Need emulsifier for essential oils

I use essential oils (staying away from lipids obviously) but i’m having trouble getting orange to mix with vg. anything natural i can use? alcohol helps, just not with the orange. effaces on the natural part.

thanks

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You really shouldn’t be doing that unless you really know what you are doing but if you are going to do it (you are an adult the risk is yours)

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Welcome to ELR @birddseedd.

There’s never been a lot of talk here about Essential Oils in vaping; if, indeed that is your goal. However, here is one thread which might lend some info.

Flavoring using Essential Oils for Vaping

My feeling is the reason there hasn’t been much talk is folks would rather purchase a concentrate that is specifically designed for vaping, rather than chancing what “might be” in any essential oil product.

Your discovery should give you pause to consider, should you vape something which is insoluble in VG. :thinking:

Again… this is IF you are intending to vape these “essential oil” type products.

Please don’t take this as badgering post… rather, one out of concern. :wink:

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@birddseedd we all have a bit of the Chemist in us here. The @Kinnikinnick above post is gently spot on. However many posts on ELR venture into various ideas regarding “extract” DIY. You can use the Search feature in the upper right, and with some clever word choices, find those. Example: just type in “extract” and you will get 10 million hits as we refer to flavorings as such. Instead think of how to search for info about extracts without using that shortened common term. Instead try searching for [extraction] (no brackets), or a phrase like [make my own extract] You will find plenty of discussion …I just did. Oh! and Welcome aboard~!

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Emulsifying chemically(for example soap, is made from any oil or fat, plus lye, the result is something that has a fat soluble head and a water soluble tail.
Sometimes emulsifying is not a chemical change, but a careful balance of a mixture, like using alcohol or PG. I’ve heard in the culinary industry the expression “Uh, the emulsion broke on me”, i suppose the oil and the water components separated out. I believe there’s tons of super high tech emulsifiers(or similar) these days that require like 1/1000 concentration. But indeed they have to be matched to the oils, etc.

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Oh thought of a good example. If I wanted the flavor of cinnamon, really that comes from cinnamaldehyde, which does not mix with water. But it gladly converts to one of it’s sister molecules, like cinnamic acid, which does.

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The focus on avoiding vaping oil-anything is all about finding that water-based alternative. Orange is a notoriusly difficult e-juice to create from what is available from vape-centric suppliers (water-soluable), as many of the “real” flavors of an orange are oil-based. It’s easy to understand the notion of making your own “true” extraction. You’re not alone.

Creating those vapable flavorings is a huge industry because they also have equally (likely more!) important food applications. Any solution usually involves some expertise with those water-based alternatives …those accepted as approved-to-vape. That being said you definately are not alone is your Orange Quest~!

Use the Search Tool in the upper right and imagine how someone else’s Orange Quest might appear as a thread or how any queries/solutions might be written (therefore searchable). A suggestion might be “my favorite orange” or “make orange juice” or “tastes like a real orange” or “dreamsicle”. There’s a wealth of discussions and advice on what pre-made flavorings (vape-centric) can deliver (safer?) Orangey-ness.

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I have a question: of vaping oils is bad, why did the FDA and my state finally lift the ban on THC cartridges, of course requiring lab analysis with every product, but the THC oil is undiluted. This is pretty much as heavy as it gets for oils
Theoretical boiling point Is in the thousands of degrees. Sincerely curious

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Is thc oil Water Soluble ?

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less so than almost any oil you would encounter in these and similar arts. It’s a heavy oil like olive oil. Complete opposite end of the spectrum from essential oils.

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I think I have a theory to reconcile the -apparent- discrepancy. Will post shortly

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Making oil for a vape cartridge is a lot different than making e-liquid for a vaporizer. And although they are threaded the same, the cartridge’s need a special vaporizer like a CCell pen:

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Well I think you’re partially correct, as in: A wide variety of devices exist intended to inhale cannabis and cannabis derived substances, some of which manifest as ‘resins’ and ‘waxes’. “Shatter” was the first popular form, being a crude extract of the plant matter, yes it requires a crucible like device made from ceramic of quartz, etc. However completing the full process to achieve “THC distillate”, which requires a proper distillation of a heavy oil, yields THC/CBD oil and nothing else. A device that works with glycerin/PG will also work with THC distillate. A more flawless analogy would be comparing Nicotine Benzoate juice and its associated devices(they are actually the very same devices) to the ones used for vaping(aerosol, not vaporization in both cases). Anyway I think the issue is with Essential Oils, however NOT because they are oils(which they generally technically are not), but because they happen to be quite toxic by design(plant’s defense system). Only trace amounts of a true essence are needed to bring over its powerful taste and aroma. If you have ever made an essence from scratch, like via steam distillation, you would know the shear scale of potency of a pure essence. As well as the profoundly tedious and laborious efforts require to isolate even a few ml’s of an essence. Anyway, this still doesn’t explain everything, so I’ll be researching further

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I’ve played about with vaping THC and it’s extracts a lot, and there are a couple of things you can do to make cannaoils vapable, one is to simply mix it with some 200% (or as close as you can get to) ethanol and then mix the concentrate with VG/PG/Whatever and let the alcohol partially evaporate. This is how they add “flavour”. You will notice even the THC carts they sell in Cali are not 100% THC oil and are usually mixed with some kind of flavouring, this is how they do it. The resulting liquid is still not vapable in a common ecig though (will gum up even the best wick before it hits the coil), you need a ceramic chamber and the “THC carts” you buy are in fact small versions of this -> https://www.blacknote.com/ceramic-coils-for-vaping-pros-and-cons/#:~:text=Ceramic%20coils%20are%20coils%20that,styles%20for%20a%20ceramic%20coil.&text=This%20design%20uses%20a%20cotton,using%20this%20type%20of%20design. These “ceramic coils” (for lack of a better term) have proved time and time again to be unsafe when vaping VG/PG based mixes but do actually work quite well for THC/CBD/Extracts, heck, I’ve even packed a “bowl” with dry herb and “vaped” it with these - but it is a different technology and is not the same as an ecig coil (even though it can be used like one).

How do these things get classed as “safe” is another topic though, and has very little to do with the dangers of vaping essential oils and more to do with the current political climate.

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here look

and don’t forget the terps
https://riversupplyco.com/collections/strain-specific-terpenes

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Yeh, I’m aware of this too, and many many other methods to make THC vapable (hint, the terpenes route works, but it sucks compared to others; the high is there, but only to a point). I guess my point was not about making THC vapable, but about the carts being “safe” or “legal”. The “oils” used in these are not oil at all, and have been emulsified with alcohol and some kind of flavour at the very least, and the carts are ceramic coils. The legality and saftey aspect of these devices is for another topic though, and really cannot be compared to the OP’s question of using essential oils.

Cannaoils are not essential oils and are readily dissolved into many other liquids when heat, or ethanol, or even straight up PG is applied. Most of the extracts used in THC carts are not oil at all, and are simply concentrates mixed with alcohol to make them soluble, so the whole subject is for another thread I think :wink: Vaping THC?

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Thanks for your contribution.

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