Whether you’ve been a long-time vaper or a newcomer, there are times when you’ll find yourself wanting a flavor that’s just not on the market. Sometimes even if they are, it’s not what you hoped they would be, and they can do nothing to sate your cravings.

At times like that, you’d wish you can cook up your own vape liquid and make your personal recipe. But what if you can? Vaping has been around for too long. Plenty of people have had this thought before you. This is a prayer that's already been answered.

If you can’t find your flavor, then cook it up yourself. Yes, that’s possible and here in this article, you are going to learn how to make it happen.  

Make it simple. Think as if you’re preparing to bake a cake. Jot down your ingredients, prepare your recipe, and collect all the necessary equipment to make it happen.   

You’re never going to get it right the first time. It’s important to spread your wings and experiment until you find the taste that you want. Making your own vape can save you some money. It can also finally put your taste buds to ease when it gets a taste of the flavor that it’s been yearning for all this time.   

Prepare your ingredients:  

Diluted Nicotine 

This ingredient is very important to make your personal liquid. Of course, in making your own e-juice you’d want your flavor to be rich and strong. Unfortunately, this ingredient has its own flavor. Be careful with the amount of Nicotine that you add to your mixture.

If you can, find nicotine that has weak flavor and no color. That would be tricky to do but there have been some who claimed that their nicotine could do that. Try to research more about them and read reviews before putting your money down on anything.  

The regular nicotine that’s available in the market is usually diluted at 100mg/ml. That’s quite an amount, and it can already get you far in your experiments. Undiluted nicotine, on the other hand, are about 10 times more powerful than that. You can’t just touch it pure and expose yourself to it. You’d need to wear special equipment before handling a substance like that.   

If you’re confused and you’re not sure where to start, go for 25 mg/ml. It’s a safer amount. You can just add a little later if you think it’s not enough.   

Vegetable Glycerin or Propylene Glycol 

Vegetable Glycerin and Propylene Glycol are "diluents." Nicotine is way too strong for your body to handle and so these two ingredients are added to mellow its effects down. You only need to choose one of these ingredients and then add it into your bottle. It would make up the liquid flavoring. Don’t worry, it adds nothing to the taste, the smell, nor the color.  

Vegetable Glycerin and Propylene Glycol don’t have the same taste nor effects when vaped. Instead of just using one of them, some e-liquids add a good amount of both, which can actually improve its effects. In your own recipe, it’s better to try to use them both. Start out by using equal amounts and then adjust to your tastes.  

Propylene Glycol is a natural chemical that is used in many products on the market, not just liquid vape flavors. You can find it in cigarettes, hygiene products, and sometimes even food. It’s generally safe to use, although some people are allergic to it.

This diluent gives stronger hits than Vegetable Glycerin, which can often cause a sore throat if you use it a lot. It barely tastes anything and won’t do much to change whatever flavor you’ll choose to mix with it.   

Vegetable Glycerin is different. It does have its own flavor, which can change the taste of the flavor you’ll mix with it. Although it’s not bad tasting, it's, in fact, very sweet and depending on the flavor. It could actually enhance it.

Unlike the Propylene Glycol, this diluent is comfortable on the throat. If you’re one of those vapers that like doing vape tricks, you’d want to add more of this diluent on your liquid because it makes the vapor more visible and a bit thicker.   

Flavors   

Here’s your favorite part, flavoring. Get wild and go all out. If you want to mix two different flavors, go do it. You can repeat this process all over again, in case it doesn’t work out so don’t be afraid to make mistakes. 

There are plenty of places to get flavorings on the market. Although, not all of them have quality flavors, so you have to be careful when buying some. You must be certain that they're safe, and that they’ve undergone all the right testing before they’re sold to the market.

Best choose a flavor with low dilution. 5-10% are still considered low, but if it reaches around 20%, then that’s just too much. You don’t want your flavors to be over diluted. It would barely taste and feel anything on your throat. Plus, lower dilution would mean that you don’t have to add so much to achieve your desired taste. A single bottle could last you a while.   

Equipment: 

Bottles 

This is the first thing you need to acquire when mixing liquid vapes. You’d want a clear bottle that you can wash and reuse after you’re done the experimenting. You don’t want to go out and buy a bottle every single time you’re experimenting. One bottle is fine. If you have no idea what kind of bottle to use, try to find drip tips. Those are made of plastic and are very cheap.  

Don’t go for the small bottle. Always pick up either large or medium. Smaller bottles would mean that you’ll need more efficiency with how you put your ingredients in.

Since you’re experimenting, you can’t really guarantee that you’ll get everything right the first try. A larger bottle with more space is much more appropriate, especially for beginners. Once you get the hang of doing this, and you have the formula stamped to your head, then you can go for the smaller bottles.   

Containers 

Not exactly that necessary. Containers are handy, especially if you’re already making huge volumes of your recipe, but if you’re still trying it out, then syringes would do for now. However, as time pass by, you’d want to invest in containers and beakers. They’ll make your entire life much easier and your workflow faster. Plus, it will lessen that chance of cross-contamination, which is the last thing you want to happen in experiments like these.   

Syringes 

This material is very important to making liquid flavors. It won’t just help you transfer substances from one place to the other. It would also make sure that you have the exact amount. In making liquid vape flavors, it is important to mix just the exact amount that you need. Spoons and droppers aren't much help. They’re too loose, and they depend a lot on estimation. Syringes are better and much more precise. Plus, it’ll be easier to duplicate your work when you know precisely how much substances you add into it. 

Gloves 

Gloves are very important. You should never handle nicotine on your own. Accidents happen all the time. It’s better to arm yourself with every protection that you can get. If you can, find specialized gloves, which are chemical resistant and powder free. Many drugstores should have them available.  

Instructions: 

You’re ready. Now that you have everything you need, you can get started. In this part of the article, you’ll learn how to make your own vape liquid flavor. If you find your flavor in the market, and you think it lacks a little more taste to it, you can always just modify it by adding more liquid flavors to it.  

Whenever you’re doing an experiment like this, make sure to get everything on paper. Whatever you do, whatever you add, write it down. If you can, take a video of yourself while you’re working, that way you’ll never have to worry about missing any detail.

The point is that, if you find your dream flavor, you’d want to redo it again. Having a clear list of ingredients and steps that produced that result will make things easier for you.  

A complete record of everything you’ve done can help you retrace your steps back. In an experiment like this, where even the slightest change in volume can change the final results; teaspoons and droppers wouldn’t do.

You need a really precise and clear way to take your measurements. Use syringes and other surefire measuring devices. The last thing you need is to get lost just when you found what you’re looking for. Take no chances and make sure.   

Here’s how to start making your new liquid flavor:  

1. First, you need to determine how much nicotine you want in your e-liquid. Don’t worry there’s a formula for but getting it right it all up to you. Be careful when doing this step, it will greatly affect the taste and the effects of the end product.   

• Here’s how to compute for the nicotine: 

2. Now that you have your diluted nicotine, you need to transfer it into your bottle. Don’t forget to wear gloves when you do it and never let your hand come into any contact with the nicotine, even if it's diluted. Take the syringe and take exactly 16ml of it, no more, no less.   

• Be careful when measuring. The slightest change can make all the difference. To ensure you’re getting the exact amount, draw up more than what you need and then slowly push out the excess until you reach the 16ml line. Keep the syringe down and pointed at the nicotine container while you’re doing this to avoid wasting any drop of the substance.  

•  Be careful of air bubbles, they can ruin everything. When you see even the slightest air inside the syringe, turn it over and give it a little tap. That will make the air rise up. Then slowly push the plunger to force the air out. Once you see that all the air is gone, go back to fill the syringe to the measurement that you need.   

3. Inject the nicotine from the syringe into a 50 ml bottle. 

4. Choose your flavor. Use your imagination. Don’t worry about getting it wrong the first time. You’ll have plenty of nicotine left in case it didn’t work out for you. Just go for it.  

5. In mixing flavors, the standard rule is that it would make up 10% of the entire mixture. If you’re doing a 100ml, you’ll need 10 ml of flavoring. Use a syringe to do the transfer and make sure you get the measurements right.  

• Be careful when mixing your flavor into the bottle. Don’t think that putting some more flavoring would improve the taste. Too much flavoring can make the end product taste like chemicals, which is not what you’d want to happen.

• There are many people on the Internet who can describe to you in detail what will happen when you over flavor your liquid. There’s no need to try it out yourself. Stick to the recommended 10% to ensure the end product tastes good. 

• Sometimes flavor manufacturers have their own recommendations. Some recommend putting as much as 20-30% in the mixture to make it taste good. Follow them, they know their product more than anyone else. They probably tested that out before recommending it.

• However, if your manufacturer didn’t specify how much you need to put, stick to the 10-15% we discussed above. That’s tried and tested. You can’t get a terrible outcome with that number.  

• When mixing and experiment with flavors, try to hold back on the amount you mix in. You’d be surprised how much a drop can change the mixture’s entire flavor. Try to mess around and experiment but start small. Just start adding up from there until you get what you want.

• You can make more than one flavor. It won’t always turn out the way you want it to but the more you do it, the better your grasp will be on how it’s done and what you should do to get it right.  

• You can test it out by diluting it with Vegetable Glycerin or Propylene Glycol, then vaping it before adding it to your bottle.   

6. The next step is to add more Vegetable Glycerin. Your mixture should have enough Propylene Glycol by now from the diluted nicotine and the flavoring.  

• Remember that diluents make up the majority of the bottle. If flavoring is 10% and diluted nicotine isn’t far from that, the rest would just have to be diluents, specifically Vegetable Glycerin. 

• Never depend on your bottle alone for measurements and don't estimate how much substance you need. Bottles don’t really hold as much liquid as they’re advertised to be. It’s best to use a real measurer and test it out before starting the entire process. Mark your bottle as to how much water would be needed to fill it up. 

• If you can, try to measure the precise amount of diluents that you add to the mixture instead of estimating it. That way, you can be sure that the resulting liquid will taste great. Additionally, remember not to fill your bottle all the way up. You need a small allowance the liquid can move better inside then you mix it later.  

• If you want you can buy pre-diluted nicotine to save you all the trouble of mixing it yourself. However, if you want more control over your processes, you can mix it yourself. VG or Vegetable Glycerin is dependent on the nicotine in the mixture.

• The more diluted nicotine, the more VG there is. To get a half-and-half balance in PG/VG, you need a ratio of 4 is to 25. Which means for every 4 mL of PG, you need 24 mL of VG. Always use this ratio when calculating how much substances to add to the mixture to make it better.   

7. You’re done with your mixture. Now cover it up and make sure it’s tight.  

8. Now shake it. Shake it really hard so that the substances inside the bottle mix well. Do it for a good 3-5 minutes before putting it down.

• If you don’t want to shake the liquid like this, you can always just use a mixer. It’s not necessary, but it can give you a much more efficient mix.

• However, handshaking works just fine too. It’s been tried and tested by many, many vapers. Additionally, remember to shake your bottle every time you’re going to use your liquid flavor.  

9. Steeping. Your masterpiece is almost ready to go. You can actually already vape it at this point, but the resulting taste might not be what you want it to be yet. If you vape it now, you might be disappointed with the result.  

•  You need to leave it alone for a while. It’s like wine. You need to wait a bit more before the flavor really sets in and forms its own identity. The longer you wait, the better the outcome would be.  

• This process is called steeping. It’s when different chemical reactions occur over a long period of time if you leave your product alone. It might seem irritating that you have to wait all this time for it but it will make all the difference, especially on the taste. If you let it steep for weeks, you can expect a richer, fuller and much better flavor when you finally start using it. 

•  When you open your bottle after the long steeping time, don’t immediately use its contents. Leave it on the air for a while and let it breath. Doing that for a couple of hours is fine, but a couple of days is better. If you can wait a couple of weeks of steeping, you can wait for a couple more days before using it. This process can make the flavor pop some more.   

Of course, these are just basic training wheels. You’ll make your own rules and alter the ones above based on your experiences. Don’t be limited by what other people already did. Charge to experience, always. 

Once you have created your own vape liquid, you might want to check out these Hippie Vaporizers for liquid.