Hi everyone! I'm at my 3rd attempt to stop smoking in the last 2 years and by some kind of miracle, it seems to be working because I didn't smoke a single cigarette in almost a week. I used to smoke up to 25 cigarettes a day and I've been a heavy smoker for more than 15 years. A combination of a low wattage pod system + 1ohm coils + 50mg salt nicotine juice was the good combo to help me kick off cigarette. My plan is to gradually lower the nic amount, until I get to 0.
The problem is that I live in Quebec, Canada, and our government is about to pass a law very soon that will severely restrain the vape industry. Flavors will be completely forbidden, and a maximum of 20mg of nicotine will be allowed. I'm super scared that I'll be tempted to go back to traditional cigarette (I have severe asthma and bad lungs). Long story short, my only option is to switch to DIY.
I read and watch tutorials and I'm about to order everything to get started, but I get really confused when it comes to flavors because I have no experience. I find recipes and such, found a good calculator, but in the end I have no idea what they mean because I can't taste or smell them. The juice that I currently have is a mix of tobacco, rum, raisins and plum. I'd add that it might be just in my head, but I feel a very slight buttery taste as well. It tastes sort of like Colt cigars, if anyone ever smoked these. I really dig it as I dislike sweet, dessert flavors. It really does the trick. Do you guys have any great recommendations for similar recipes?
Also, I searched but I couldn't get an answer to my question; when it comes to salt nic VS freebase, are the amount for mixing/recipes the same? I didn't find any calculator that had an option to choose between salt and freebase, so I figured they must be "worth" the same and only the VG/PG amount of the nic base is important but I want to make sure.
Thank you so much :)
Hi. Don‘t worry about 20mg nicotine not being enough, it’s plenty. We Europeans have had that limit for years and vaping still works great as a substitute, even for heavy smokers. We never had the 50mg (59mg) Juul hype here. You‘ll be fine. Good luck this time around!
I tried 20mg for a week first, it didn't work. I had cravings all the time, I went back to smoking. :(
If 20mg isn't scratching the itch with a small pod system using a 1 ohm coil, try using a setup with a .8 or .6 ohm coil and more power. The extra vapor will deliver more nicotine faster. Plenty of people quit using 20mg all the way down to 3mg. It's all dependent on the device your using.
I ran out of 1ohm coils and tried the 0.4. I thought it would be too harsh for me, but it works wonderfully and the flavor is so much better. I had no idea it had an influence on the nicotine absorption, so this is what I'm gonna try from now on. Thank you so much for the info!
A part of why I want to start DIY is because I want to be able to gradually reduce from there tho :). It's also one of the reasons why I didn't buy a Juul. 2 people I know stopped smoking this year with them, but not being able to reduce the amount of nicotine easily was a major turn down for me. I also like taking 2-3 puffs per hour and be satisfied.
There are great recipes on ATF with flavors youd never expect to work and then there are recipes that use flavors which are highly regarded and also make for great recipes.
Knowing what flavors are held in a high regard take a good bit of research but it may also lead to your best bet at finding a recipe that works for you without too much trial and error.
Unfortunately not every good recipe on ATF has even a single review due to how the site works. You may want to initially look at recipes with good rating but I wouldnt dismiss a recipe that has no reviews until I look at the flavors used.
That's what I figured! Leaving reviews doesn't seem to be popular, which confused me even more. Thank you for the confirmation!
If you're looking for something with more of a burning tobacco flavor, I highly, highly recommend adding very small amounts of Flavour Art (FA) Flash and Black Fire as well as Inawera (INW) Dirty Neutral Base to any tobacco recipe. Don't go over about 0.7% on Black Fire or Dirty Neutral, and stick to 1% as your upper limit with Flash.
Here's a rum cigarillo mix I used to make when I first switched to vaping from Black n Milds:
| Flavor | Mfr | % | |-|:-:|-:| | Black Fire | FA | 0.70% | | Black Honey | TPA | 2.50% | | Cigarillo | TPA | 3.50% | | Cubano | TPA | 1.00% | | Flash | FA | 1.00% | | Jamaican Rum | FW | 2.00% | | Joy | FA | 0.70% | | Dirty Neutral Base | INW | 0.70% | | Vanilla Custard | CAP | 1.00% |
>Thank you so much! Tobacco flavors definitely seems to be the most complicated area where I'll have to do trial and error. I took a screenshot of your recommendations and saved it on my computer. And you're spot on, I'm looking for a burning tobacco flavor! Regular tobacco flavors have always tasted like sweet seasoning to me.
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>I also noticed that custard seems to be a very popular addition to most mixes. That totally might be the "buttery" undertone I was talking about.
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>Thank you so much!!
Nicotine is nicotine. They are mixed the same
Have you looked on ATF for recipes?
thank you so much!
What does ATF stands for? (sorry, english is my second language!)
I guess my concern concerning flavors is that I have no idea what flavors taste like due to inexperience. For example, 2 years ago I bought a raw tobacco flavor ejuice because I wanted to stop smoking. I didn't think it tasted like tobacco one bit and I was really confused.
I looked at tons of recipes but I always end up wondering if this is similar to what I am looking for because they have flavors that looks out of place, but then just like cooking im pretty sure it matches in the end. Due to covid + the upcoming law for my state/province, I can't even go to a vape store to smell and taste and find out :/ They're all closed, most of them permanently.
This hobby requires extensive research and trial + error. There's no way around that.
All The Flavors. If you read the FAQ page stickied in this sub, it would help you out.
> This hobby requires extensive research and trial + error. There's no way around that.
This, so much this.
I’m just over 2 years in, have bought over 100 different flavours, I’ve still never found a single mix I’d be happy being my sole vape.
Nothing gets around having to buy and test the flavours, everyone’s tastes are subjective and they can taste wildly different to different people. You will buy flavours you don’t like and on tasting them you won’t be able to imagine how anyone else thinks they are accurate.
However, it’s a lot more efficient testing the flavourings that every commercial juice is made from to find the right strawberry for your particular favourite strawberry and cream mix than it is testing commercial juices blind.
Also a 10ml tester of flavouring is usually significantly cheaper than a 60ml bottle of juice so you’ve wasted less money if you don’t like it too.
Oh! yes, I browsed through ATF for about an hour, trying different keywords and such. Still ends up to what I just explained, tho. I'm expecting to experiment around, of course, but since most ejuices requires a mix of 5+ flavors which all means pretty much nothing to me in the end, I'm looking for recommendations as to where I should start, at least.