DIY vape vs original brands

General Feedback
41

And that’s the whole kit and kaboodle in a nutshell right there folks!

Not many do. Understandably so in fact.

But, by the same token, it’s the reason some folks walk in to DIY blind, with grandiose expectations (if a 100 people attempt to recreate a commercial liquid, one should be successful… Right? :roll_eyes: lol) and then are utterly disappointed with the fact that they can’t achieve instant gratification (read as: success in a perfect clone).
It’s simply not a realistic expectation.

If the OP took a look at the brand abbreviation list, counted up the number of brands there alone (which is roughly half of what exists worldwide; I’m guessing), and then factor in that almost every single one of them has their own variation (often two or more) of strawberry ALONE, and you can begin to see that the possibilities outweigh the chance of getting it EXACT.
With that said (and out of the way) though…

The ‘truth’ of the situation has finally come to light.

The OP doesn’t want to DIY as a serious hobby. Nothing wrong with that.
That’s why they still sell retail liquid.
There’s a market (and a reason) for everything though!

The reason many of us are here (to DIY) is because we enjoy it. Some do it to save money. Some do it because they saw the writing on the walls years ago (about them wanting to either shut vaping down, or put it back into the hands of the tobacco overlords and government channels who have controlled the channels where the money is channeled) and wanted to be able to become self sufficient in an area where we knew what was in the liquid going into our bodies. (Lord knows the government and big tobacco and pharma are NOT going to put our interests first. And the government in their hip pocket isn’t going to present them with any obstacles or enforcement of any MEANINGFUL standards.)

At any rate, it’s nice to see a bit more useful dialog opening up.

For what it’s worth OP, it took me a year and a half to dial in a single recipe to having the exact flavor that I wanted it to have. I went through more than 25 flavors, and countless iterations of varying percentages (for each flavor), and all the while, I was NOT even trying to clone anything.

Not many will (or need to) go that far.
But, at the same time, you’ll only get out of it what you’re willing to put into it.

If you want something fast and easy, you can do it. Whether that means you buy it off the shelf, or you simply adjust your expectations.
If you want more out of it, you have to be prepared to put the work into it.

Best of luck to everyone who reads this.
It’s all about meeting your goals and staying off combustible (and in some cases, snuff, chewing, etc) tobacco.

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42

Just remember that chemistry is a college degree, and food chemistry a specialization. The products we use interact with each other … and possibly there are unknown products for us …
The rest I think has already been said.
The important thing is to stay out of the stinkers.

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43

I wasn’t going to add to this as everyone else has explained my opinions much better than I ever could but fwiw I longed for a bottle of Jam Monster Strawberry Jam on Toast and eventually managed to grab a bottle whilst visiting Melbourne…

I brought it home and took a vape with great anticipation but was let down big time. To my tastes it was a weak strawberry with an overpowering sweetness. I really expected a deep satisfying jam taste but certainly didn’t get it. It wasn’t foul but I was definitely disappointed.
I haven’t yet but on my to try list is to attempt and make my own version as I anticipated it to taste, which undoubtedly will not be on the first attempt.

And I’d be lying if I didn’t think that $35 Australian was way too much to be paying for what I thought was a mediocre tasting flavour. But what I did take from it was that I will no longer buy into the hype surrounding any ‘premier juice’. I have certainly stolen ideas from manufacturers juices and many from here too. But as I believe is true of all juice is that you don’t truly know how it tastes until you try it for yourself.

I honestly believe that I have created juices that I enjoy but I’ve also created more that I haven’t but that’s the learning curve. I actually enjoy the process so I rarely think I’ve wasted my time or money.

The important thing that I always remind myself of is that I’m not smoking thanks to vaping and nothing else.

Ultimately if anybody is happy with paying for premixed off a shelf then good luck to them and long may they remain happy but I personally sit well and truly in the DIY corner.

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I haven’t done SB mixes in quite awhile but I wouldn’t mind trying this minus the super sweet. Are there subs for the SBs? I have the OG SB (SC)(RF) (Raw Extract) and Shisha but It seems that SB Jam (Flavor Labs) is the main point of this.

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45

I have had quite a different experience switching over to DIY e-juice. I did search ELR and ATF for recipes for my favorite retail juice. I only had hints on the retail bottle to tell me what was in the juice I liked and luckily discovered by a WAG at some online retail store (peanut butter custard). That lead me to the peanut butter and the custard recipes on the forums. From there I focused on the custards I liked from my sample mixes. From there I was able to learn more about custards and flavorings and how I could customize what I liked to make it just what I like the most. My e-juices these days are customized to what I really like and not what was just vapable from retail guess work while rolling the dice on so many choices, endless choices that I always wished I could tweak to make better suited to me. Most all were over sweetened, and I found out after DIY that that’s what I really liked was just the sweetness of the retail’s. Now I enjoy real flavors without all the sugar. Much, much better for me. I do also vape on the latest mods and RDTA’s using high end dual coils. These too have changed my vaping experience to the good. I have five mods and tanks with customized settings for each favorite DIY mix. Having the mods and atomizer assemblies setup for one particular juice works very well, too. I typically put the custards on temp control and crank up the tobaccos in wattage mode. Whatever fits the e-juice for best flavor output is how I setup each mod and its e-juice. No vapers tongue for me.

I will add that I learned to ignore the rating systems on the forums. I did start with the highest ratings, but quickly learned to ignore those ratings when looking for the flavor profile I wanted. Many unrated mixes are very good, but they have to resemble what I set out to mix. I only use them as guides for percentages and ingredients that work well together for my own concoctions I’m trying to mix up. They are great tools is the way I view the forums.

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46

WRONG i can make a liquid and I’ll bet any amount of money that it wont get cloned 1 to 1 …

This is true because most people start with Commercial liquid but like me they are rarely satisfied so DIY it is

The pcts and different liquids the additives these thinngs change a recipe by the smallest pct …But yes some companies use proprietary flavors but not many every commercial liquid that has been released to the public has used the same stuff we do.

It is most likely rebottled from one of the major manufacturers

Yes Yes Yes …Make something that has a simialr profile and most likely eventually you will enjoy it more than the Commercial liquid

DIY os probably the smallest sub group of Vaping …It will grow and we will continue these debates

Not the majority…Even most the new mixers are coming to DIY to learn so Govts can’t stop them from Vaping …

That is a great comparison…Its how I feel about Mixing…

Well that depends on weather or not its your hobby , I can get lost in my mixing room and work in a recipe for weeks…When I finally get it how I like it the feeling is exhilarating…

Sounds like your mind is made up …Do you think these companies just whip together a recipe real quick and it good ??? Dude they spend months even up to a year making their crap and ita still meh…

Your losing me the more i read and frustarating me …

I dont know that there is hype about DIY mixing there is a small group of all the Vapors who like to mix and enjoy and also these same people have developed a lot of the Commercial Liquids

Did you ever really start DIY ?? I think the answer is No …You went to a site and tried the top rated recipes from years ago…Your not a Mixer you mixed other people’s liquids , you used sub par ingredients that over time have been reformulated so who knows if your mixing the actual recipes …Take Care be careful because I heard Commercial liqyid is loaded with Sucralose and at those pcta can be harmful bwhahahaha…Im just messing with ya good luck in your journey …When you want to learn we will be around

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47

For DIY yes but my understanding and from the Commercial mixers i know and from personal experiance its not out of line for Commercial …Crazy Right but 1 to 2 pct is the norm and that is what people who enjoy commercial mixes are getting , the over whelming sweetness that sits on their tounge Yuck …Lmao I do enjoy seeing commercial liquid recipes I have even had the pleasure in helping develope a local line and the owners kept pumping up the sweetener . I personally liked the recipes at .25 to. 5 pct SS …

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I’ve never once mixed anyone else’s recipe and I’ve got two ADVs, plus a cupboard fulla shit I’ve forgotten about as I mentioned in the other thread - granted, but it didn’t take long to find a few mixes I liked when I just mixed shit, tested, added, tasted, until I got something potent enough to be tasty as any commercial juice.

Also granted, I haven’t spat-out anything Vapetasia would be begging to buy off me :smirk: but I’m not trying to create ‘the one juice’ - it’s really not hard to mix good juice.

No more difficult than it is to cook an excellent roast dinner or bolognese: you just keep cooking the meal until it’s right: it just depends how much you want that awesome roast dinner, and I spose if you’re ordering a roast dinner someone else’s made for you every night you’re never gunna learn how .

You’ll never learn to cook while you’re too busy stuffing someone else’s food in you.

I actually think too, if I’d have continued buying commercial liquids and had a couple bottles of Killer Custard or Boss Reserve to vape, I’d probably not have created anything I liked yet either: where’s the motivation to create juice that tastes good when you’re always vaping your favourite commercial liquid?

Think that’s a major factor in how quickly a lot of people find success mixing: when you’ve got no commercial juice because you’ve switched to buying DIY ingredients, you’ve only got what you can mix yourself - you come up with tasty juice real quick when you’ve got no commercial liquids to run back and suckle on.

Like a piglet on it’s mother’s teet.

Everyone here is well past the point of needing to suckle.

As for most people switching to DIY because it’s cheaper than commercials :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: - if I’d bought commercial juices with the thousand+ dollars I’ve already spent on DIY flavours, freebase, salt nic and the endless bottles of glycerine, I’d have a fukin’ decade of commercial liquid in the cupboard.

And I haven’t even started buying the really expensive flavours yet!

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49

:sunglasses: For one thousand $ you could buy
100$ - 1L of 100mg nic that could last you for years (or forever)
100$ - 20L of VG/PG that would last you for years
600$ - for 300 best-in-class flavors in 10ml bottles
200$ - for big bottle rebuys of those flavors you like/mix the most
(shipping included in these prices)

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Out of all the commercial liquids I tried in the past I found only two that I repurchased. IMO, DIY is the way to go for multiple reasons, especially in our current times with these new restrictions. The more recipes I mix (mine or others) the more I realize my tastes are my own and only I can refine a mix to suit my needs.

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+1 @fidalgo_vapes.

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Agreed. I mean, it’s ALL good @fidalgo_vapes, whatever gets people off cigs right ? It may not be for you and me, but, whatever keeps you vaping.

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I totally lack this kind of patience. That’s probably why the recipes I created from scratch have not made it into my rotation.

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I hear you @Bad_Influence. I lack all kinds of things, mostly time LOL. The rabbit hole can be as deep as you let it.

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Absolutely …Ill be honest after Losing my taste and smell from Covid when I got it back i had to use sweetner for awhile and at .5 or less its not the devil lol

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Actually, for my husband and I, we save $200 a MONTH DIYing compared to smoking cigarettes.

Switching from commercial juices to DIY, we’re still saving $100 a month.

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if i bought juice, i would spend about $100 a month, maybe a little less.
DIY i spend about $3-5 a month.

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I vape about 40 - 50 mls per day at about $1.25. That’s gotta be about 1/10th of the cost of commercial juice. And I know exactly what’s in it.

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Exactly! For two of us it was about $150 a month for HOUSE blends. Not even name brand juices. Now we spend less than $50 a month on flavors (my fault…I’m the mixer) and AIO coil cartridges. For cigarettes we were spending $250 a month!

So DIY is saving US an average of $1,200 a year. Not just a few $100.

THIS!! Also, this is a huge factor for why I its my own.

@MTL_sLOVEnia, EVERY commercial juice I’ve purchased has been a let down for me. Either too sweet or lacking in flavor.

I can’t say every one of my mixes have been successful. Of the ones I’m happy with, they are rich in flavor and just sweet enough to enhance the taste not overpower it.

Those that have tried them have said themselves that they’re better than similar profiles of commercial juices they’ve had.

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I agree with you about having trouble mixing anything that can compete with commercial juices you like. But I disagree with 2 other things, one being that buying commercial juice is just as expensive as smoking, that’s definitely not true, at least not in my case. A 100ml bottle of juice costs $10-15 and lasts me about 2wks if it’s the only thing I’m vaping. Even if I buy 3x100mls in a month it’s still only $50 at most. If you smoked a pack a day at $4 each that’s $120, more than 2x as expensive. Cigarettes here are $10/pack so it’s about $300/month, significantly more than vaping, even if you went thru 100ml every 4-5 days. The second thing is that you think most commercial juices are good. I have been vaping for 5yrs now and I can count on 2 hands the number of juices that I would purchase again, 1 hand for the number that could be ADVs for me. I have legit 100+ bottles of commercial juice that I will never vape because most commercial juices are garbage, at least imo. But I agree that nothing I’ve mixed myself can compete with my favorite “brand name” ejuice. My personal favorites, the stuff I can vape everyday, are very few & far between. In fact, the only commercial juices that I have genuinely loved, of the 200+ that I’ve tried, are Twist Pink Punch Lemonade, The One Strawberry, Pachamama Fuji Apple Strawberry Nectarine and maybe No 32 by Beard. Out of at least 200 juices, those are the only ones that I liked enough to use everyday. I would kill for an accurate clone of The One or Pink Punch, alas the few recipes I’ve tried did not come close enough. I hope to 1 day create a recipe that I love as much as those juices, but I’m not holding my breath. And unfortunately, thanks to the mail ban, I cannot even buy those juices anymore at all because my state has a flavor ban, so I could only order online, and now that’s gone too. Shit infuriates me…as if banning online sales is to protect kids. Last I checked, kids don’t have credit cards, so they coulda just passed a bill requiring an adult signature instead of banning shit. Sorry for the rant. I’m still pretty pissed about it and your post reminded me that I can’t get my fav juices ever again :frowning:

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