Reswitched to vaping - but hating erstwhile favorite flavors

E-liquids General
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Pack a day smoker for the last 20 years.
Was in good health otherwise but knew that my smoking habit won’t let that be for long.

Picked up vaping on a UK trip in June '17 and started hating the smell of stinkies within a week

Loved the experience so much that I almost became a vaping evangelist annoying the c*** out of other smoker buddies to convince them to switch. Spent over $1000 equivalent in INR (India) buying gear and liquids in my new found joy!
Tried a lot of flavors till I finally settled on Strawberry cheesecake variants and vaped 6mg of said flavours for 2.5 months.

Come August, I came down with a really nasty bout of flu and fever that lasted a week … Whatever it was, it was probably a bit more serious infection than a regular viral as I have decent immunity and seasonal flu either passes me by or lasts a day or two at most.
During the course , I developed a mild dislike for vapes so slowly flipped back to stinkies as what I felt was a stop gap measure.

Unfortunately, post recovery, when trying to switch back to vaping, I realized I cannot stand the smell/feel/taste of my erstwhile favorite liquids at all! Every single liquid I tried tasted awful and chemical-ish.
I also unfortunately lost one of my (much loved) two dogs to a sudden onset carcinoma in November so that did not help my cause either.

Starting Jan '18, I intermittently tried all sorts of bakery/dessert flavours but they all kept tasting absolutely awful so I continued to smoke .

Last week, I ordered some nicotine salt based base and a bunch of TFA/FA/INW flavours to try see if DIY and the new salt bases work for me and I seem to be getting somewhere (was on regular 6 mg earlier)

I tried some mint/menthol mixes with 24mg/ml Nic salts on 2 ohm coil RDAs and realized that the combo seems to work ( at last partially in that it enabled me cut down my cig cravings to 3-4 a day vs a pack)
Over the last two days, I have been experimenting with rotating flavours including some simple pineapple+dash of cigar / Mango mint etc.
I still cannot seem to stand anything with cheesecake/graham crust/cookie (actually detesting them) or creams (mild dislike)
I have also ordered a suorin drop and air as I have heard they work better for salt based liquids and don’t mind ordering more gear if that works.
My intent is to cut down on the stinkies progressively to 0 over the next week or two and would love to go back to the point I used to actively dislike even the slightest hint of cigarette smoke.

Any thoughts/suggestions on what I can/should do next to avoid my erstwhile flavour fatigue (?) would be welcome. I cannot emphasize how important it is for me to quit cigarettes!

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Seem like you are well on your way. To avoid flavor fatigued is simple. Mix different flavor profiles and rotate between flavors. Maybe vape a strawberry mix at the beginning of the day and blueberry later…the the next day a lemon.

Beyond that start with small mixes (15ml/30ml) bottles and research your flavors and recipies. Take your time and at least read up on your flavors. Try established recipies but understand that you are you and the owner of the recpie may not have the same taste…so adjustments are Needed.

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I’m similar in the way that vanillas and creams were what made me quit smoking (from day 1) and now I can’t stand any custards or bavarian creams because I’m getting seriously chemical egg mess from it and just doesn’t taste authentic or even nice. Also most ice creams give me a lot of chemical and unrealistic notes. The same goes for cheesecakes but that’s something I never really appreciated (tastes like sweaty socks to me). It’s really annoying because so many recipes call for these flavors :frowning:
So I started to expand my flavor stash and found that nice fruit combinations are really my thing. I can still enjoy fresh cream, sweet cream, vanilla swirl, whipped cream and some other lighter non-eggy creams. Even though I hate the smell of burning tobacco now, I can still enjoy lighter tobacco flavors, plain or in combination with fruits, creams, caramels, …

So try a couple new flavors or flavor profiles to find out what you do like. There are so many flavors it’s nearly impossible that you wouldn’t be able to find something you can actually enjoy. Try not only different flavors but also different flavor brands.

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Excellent! Congrats on starting the path!
(At this point everything seems fine.)

So, things still appear ok at this point…

Skipping the obvious for a moment, did any of your chemicals get subject to a change in temperatures (especially the nicotine or flavors)?

Also, did you run out of VG or PG during (or just before) your sickness?

An extreme (even if temporary) change in temperatures could have affected things (primarily nic and flavors) negatively. As could a change in your choice of PG or VG. It’s occasionally reported that folks experience an off taste with certain sources of PG/VG.

Reinforces the idea of a common source (to your problem). Either the bug you got ahold of has seriously affected aspects of your sense of taste and/or smell (far from uncommon), or one of the scenarios above has occurred (Temps affecting nic/flavors, or bad source when it came time to replenish a core ingredient to ALL of your mixes [vg/pg]).

This seems to say one of two things.
Either your body is finally starting to recover. OR you might have had a temperature issue “kill” your previous nic and flavors (since things seem to be ok with the replacements).

You’ve got far too much going on to say anything definitively, but, this is what makes sense to me, of what you’ve described (especially when you additionally confused your mind, mouth, and sense of smell with the reintroduction of the chemical cocktail present in cigarettes).

Regardless, glad to hear you’re on the mend, and that things are starting to sort themselves out!

Keep at it! You can beat it!

PS: Rotating flavor types is practically a must. Otherwise you will experience flavor fatigue (desensitization) to the ones you repeatedly subject your senses to. (Just like after time, you failed to notice how bad your clothes, etc stunk from cigarette smoke)

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In the same exact boat - It’s as if some switch flipped
When I used to like those flavors, I actually did like them a lot and now I just can’t stand them

Not the case as I mixed up fresh batches with zero nic just to try again…
But like Suomynona, anything with bakery flavors (in particular) and creams (less so but still) tastes awful and like a chem lab
i even tried all kinds of variants and makes - even bakery flavors i had not tried before (e.g cap cookie/ cinnamon danish/ INW Biscuit ) had the same effect

To eliminate any possibility of bad PG/VG, I ordered pre-made strawberry cheesecake and was hit by the same awful taste

As of now, I have been experimenting with FA Mango/Pineapple and other fruity flavors combined with mint and its working so far
One more thing I noticed is that my high flavor tanks (doggystyle/kayfun v3/v5) are not exactly pleasant with even the new flavors but acceptably good on the newer mini devices (icare2/suorin drop)

I just hope my brain doesn’t do a flip on this too :frowning:

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As I started I got sold everyone favorite… Naked 100 unicorn milk, which apparently is a strawberry cupcake with whipped cream. Omg I hated it and still do. Went to our local vape store and they let me test their house brand.

I started testing all the bakeries, creams, tobacco and even coffee’s. Couldn’t stand one of them, either extremely artificial, chemically or burnt. The dude suggested fruits and drinks, I turned it down because that’s not what I would think will be very pleasant. He was very persistent and since I was already 3 hours in that store I gave it a try. Who would have known, that a flavor I could absolutely not imaging of vaping were the golden key and apparently the answer, I was desperately looking for.

After 5 hours of testing, I walked out that store with 200 ml of mtn. Dew, 100ml of Dr pepper and 60ml of a just simple strawberry kiwi. It worked for me, and I still like it, however after my taste buds returned I felt it was a tad harsh and all that money I spend I can do it myself.

While nowadays I do enjoy creams and light bakeries as well as fruit combos, I’m only using a bit of a cream or a yoghurt etc. Mostly around 0.15-0.5% and while most people probably won’t even notice, for me that’s creamy enough and mostly needed to balance.

However I mostly did adventure and bought at the beginning flavors people didn’t have a testing note on, or not much experience with, purilum for example. Now its quite popular because every time I try buying sweet strawberry to restock, its out of stock lol.

I am now at the point were I have a lot of “common” manufacturer flavors that are widely popular (cap/tpa/inw/ooo/fw/hs/flv, fa etc) but I find myself mostly grabbing the less popular because they work mostly better for me.

What I’m trying to say after typing half an essay, grab some flavors you would have not thought you might like, do some research about the manufacturer you plan on buying it from. Just because FA does have let’s say a unicorn dust means that this is the one to buy, maybe cap has a better one etc. Reading and creating flavor notes do help a lot. Patience is the key in most every situation.

If your mix currently satisfies you then congratulations, but don’t stop there, now that you have something you like go and experiment with not so much in love flavors, trying to find your happy balance. Maybe you will never like creams or bakeries at the end, but at least you get plenty of insight and experiment of flavors that you can find your absolute favorites. Just don’t give up :slight_smile:

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Interesting - considering the first flavor I ended up liking at my first foray (in a B&M store) was pineapple - a fruit I don’t even normally like.
As suggested by most of you, I will keep alternating flavors …
For now I have whipped up two bottles of a simple mango mint (Cap Sweet Mango + a bunch of mints) and strawberry mint (Cap+FA+INW strawberry + bunch of mints) and they seem to be doing the trick.

One thing worth sharing in my experience so far is that the new refillable pod type devices with their subtle flavor hints are probably better at helping you avoid flavor fatigue compared to the bigger tanks I used to use earlier

I tried a couple of my older Kayfun tanks+mods with the same liquids I am using now and felt that they were way too flavorful on it

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