The Beginner's Guide to DIY E-Liquid Mixing

Welcome, fellow vapers, to this DarkStar masterclass. You may have been vaping for a long time yet never picked up a syringe and concentrate bottle, but all that's about to change.

It may seem a little daunting, but don't worry, we're here to talk you through mixing your very own flavours.

What You Will Need 

E-liquid is made up of 4 main ingredients: a base of PG and VG (which will make up around 70% of your e-liquid), flavour concentrates and nicotine.

However, you'll find it's worth having a few other tools on hand while you're mixing.  

• Propylene Glycol
• Vegetable Glycerine
• Flavour Concentrates
• Nicotine
• Syringes
• Bottles
• Kitchen Roll
• Protective equipment eg. chemical resistant gloves

Check out our full range of mixing accessories here. 

Choose Your Recipe

If you're just starting out, we'd recommend trying out pre-made recipes before you create your own - and there's thousands of them out there to choose from. 

We have a couple of open DarkStar recipes here if you want to start there - Twister Lolly, Kanzi and Birthday Cake Ice Cream!

Another great tool for the beginner mixologist is an online e-liquid mixing calculator (easily found with a quick Google search). It will help you figure out the ratios and exact amounts of everything when you are creating a recipe yourself.

Flavour Concentrates

Now for the fun part!

Once you have all of your equipment ready, and a recipe to follow, it's time to start mixing. 

Here at DarkStar, we have hundreds of flavour concentrates to choose from - to help you create practically any flavour you can think of.
Concentrates usually make up 10-20% of a final mix, but it can vary depending on the flavours you're using. This stage can often be a bit of trial and error if you're unfamiliar with the concentrates you're using.

VG/PG 

This is when you can customise the VG/PG ratio of your liquid - we recommend using a syringe to add the base. 

To find out more about the difference between PG and VG, click here.

Remember that flavour concentrates are typically PG based (all of our DarkStar One Shots are) and nic shots also have a VG/PG ratio that can affect your final mix. 
Use a calculator to make sure you've taken all of that into account.

Nicotine Strength

Now you'll need to decide on the nicotine strength you want your final e-liquid to be. The best way to do this is with 10ml nic shots.

 For example, if you are creating 60ml of final e-liquid and you would like your nicotine strength to be 3mg, then 10ml of the final recipe should be made up of one of these 18mg nicotine shots (similar to how Short Fills work).
 

Steeping 

Once you have a complete mix, it can be tempting to crack it open to taste your creation, but flavour concentrates, VG and PG have to steep before they are ready to vape.

These products have different densities and they need time to mix at a molecular level. Steeping is the process used in e-liquid production of aging your juice so that all the individual flavours come out and it ultimately tastes better.

E-liquid recipes, especially those of a complex nature, will continue to steep over time. Some people, for example, like to steep their custard recipes for up to 6 months! As a guideline the recommended steep times are as follows:

• Simple Fruit Flavours: 1-3 days
• Tobacco Flavours: 2-4 weeks
• Custard/Cream Flavours: 3-6 weeks
• Bakery Flavours: 2-4 weeks

We hope this short blog helps shed some light on the DIY e-liquid mixing process.

To learn more about some of the steps mentioned, check out the rest of our blog or join our online community. Don't forget that our expert team is available via live chat or email to answer any and all of your mixing questions.