Menthol Flavors, The Good The Bad

Been thinking about picking up menthol mixes lately. Problem is I know practically nothing about which flavors to use in what profiles. The most exp I’ve had is working with TFA Menthol which I can’t seem to stand anymore. I was leaning towards using them in junction with fruits and mints like spearmint. So my main question is, what brand should I lean towards or pick up that could suit possibly both needs of fruits and mints?

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Im not into any mint type flaves but if FLV has one id imagine it would be a good one

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Consider the crystals and making your own? Paging @Mizzz_Z_Hobbit Gl to u!

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Flavorah has cool menthol and Ice…

I have a bunch of recipes with both… if you’d like to search thru.

You only need 1-3 bottle drops per 30 for Ice… think of it as like koolada or any of the ws’s…
I keep a big bottle at all times…

For cool menthol, you can use it from .12% up to .8% and its just what it says… a cool menthol…

here is a Candy cane recipe

Play around and find your spots! :slight_smile:

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I got menthol in my original 14 flavors that I ordered from liquid barn. I can’t speak for the quality of the LB menthol as compared to others, but when I got it I made a 100 ml bottle of it at 10%.
I’ve since been able to drop around 5 or six drops into a running tank and add menthol to a flavor that might benefit from it (like my black cherry pipe tobacco), and it doesn’t run me over with mint or eucalyptus, it adds a cooling effect, and I’m happy with this little trick. And I have enough menthol additive to last me till the zombie apocalypse.
Now, I’ve since ordered and received a bottle of ws-3 when I found it on sale. I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet, It happens to be purilum, but I half suspect since it is an R&D concept created by Wilkinson Sword back when men splashed after shave on their faces to cool them, I have a feeling I might get away with using what I consider an off brand for a desired effect.
I’ve heard ws-3 doesn’t really have a flavor, I think it just cools.
I am going to try and use it to cool recipes like milkshakes and sherbets and hope it will cool without making my milkshakes taste like a “camel crush” milkshake cigarette.
I looked for ws-23 but it seems to have some mysterious thing that is making it difficult to find.
I’m a newbie so take my advise with a grain of salt, but I thought I’d share my ten percent sft “mentholizer” truck with you.
Good luck!

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I would recommend Inawera overall in the mint department (Mix Mint to start though)

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You didn’t really specify what you need the menthol for. Is it a cooling effect? Is it a specific flavor you want (spearmint, peppermint, …)? What kind of strength are you looking for (polar blast, a little chill, somewhere in between)? There are a lot of big differences in all the menthol concentrates.

Just like with any flavor, you’ll get a dozen different answers from a dozen people who answer. Try to be as descriptive as possible when you ask such questions or do like most of us do, read flavor notes and buy the ones that match closest to what you’re looking for, then try and make up your mind or mix them together to make your own favorite.

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My problem is I have no idea what I really need for a mint flavor as compared to a fruity flavor to add not only the menthol finish but the cooling effect as well. I have WS-23 but that just doesn’t seem to cut it. I primarily want a menthol to cleanse my pallate when I get olfactory fatigued. But I certainly don’t want it to be completely painful to vape which I’m sure can be fixed by altering the percentages say if I used Polar Blast (FA). Right now I would say I am leaning on a mild to medium bodied menthol finish to add to mixes. Hope this helps with the clarity I forgot to add to the OP.

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TFA menthol from .4 to 1% should about cover all cases. It is just pretty much saturated menthol in PG. And is cheap. And menthol is menthol.
For an actual mint taste, peppermint fa is good, but do go low as it will take over pretty much anything actually vapeable. Start at .2% for a mix. Maybe .4 standalone.

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Most I am familiar with is tpa spearmint which is potent. But I’ve been eying companies like MB and their mint flavors. Can’t speak for them as my knowledge on them is 0. But a nice wintermint or spearmint/peppermint would work for me. I kinda want the mint you get from eating the leaves to the mint in say a cucumber mint drink or a mojito. If you got any suggestions to base off those two mint types I’d appreciate it. Thank you.

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I have not used it but I keep hearing good things about the inawera mints, including in this thread. I use peppermint fa because I already have it. I used to use extreme ice FW regularly when I first mixed, but it is fairly different profile from what you need, as it is wintergreen like.

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Oooh, you could try eucalyptus mint or black fruit mint, both from inawera.

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I can see using Eucalyptus mint and pairing that with a more earthy/floral fruit like bilberry or even strawberry. But that is one I will consider adding to my stash. I’m not so familiar with what Eucalyptus actually tastes like but I think it would give a musk flavor to it.

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if ya wanna just cleanse (wickedly) palate, i make fruity version of our man’s w/ whatever fruit i have that i dont use much of…sound like an arse but calc site slow @Ken_O_Where ice,ice baby basic and adjust to what u want

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There is a lot of mints out there, when pushed too far taste like mold, or a bad green menthol tobacco…

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TPA Menthol claims to be 66% menthol in 33% PG but the stuff I got hardly cooled at all so maybe I got a bad batch? In any case I mixed my own by volume of crushed menthol crystals in PG. This is listed in the flavor database as MI6. The directions for how I did it are in the notes.

About the mint flavors, Spearmint and Peppermint by Capella are very nice. Creme De Menthe by TPA is very smooth with a schnapps type bite, Wintergreen TPA is also very good in a recipe with other mints to boost the other flavors and add some sweetness. The nicest stand alone mints are both from Real Flavors, Mint and Spearmint taste directly like candy or gum. All of these will be helped with .5% saline. It brings out the flavors more and seems to enhance the cooling effect, at least to me it seems that way.

Koolada is okay with some things but many people, myself included, feel like it gets bitter and dry at higher %. I love WS-23 around .5% in ice cream flavors or higher in melons. A few drops/10ml where you already have menthol can give it a downright Arctic sensation. Do that in very small batches, a few drops at a time though because combining menthol and WS isn’t adding, it’s multiplying!

Best of luck! :grinning:

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Menthol isn’t really to be more of a cooling agent. It should be mentholly lol… but as to cool, it needs a cooling agent.

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Koolada is ws-3 they are similar but ws-3 has a taste where ws-23 doesnt. Koolada is also about 2x colder than ws-23 and about 1.5x colder than menthol. Ws-5 is the coldest and is about 4 x colder than menthol.

https://www.leffingwell.com/cooler_than_menthol.htm

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Ws-5 seems to have a bit of a backtaste to me. Maybe just my batch. Bit like soap.

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Blame it on 3am @woftam on the East Coast :wink:

still… coolants are perceived differently by everyone…
used too high, they all have a back taste… I dont care which number they are…
but one can not interchange them for a menthol type taste…

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