I’m creating this thread because I’m curious about people’s average shelf life, as well as their oldest, if possible. I have seen mixed reviews online ranging from 5 weeks to over a year!
I just experienced my first “turned” juice and it kinda of freaked me out because it was barely 2 months old and granted it was a vender juice but it started to worry me because I have dozens of juices now that I have since starting DIY and some are up there well past the 2 month mark on this vender juice.
I realize there is alot of factors involved like storage, nicotine quality and frequent of use but on an average what has been your past experiences? Do you only keep X amount on hand to avoid death of your creations? Tips? Tricks?
Currently my oldest juice is 6 months and even though it has mellowed out significantly there is no sign of degradation or oxidation
I have many vendor e-juices, from 2 years ago when I started the vape trip.
After 8 months of vaping, I went back to analogs.
I have kept all the e-liquids in a cool dark location.
As of 4 months ago I’m back to ( sub-ohm vaping ). I pulled out all the e-juices and found that10% had gone bad. When I say gone bad, I mean they smelt like crap and were dark in color. Some of the flavors ( 25% ) were spot on.
I gather from this that it’s important to keep your e-juice in a dark / cold place.
Nothing I make usually lasts very long, especially since I’ve yet to make more than 30ml of a flavor. That being said, if I made a big bottle of something and wasn’t going to use it in a few months, I’d store it in the fridge or freezer. It’s said that stops the oxidation process and keeps it fresh. On some of the vendor juice I’ve gotten in the past, I’m pretty sure the expiry date was a year. I doubt vaping an ‘expired’ juice is going to kill you any faster than vaping a regular juice (kidding…don’t stone me!) but when in doubt, toss it out.
Yeah I have been the same way as far as making smaller bottles. I’m constantly making 10 ml testers while experimenting and they don’t last that long before they are gone. I just went ape shit recently though and made somewhere around 60 bottles not to mention the 50 or so I made the week before hahaha.
I just didn’t know if I should slow down or not and above all else just curious;-)
I didn’t know you could freeze the actual juice? Well not “freeze” but store in freezer. I do that when I have alot of nicotine OH but I never got a definite answer on juices. I have read mixed reviews about it…some I have seen saying that it’s not good for the flavorings and others only nicotine. Guess there’s one way to figure it out!
It might have been on their shelf for 3 years before they sold it to you. I started DIY only about 4 months ago so I have no experience with juices gone bad (yet)
Yeah I agree with you that they definitely had some age on it to begin with. This particular company say they “reduce” their juices to enhance their flavors for which I chuckled cause being a chef its not like they are making a red wine sauce and simmering their juices down into a syrup lol
But still 2 months for a pricey vendor juice is pretty shitty if you ask me! Not that it matters anymore since I make my own but we all know how much it costs to make an ejuice and its pennies on the dollar! A 2 month shelf life is just obsured for a $25 juice imo
Long live DIY! What also ticks me of with some of the vendors is that they charge the same price for liquids containing nicotine and liquids without. We all know the most expensive ingredient in the juice is the nicotine. Basically charging a shit load of money for some PG/VG and some flavour.
I have DIY juices I made over a year ago that are still good. I suppose the answer to shelf life is “it depends”. I keep all my juices in sealed Amber bottles but everything will go stale eventually. I usually only make 30ml of any flavor at a time but have about 75 different flavors. It’s natural for ejuice to darken in color over time, depending on the flavor concentrate.
Ok… Now I’m going to look to find the prettiest little glass-front refrigerator I can find. I dream of one with rotating shelves the width of ejuice bottles that I can keep on my coffee table. Perhaps something that stores medications? I’ve seen something once for rich ladies bathrooms to store makeup. I’ll let you know what I find. I have some square 15ml bottles coming from China. I haven’t decided yet, but eventually everything will be in the same bottle type. Juices I’m testing in plastic and juices I re-make regularly in the Glass Boston Round Bottles with glass droppers. I’d love to have a particular color for “Baked” “Dairy” “Flavors” “Tobacco” and “Mixes” and “Additives”. Those are the categories I have in my cupboard on my coffee table right now. I keep flavors mixed by themselves so I can put them together and shake and vape. How about you all??? Do you only keep mixes mixed? I’m thinking square bottles will be lovely. I’ll be able to fit more in each little drawer I have. I need to take a photo for you guys. It’s a wooden cupboard with little plastic drawers in it I stole out of a nut & bolt organizer. It’s nice cause I can pull the drawer out and get whatever flavor I want.
Oh, and I wanted to mention… It seems kinda difficult to tell when juices have gone bad. What I did was made a list of which juices are medium amber or dark amber in color. So if any change and get darker I will know it and taste them to figure out if they are rancid or not. This is all too risky for me. I’m going to have to start refrigerating them. And if I do, I want them to still be easily accessible to me ON THE COUCH where I sit with my more than 8 herniated disks in my back and neck. Again… Thank goodness for my delicious ejuice Lord.
One thing I do know is that the more nicotine in a juice the darker it gets. This is especially true of Vanilla and Nicotine Combinations. Vanilla with 18mg nic can turn a dark chocolate brown in only one months time. I sure would not throw out a juice that is only one month old. Guess what I’m saying is not to judge whether it is good or bad by looking at the color…Unless of course it glows in the dark, then there could be a good chance it is bad…lol