they taste fine. Don’t know if I can say the same for the nic shipment that’s on its way, but fingers crossed I guess.
There's still time to stock up on nicotine. Main concern right now is hardware.
i have a couple backup devices, wrap my own coils. if i'm really desperate, i could probably rehab an old reo. i'm less worried about devices than something to put in them.
Hardware and devices are what are illegal and will be hardest to get, all diy vape juice ingredients (besides nicotine) is available for other purposes and will continue to be just a heads up. RDAs and devices are the most important thing to stock on. Wire, cotton, juice ingredients (besides nicotine if taxed) will be available in some way. Probably just not sold for vaping purposes.
As someone from a country where vaping was made illegal about an year ago, I can confirm. Devices are impossible to find (and import is illegal here too). All DIY ingredients (except nic) were available for a few months after the ban.
But pretty soon, the manufacturers realised that without vaping devices, the market will shrink quick. So, after about 3 months, all flavour, wire, and cotton manufacturers closed shop.
I can still manage to get VG/PG around (and import wire and cotton), but everything else is near impossible to find now.
The nicotine will be fine. I order some a couple weeks ago, and I was a bit worried about it with the 100-110 degree heat we get in the desert southwest. It obviously showed up hot as hell, but it didn’t seem to affect the nic. No odd smell or off flavors.
really! okay, your heat might even be worse than mine (south central texas). where did you order from?
I notice people talking about off flavors. I am wondering about potency. Is there even a way to check this? I got a bottle of VG PG 50/50 100 migs nic that went right into the freezer but it was hot as fuck when it arrived. Will the potency of the fluid be maintained in the freezer? Could it have been reduced in transit? Is there really any way to know? I really love this sub, I have learned so much. Thank you in advance.
there is some way to check potency, but you'll have to ask someone more knowledgeable. i have seen it mentioned on this sub. yeah, off-flavors is part of my concern. i ordered a bunch from a chain place with a local shop at the start of shut-down (not my usual guy); it wasn't great and nigh unvapeable now. their base ingredients and handling must be pretty poor, i'm thinking, and i don't want to pull a bottle out in a year and discover i have a peppery, disgusting mess on my hands.
You could buy a nicotine titration kit to determine the concentration of nicotine. I don’t know how precise these are, but it should get you into a ballpark range (plus or minus 20%). So, if your nicotine was really shot, you would be able to tell.
Fuck, thank you. More things to learn, Ha!
Wait...you actually probably can’t do this. I was just looking at the nicotine oxidation products and it looks like it’s mostly cotinine which will still “look” like nicotine in the titration. It will still act the same since it’s just an acid-base titration and cotinine still has the same acidic proton that nicotine does. Sorry. I guess it’s just for testing nicotine concentration in juice that was just made. Unless someone else says or you can find out that the oxidation products don’t interfere with the titration, then I would say it’s not going to work to tell you potency.
I'm in the same boat - upstate SC here, heat index in the triple digits most days for the last month or so. Just put an order in to River Supply last week, not sure where they ship from and the route it'll take, but I can provide an update when it arrives if you'd like.
thank you, i would love to know how it goes. it sounds like, however, i should probably pull the trigger regardless and cross fingers. :/
Will do 👍
Speaking from experience, though - not in DIY but a background in chemistry - I'm confident that you'll be alright and your nic wouldn't appreciably degrade from just a few weeks of low-hundreds temps (*as long as it's packaged/stored properly, i.e. is from a reputable, quality producer). While it's true that elevated temperature is one of the environmental factors that will degrade the nicotine, it's not nearly as much of a problem as most think it is at the temperatures that we normally experience. Even on a very hot day, the low-hundreds Fahrenheit/~39-45 is relatively cool when it comes to reaction temperatures of stable organic compounds.
Ultraviolet light and oxygen exposure are much more potent factors; even the nicotine producers say that as long as the nic is stored in a UV-opaque container (e.g. inert plastic, amber or even blue glass) that's air-tight (preferably under argon, an inert gas which displaces oxygen), it's fine to store at room temp. We here are all just paranoid and anal (paranal? ananoid?) and tend to go a little overboard 😄
We have some time. I’m holding off because I Want my nic to last me as long as possible once this goes through. If you really want your nic to last I suggest buying from Carolina xtracts. Their nic is the best quality I’ve found and comes in glass with the oxygen purged. A little pricey but in this situation I think it’s worth it.
Good points, all. Indicators can be acceptably (for these purposes) accurate for titrative quantitation, but it's a pain in the butt for sure, and takes no small amount of experience and care. I'm actually not familiar with these titration kits, being pretty new to DIY myself. What is their purpose, and what do they come with?
I had a gallon of nic arrive a few weeks ago from LNW that didn't survive the heat. They made things right, and the replacement bottle arrived in pristine condition.
i had a gallon of nicotine show up warm to the touch, fedex screwed the label up or something and it sat in arizona under conditions i can only imagine for a weekend. it had a slight yellowish tinge, but it was odorless and tastes fine.
now it's stored in amber bottles with polycone caps, with argon, each bottle in it's own freezer bag with one of those oxygen absorbers found in beef jerky, in a tote, and into the freezer. i plan on having enough nicotine to last me the rest of my mortal life.
the label thing i don't really understand though, i peeled off the replacement label and the original label was perfectly fine, not a smudge or tear on it. i guess fedex sucks.
LNW is located in AZ if you are experiencing that heat I'm assuming you are west? Many diy juicers hate on LNW but their shipping is amazing and nicotine prices are great. So if you are west they get my orders to Michigan in 2/3 days always and they told me they are ready for the PMTA deadline but we will see. I've been literally attacked on Reddit for mentioning them lately and what they told me about the PMTA deadline which was not to worry because I was about to order a huge order and they said they expect business as usual after sept 9th w only slight price changes. This is what I got attacked for sharing but if it helps message them yourself they are great at communicating.
Nicotine isn’t part of PMTA
Exactly some genius was convinced I was outing a company that was breaking federal laws. I was just sharing that they have nicotine AND assure me they are ready for the PMTA ALSO. A lot of people are very confused right now. But as mentioned their diy products we will see about after September 9th but they have told me even that should be business as usual and as far as nicotine they only expect slight price changes for the immediate future.
So they ARE going to cut off ejuice!? I just ordered some juice as well, I had no idea that having ejuice exposed to heat was a bad thing. Now im worried about the juice I just ordered.
from what i understand, nicotine can be unstable, and heat helps accelerate any chemical reactions. and from what i have been reading, a lot of juice sellers are just throwing in the towel in september. a few will try to keep going until they are shut down. a lot of overseas sellers won't ship to the us at that point. you could get china to ship, but who knows what kind of trouble politics could contribute to you receiving shipments, and i don't entirely trust liquid from a country where safety of consumables can be an issue (look into baby formula, for example). i guess you could get someone to act as a shopping service in another country, but that's going to cost shipping plus their time.