I’m new to DIY. I’ve purchased so many concentrates from different companies and ALL my Vapes are harsh. So more than others. I’ve also tried different base liquids as well as nicotine. The brands ive purchased from are liquid Barn, flavor art, and capella. I would list the flavors but it’s literally like 30+ flavors. The base liquids are from nicotine River and liquid barn. All my mixes are 90vg 10pg with about 10% flavorings. I’ve also tried to lose the PG and use distilled water and still too harsh to vape. I’ve tried a 70v 30p and still harsh. What am I doing wrong? I’m following recipes to the T! Any help would be MUCH appreciated
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Welcome @Froggy661 ! Are you letting them steep? Is it the same if you open up your airflow some more? What is your hardware setup and how long have you been vaping for? Some people find it takes a little while to get rid of the harsh throught tickle when first starting.
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I’ve been vaping for 2 years. I have mutliple attomizers. Rta, rda, tanks. Multiple different coils. I do let them steep about a week but I can’t tell a different from a week to the first day I vape. It’s not just a little tickle either it’s like choking harsh. Idk what else to do but buy vape juice again and I don’t want to do that. Are there any additions I need to do to make them less harsh? Any tips would be much appreciated thank you
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IDK, have you tried eliminating flavor all together? See if the harsh goes away? Maybe you got ahold of some bad nic. Try the process of elimination, start without flavor first. Then try getting rid if the nic and the flavor. Go from there.
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When faced with a complex problem, break it down to understandable parts.
Separate your bases, flavors and test them separately. Nicotine can get harsh. There are flavors that cause a harsh vape and seems to vary from person to person sometimes. If it’s all mixed up in an e-liquid, you can only guess what the problem could be and never be sure.
Do single flavor tests to get to know your flavors and vape your unflavored base liquids to see if there’s any harshness there. If they’re harsh as a SF, they’re gonna be harsh in a recipe. For a SFT, you usually test the strength, build up from minimum to maximum and take notes of the differences (taste, smell, after-taste, throat hit, etc) and see how they evolve over a steep (at least a period of 2 weeks, some may require more).
Some people have allergies and can’t vape whole lines of flavors, so trying different brands may bring you new hope too. Not all flavor concentrates are made the same.
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Need more information. Type in a pile of your recpies. Etc…
1% strawberry fa
2.5% ripe strawberry tpa
3% vanilla ice cream lb
0.5% raspberry fa
0.75% graham cracker flv
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Welcome to ELR @Froggy661
Sounds like you haven’t yet entered them into your flavour stash ? (otherwise , you could simply link us to the stash)
You might find the following thread really helpful:
EDIT: oh! and also this one:
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What nic brand are you using and how are you storing it?
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I vaped my VG on its own and it was a little harsh by it’s self. From what I’ve read this is not normal. But when I buy premium juice it’s not harsh at all. What brand do of VG do u recommend? I know the flavoring have something to do with it also. I don’t really have a recipe. I just been using single flavouring till I get a bunch that aren’t harsh together. But the VG for some reason is harsh. Thanks again for your help
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Some vapers actually built up a kind of allergy towards pg after vaping a while.
To test, you could try vaping just the vg without any pg and flavors.
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Welcome and glad you joined.
If you have vaped pure VG w/o nic or flavors on a RDA at standard ohms (1 ohm or higher ) and still detect harshness, you might want to try to limit your vaping time and give your body some time to recover. Please let us know if anything helps.
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I would but I’m afraid I’ll return to smoking.
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Welcome to the forum @Froggy661 .
I see that your VG is harsh, but have a mind on the % of the flavours. 10% sound to much for most of them.
Find the flavour on the database and try to mix with the given single flavour average quantity.
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I often drip pure VG to clear out old flavor from an RDA, and it’s never harsh. On the contrary, it’s super smooth.
Can’t help you with brands though since i’m probably a few continents away from you and I get the only local VG brand we have here, but VG should be as smooth as they go.
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Welcome aboard @Froggy661! Everybody has given the best advice already. Pure VG alone should not be harsh. I also got some bad products when I first started and it also almost ended my DIY plans.
So let’s just start with your VG. Is it clear? It can break down with age and especially heat …same is true for nic and flavs. It’s meaningful that you can vape commercial juice no problem …clue # 1. It wouldn’t hurt to just buy some more VG from say Nic River and see if there’s a difference.
My mistake in the beginning was buying small amounts at the cheapest price. Always focus on quality, it’s everything in Vape DIY …you’re automatically gonna save $$ over buying cigs or even commercial juice. To get you “over” you can buy 120ml Commercial juices at super low prices these days online, but we all agree you can make better juices DIY for even less …but as you discovered things can go wrong.
Some of the best recipes taste very harsh for more than a couple weeks steep and need at least 4 weeks+ …but pure PG or VG should have very little flavor alone without any steep time. There are folks who even just vape VG and Nic which could keep you away from the stinkies until you figure this out. You may also look at some Nic Salts (Nicotine River) which has the main benefit of way less harshness.
My guess? Bad VG …best solution buy some more …best of luck
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As others have said, VG should be totally smooth, like a baby’s behind. Of course none of us can tell how you vaped it… if there was remaining liquid in your coil/wick, it might just be that, but it could be that your VG isn’t pure (always get pharma grade VG and PG, 99.99% pure). A used coil can be gunked up and spit some of that gunk to the back of your throat…
If you’re out of ideas, it’s always good to have a 2nd pair of eyes or taste buds available.
PG on the other hand has a bit of a throat hit, but still smooth. To me, there’s a difference between a throat hit and being harsh. Harsh is an unpleasant, irritating feeling while throat hit can just be the feeling something’s passing through your throat.
Both PG and VG can be tasted, they’re not 100% flavorless, but they shouldn’t have a strong taste. The slightest bit of flavoring should overpower it.
Nicotine can get harsh and peppery when it’s deteriorating due to exposure to heat, sun light, air or any mixture of those. It’ll start oxidising and turn a yellowish to brown hue (but that’s no guarantee that your nic will be bad, some good nicotine solutions do have a bit of a hue). Usually you can smell if your nic has gone bad but vaping it with a little unflavored VG/PG mixture will tell you for sure.
VG and PG are pretty standard liquids, like water. There can be slight noticeable differences depending on the brand or location where you buy your ingredients, but it shouldn’t be much more different from buying different brands of water. All water has similar properties and it doesn’t matter much which one you use to make your coffee, tea or lemonade. I’ve bought VG in different continents and it’s all “the same” to me. I couldn’t detect much of a difference in the end result.
One thing that I cannot forget to mention, is that if you vape, you should increase your fluid intake. For most people that comes naturally, but some people really have to be reminded. The PG in your juice has a dehydrating effect. If your throat gets dry, anything going through it may become harsh.
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Welcome aboard we are glad you’re here and have come to a great place to figure out your harshness issue. You have been given such good advice already there is not much I can add but i have not seen anyone mention your devices. When your testing and trying to determine what is causing your issues make sure you are using good clean wicks and coils! Either of which will cause harshness and unpleasant vaping!
Yah I know it sounds dumb but just trying to cover all the bases!!!
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