A user (who shall remain anonymous) posted on r/Vaping that he bought a load of supplies from Liquid Barn, including 20 random flavors, saying "I just ordered the liquid barn flavorings for shits and gigs who knows maybe it’s all great."
"All of a sudden I have to learn how to mix and I would prefer to be good at it lol I’ve been into the diy sub Reddit but it’s all Greek to me still."
Apparently we speak Greek.
It’s intimidating when you read to much of these comments and put the process on a pedestal. Like DIY is some sort of magical tool that only certain ethereal beings are able to use. Sure if your one of the many obsessed flavor searching recipe crafting types- it is. There’s a lot of research and development that goes into creating something new and unique. Much like anything crafted.
I digress. Many of the folks getting into DIY think this is what it they “have” to do. Although they might like the fantasy of it but the reality is (enter reason) they will try and fail and toss in the towel for one reason or another. Which is fine but that’s where many of the voices of frustration fill these boards.
So if your new take a step back. Take the advice that’s been given over and over and....
Pick 2-5 flavors you’ve vaped before and loved. Find a recipe similar to that profile. Buy the flavors. Mix em’ up. Didn’t work. Try again. Feeling stuck? Be like, “yo, picked up these flavors for this recipe, and I need it to taste a little more like (x) and less like (y). Can anyone help me out?”
Hope this advice pulls a veil back for some of the new mixers and helps break it down a little. This is only rocket science if you want to build them. Otherwise, there’s plenty of awesome ships to fly all over this place.
You make some good points, but the issue wasn't about being a master mixer: it was about one person's claim that he could buy random flavors (from one supplier), just toss them together and everything will be great. The problem is that other people read these posts, rant that they feel that they've been ripped off by the vaping industry "if it's that easy to make juice, why didn't someone tell me", followed by "I read it on Reddit; I tried it and I puked. What did I do wrong?"
For some it is intuitive. For others it is a process. For some, it's a hassle and they're happy to buy commercial juice. The best we can do (IMHO) is to make the information available and offer the same assistance we have all along.
Trial and error is the only way to learn. Maybe we need to put a link somewhere on the side bar that explains the Dunning-Kruger effect and what a learning curve is. So I say to the amateur: If you ever learned how to ride a bike. You should expect and accept failure as part of the process. If you didn’t listen to or read the instructions don’t complain that it’s broken. (These people are the worst!)
I did something similar and went through a LOT of bad tasting juice before I found some recipes i like.
I started with a "mixing kit" from a local UK site, doubled down on a berry menthol that sounded pretty good and a random juice I can't even remember (before I found out about the sub and actual recipes) ended up just using the berry menthol stuff as a additive it was that strong. Anyway moved to premix T-juice and then to actual recipes.
Ha, it was difficult to start at first for me too
I think it was for many (most?) of us. I just choke when I read these kinds of posts, because I know from experience that people find these posts and ask "is it really that easy to make juice?"
I don't think LB has 20 random flavors. They certainly don't have more than 6 usable ones.
I use their Cola Freeze alot. The melonhead from their taste maker's collection is pretty good too. I also like the pina colada as a one shot. Other than that most of their flavors need to be supplemented.
mind sharing what you do with their cola freeze? I bought 100ml's of the stuff (expired/near expiry) and can't vape the stuff alone or with dif combinations of inw/tpa/fa/cap cola's
I think the last thing I tried, before giving up, was 8% cola freeze (or 3, both numbers are coming to mind) with 4.5% FA cola, 0.5% FA caramel, 1% FA marzipan, 0.75% FA vanilla burb and umm I think there was an almond in there, maybe fw?. it wasn't awful, but very generic-tasting, boring and/or thin. I can't remember tbh
generally when chasing the cola dream (esp the cola+fruit) I've failed so gave up. only combo I enjoy is one with FA cola @ 4.5% and CAP cola @ 4%, but that got old quick.
It really is. Getting started and going is the hardest part. Learning what to mix with what. But eventually you'll be making your own recipes, and never look back, granted some of my recipes take 2-3 revisions to get them just right.. Also, liquid barn has decent flavorings. I wouldn't say they're the greatest out there. But they're certainly not terrible.