For me it was being 100% unimpressed by online juice. I would order something and pay more than I wanted, to wait over a week to get it and I didn't like it. After a month or so of this I wanted to know how THEY made it, and taught myself DIY. This was 2012, and the rest of the story is history.

I had some retail juices that were decent enough in rotation, then found a local B&M that had house juice I absolutely loved. Which of course meant they went out of business soon after and I was stuck with mediocre juice again. So I figured to hell with it, I can just make my own instead. Even if it still ends up mediocre, at least I'm saving money.

To this day, I still haven't cracked the recipe on that house juice I loved. But I've developed some other favorites along the way.

The PACT act garbage going on, Will be starting to mix my own nic salts next month, or whenever my current stash runs out. Already ordered the base and will get the rest of the supplies and flavors next month.

Not an entry! I just want to say thank you again to you, Rich, for your generous support to our community.

I get to answer my question 😉
Where I’m from you can’t get juice with nic. I was getting juice with nic illegally from underground scene Yakuza family but B&M is arrested now eating fish heads and rice. Plus I was paying 9$ for 15ml bottles. I found mixing guys on reddit three years ago now I have 100 years of nic in my freezer

Well after 40+ years of smoking I finally got a wake up call when my grandson started asking some questions about cigarettes. The worry of him someday starting did it for me and I switched to vaping. This of course was just in time for Ontario to stick its head up it's arse and choose to ignore the health benefits of vaping and all the scientific reports and put a cap on nicotine and flavours. I figure it's time for a new hobby and it honestly looks like fun.

I finally did it when the prospect of not being about to buy juice online became more and more likely. A combination of that and just being tired of buying 60ml of a juice I ended up hating consistently was what pushed me over.

I started about 8 months ago, and the reason is because I wanted (1) to make sure I would have something to vape I enjoy, in case of a ban (2) learn something new (3) attempt to save some money (4) make a vape juice that is not produced anymore. Over time I know I'll save money, but it was kind of pricey to start. It is fun learning this new (hobby?) and I continue to learn each time I mix something up. Unfortunately I have not been able to clone the vape juice I wanted to make, but I have found around a dozen or so flavors that are actually better than what I wanted to clone.
Btw, I'm looking forward to some new gremlin flavors (orange starburst possibly?) *Also this is not an entry to the contest since I have already won. Thanks for doing this, and good luck to everyone!

For me it was honestly about cost. Once I realized that I was paying essentially a 500+% markup on juice, it was a no brainer for me to get a scale, some bottles, and some flavors. It’s just a shame that the government put so many of these companies out of business with their asinine shipping restrictions.

October 2019, after spending way too much on store bought!

I started DIY mainly as a progression of my passion for the hobby. I've always enjoyed tinkering when it comes to vaping and DIY was just the next step after rebuildables. The PACT act scare really lit the fire under my ass to get going with it, and I'm very happy it did. I'm still somewhat new to the DIY scene but I've copied a few recipes that have turned out great and have also mixed a few of my own recipes that have been very good, although they're still a work in progress. Thank you very much for the opportunity to expand my DIY arsenal...

August will be a year I’ve been vaping. I made the progression from pod mods to sub ohm tanks and on to rebuildables shortly after and then the big scary PMTA was looming so I dove head first into making my own juice after I convinced my wife why it was so important for me to purchase 5 liters of nicotine and take up so much room in our deep freeze lol.

Duuuuude the price. Plus I really enjoyed salts, but sub ohm, so I needed to be able to mix low percentage salts.

In truth, I started DIY as a result of doing research on vaping 'disposables'-pros & cons of vaping in general. My ENTIRE family tree was/is dragging an oxygen tank around. I was putting away 2pks. of 'ports 100s daily; my health...something had to give(+ the prices🤯). At this stage it's an awesome conversation 'piece'...I enjoy correcting misunderstandings of ill-informed & right out ignorant ppl. I'm working on learning how to advocate. btw: congrats to this passed wks. winner

spent 3 years being disappointed in retail juice and despite having researched diy and even eventually having the resources to start, i put it off and put it off and... until i caught the fear bug bad in april and wanted to get ahead of incoming legislature. definitely feels good to finally be knee deep in my hobby now, thankfully i wasnt too late

Well I don’t mind commercial juice but the prices at B&m are rather high and most places no longer ship to my state I was kind of forced to look into diy. Fortunately I did it soon enough to actually get nic but still new at it only made a couple vape able juices so far.

Wasting $40aud all the time on overhyped juice that tasted like shit.

Commercial juice is just too sweet for my taste, so after my first 5 bottles of sweet soup I started to get into DIY and never looked back

New York made sure I either bought a pack of smokes or learn diy.... I chose life 👍. Diy it is 😉

DIY was originally a necessity for me. I started vaping in 2009 on a cigalike. There was no juice in the US back then, and bottles from China were very limited. I had to resort to Dekang and Hangsen flavors imported from China, and Lorann from my local arts and crafts store for mixing. Eventually juice started becoming more common in the US along with the advent of 18650 mods, so I decided to try what was out there. After a few years with commercial juice I decided to dip my toes back into DIY again. I'm pretty positive my first jump back into DIY was made possible with an order with Gremlin around Thanksgiving 2015. I have put down mixing and picked it up twice in that time, just from moving and losing ingredients, or working in a vape shop and getting free juice, but with everything going on in the vaping world I figured the safest bet for my future is to get back into DIY. Just made all my orders within the past two weeks. Super looking forward to trying to Gremlin Vanilla Overload and Vanilla Custard that I ordered! My aresenal is definitely a little lacking starting from the ground up again, so if I won it'd be put to great use! Thanks for the opportunity and serving us all these years to the team at Gremlin.

I prefer diy compared to commercial juice the moment I started to diy I never bought another bottle of commercial juice again.

To answer the question late....

Got into DIY back on September 2018. Was finding that the flavorings were too high (harsh) in commercial products. It was most notable in the lemon flavoring from one vendor and the cinnamon content from another. I actually diluted them down with VG to where they were only 60 to 75%. Once you get to where you have to dilute them, you are basically mixing. :)