Mixology: how to make your own juice
Complete and super simple instruction to make e-liquid:
Welcome to Mixology: how to make your recipe/vape e-juice.
Attention: Please make sure you are complying with the legal requirements of your country or your state before mixing any e-juice or using any nicotine. This site and especially this page is not intended for individuals under the age of 18.
Please also note, in the instructions below we tried to simplify everything as much as it was possible, so if you are an advanced vaper or a professional mixer, it might not apply to you. This is just a super simple instruction (step-by-step guide ) to make e-juice for beginners.
Vape juice contains PG, VG, flavour concentrates, and nicotine (optional), so simply , if you mix these three ingredients together, you will have your own vape juice.
What do you need to make your e-juice?
1.Base:
The main part of your e-juice is a mix of PG and VG. The common percentage is 50–50% or 70–30%.
What percentage should you use for PG and VG? Or which one is better?
Propylene Glycol (PG) is odourless and without taste. It will carry the taste of your flavour concentrate and also create a throat hit. Increase the PG to get a stronger throat hit.
Vegetable glycerine (VG) tastes sweet and creates a cloud. It is also thicker than PG. Add more VG to create more clouds.
So simply, if you are a cloud chaser, go for more VG. The ratio of 70%–30% would suit people who prefer clouds, but remember that as VG is thicker than PG, diluting your flavours in it will need a bit more shaking or even another day of steeping.
If you are new to vaping and would prefer a throat hit similar to smoking cigarettes, ratios with more PG would be a better option for you, but as PG is not as thick as VG, sometimes it will make leaking problems worse.
The final solution would be 50-50 or VG 60% and PG 40%.
Flavours are the main taste of your e-juice, if you do not add any flavours or add too much(e.g. 20%), then your vape juice will just taste like sweet VG. This is the place where the fun and exciting part will start. Mixology will give you the opportunity to not just control your e-liquid but also use your creativity to make new juices. It is a quiet art for itself, but if you are a beginner, we strongly advise you to start with simple recipes or just try some standalone flavours. You can find some good flavours to start DIY from our website. It is another post that should be read before starting DIY.
3. Nicotine:
Nicotine is optional. You can add nicotine to your juice or just skip it. The most common percentage is 2-10%, but please remember, more nicotine might affect the taste of your juice and some high levels of nicotine might cause some health issues. Make sure you are aware of those and use a proper glove before touching any nicotine. Please make sure you are complying with the legal requirements of your country or your state before mixing or using any nicotine.
Please note that in Australia, from 1 October 2021, you will not be able to access nicotine without a valid medical prescription, regardless of the purpose for which you use it.
Finally, to mix your own juice, all you would need to do is combine the above ingredients, much like mixing a fruit cordial with water. For example, for mixing a simple strawberry jam in 10 ml (we use Strawberry Jam OOO, which tastes amazing, even on its own with the recommended solo percentage of 4%):
1.10 ml *4% = 0.4 ml, so we need to add 0.4 ml of Strawberry Jam OOO.
2. Add a bit of sweetener. We use one of the most popular sweeteners: Super Sweet Cap at 0.5%, so 10*0.5%=0.05 ml.
3. For 3% nicotine strength: if your nicotine is 100 mg strength, 10 ml*3%=0.3ml; if it is 200 mg strength, 10 ml*1.5%=0.15ml.
4.The remaining will be your mix of PG and VG: Simply add 9.25 ml of your pre-mixed PG/VG (e.g., 70-30 VG/PG), shake for 2 minutes, and you're done! You did it!
So, to make a 10 mL Strawberry Jam e-liquid (not the best, but adequate for a start-up):
10 ml*4%(recommended mixing percentage for Strawberry Jam, as solo) = 0.4 ml of flavour concentrate.
10 ml*3%=0.3 ml of Nic.
10ml*0.5%=0.05 Super sweet Cap.
10 ml*92.5%= 9.25 ml of VG and PG.
This is the easiest way to make your e-juice. Your PG/VG ratio will not be 100% accurate as70/30 because the base of your flavour concentrate (most of the flavour concentrates are PG based) and the base of your nicotine (it is advised to buy PG based nicotine) will change your PG/VG ratio. There will be a few percent variance in your PG/VG ratio, but for a new mixer it will not make a huge difference. If you would prefer to take a few steps further and make it in the correct way, just open an e-juice calculator and adjust all of your ratios (please find below sample pictures). Also, watching some videos from famous YouTubers will make the job much easier. Simply go to the DIY or Die channel on YouTube and you will see tonnes of amazing videos. (Read the end of this page for some simple recipes).
After mixing:
1. labelling:
Of course, labelling your e-juice is very important. If you make more than one e-juice at a time, you can find their ingredients and track your progress. At the beginning, you can use just masking tape. Just write down their names and stick them on it. Then you will not lose anything.
2. Steeping:
Steeping will flourish your e-juice. We strongly advise you, even if you are making a shake and vape juice, to steep it for a few hours or over the night. Then you will see the difference. Normally, fruits need less steeping time, between 2-3 days, but bakeries need more time, and especially some vanilla flavours, require at least two weeks of steeping. Please note: if your flavours contain alcohol, it is recommended to steep them for a few hours with the cap off.
2. Test.
Never make a big batch, just go for 5–10 ml and see how it goes. Even if you are making one of the best recipes, it does not mean you will like it 100%. Each person has different tastes and preferences. Also, we need to mention that after a few days, if you taste your juice and you do not like the taste, steeping will not make magic, so just leave it behind. After you make sure you like that recipe, then you can go for 50 or 100ml. Also, if you are planning to become an advanced mixologist, testing and noting would be essential. Buying a cheap RDA tank just for testing would be a good idea too.
3.Storage and enjoyment
If you are happy with your e-juice, just close the cap and leave it out of the sun or direct light. You do not need to store your e-juice in the fridge (storing pure nicotine in the fridge would be a good idea but not for your e-juice, for e-juice it is not necessary). Heat, direct sun, and air will damage your juice. Leave the cap tightly on and store it in your cupboard. Then you will be fine. For storing and organising your flavours, you can buy some nail polish organisers or displays. You can find very cheap ones from Daiso at 2-3$ or better ones on eBay for 8–30 $. For start-up, Diaso ones are good. Most of them can have around 20 bottles.
Tips and tricks for DIY vape juice
We strongly advise you to start your journey with some straight-forward flavour concentrates. If you purchase your flavours just by their name or their picture, you will have a long way to go and, in some cases, you might hate them, so here are our best recommendations for those who are new to DIY e-Juice:
1.Start with well-known brands, e.g. Flavour Art (FA), Flavorah (FLV) or Inawera (INW). Their flavours are pretty strong and decent, taste and smell great, and are amazing for starting DIY. Watch this short video about why Flavour Art is the best for new mixers by Wayne (famous Youtuber, creator of some decent e-juice e.g. Bronuts, also the owner of DIY or die).
If you do not have enough confidence to start DIY from scratch, or if you already tried once and were unsuccessful, you can start mixing flavours with one-shot concentrates too. One shots are already developed recipes; you just need to add PG and VG and it's done. Read more about flavour one shots and how to use them under one shots flavours section of our website..
2.Let your mix steep at least for a day. I know some of the e-juices are shake and vape, but steeping over time will enhance your e-liquid.
3. If your flavour contains alcohol, it is better to leave the cap off for a few hours.
4. Do not start by mixing a big batch of liquid. It is advised to make a 10 ml or 5 ml bottle, taste your e-juice, then go for a 30 ml or 100 ml bottle.
5. Avoid using too much flavour concentrate! If you are using FA, FLV, or INW, start with 1-2% and increase it to 5-6% (for standalone, most probably 4-5%). If you add 20% of a flavour, your flavours will most likely be muted and your e-juice will taste like sweet VG. If you are mixing two flavours, then start with 3%-4% as your main profile and add another one at 1-2%. Do not let this myth derail your journey; adding more flavours will not result in more tastes! When I first started mixing, , I was adding too much flavours, for example 15-20% of each flavour, and all of my juices tasted just sweet! So I went to a juice shop one day and asked the guy if he could sell me a non-sweet juice, and he looked at me shocked! and offered me a sour e-juice. It was not bad, but I missed yummy sweet flavours for a few months! Nowadays, I love the sweet taste but not the sweet taste of VG. I adore the sweet taste of cheesecake. If you mix your flavours correctly, you will not vape orange or cheesecake. You will taste them in your mouth exactly as you are eating them! You can eat strawberry cheesecake by vaping it. Believe me, DIY is easy if you follow just these three simple rules:
A. Do not add too many or too much of the flavour concentrates.
Too much does not lead to more flavour, it will just mute your juice! Be around 1-5% with flavour art, Flavorah, or Inawera, but you can go a bit higher with TFA/TPA and Capella, 5–10%.
B. At first, just buy the best flavours. For example, if you like raspberry, buy the well-known raspberry. Each brand has its hit and miss. If we say FA is good, it does not mean all of their flavours are amazing. Some are, but some may not be good for standalone or for beginners. You can use our best flavours to start DIY juice, which we picked some decent flavours that are easy to work with and are wonderful for starting DIY, and then if you enjoy DIY, you can gradually add more flavours to your flavours, such as cream, bakery, or deserts.
Also, be careful about the flavours on sale! Do not buy a concentrate just because it is on sale and it is half price. Most of the time, if just a particular flavour is on sale but nothing else is on sale, definitely do not buy that particular flavour or at least think about it before buying it. Why is that brand on sale? Does the seller want to get rid of it?
C. At the beginning do not use your creativity and mix 5 different flavours; simply stick to the best e-juice recipes and you'll be fine; eventually, you'll be able to create your own line of juice, but for now, it's best to follow in the footsteps of others and learn from their mistakes.
Why does my strawberry taste nothing? Or why can I not taste strawberries?
If you're looking for a strawberry taste cure, this post is for you!
For some reasons, some people are not able to taste strawberries in their e-juice (including me). That is normal. Also, if you cannot taste strawberries (TFA), the chances of being unable to distinguish Dragon fruit will be increased too. So if you cannot taste strawberries, it is safer to not buy Dragon fruit from TFA too. Unfortunately for me, I cannot taste watermelon either! Besides the reason, there are a few remedies which might help you. Some work for some, some may not, but as you know, strawberry is one of the best and most popular vape juices, so try one of these remedies. It may work for you.
Remedies for non-strawberry tasters:
1.Try new strawberry flavours of Jungle flavours, Jungle flavours Ultimate strawberry and sweet strawberry at 3-4%. Most of strawberry blind people can recognise these strawberries, also OOO strawberry Jam is noticeable for most of non-strawberry tasters too.
2. Try to add a bit of Lemon Sicily (FA )0.5% and Swedish fish 0.5-1% to boost the flavour of strawberries. These two mixes are great strawberry enhancers.
3. Add a bit of Sucralose. Sucralose will carry some of the flavours to your tongue and increase your reception. I prefer Super Sweet (CAP) at 0.5-1% , but you can increase it to 1.5% as well. Sucralose will also assist in tasting sour, so if you added sour to your recipe and you could not recognise it, just add more sweetener.
4. Eventually, if none of them worked for you, just switch strawberries with other berries. Blueberries are yummy too. Hopefully, someone in the future will help us and find the proper cure.
Watch this short video of Wayne for more information regarding it, or just look at his video at the bottom of the page.
Is DIY hard?
Not at all. If you follow the instructions, it is super easy. You just need to read the instructions, take care of percentages and done. You can imagine that instead of water, you have your premixed VG/PG and your cordial is your flavour concentrates. That is it. Mix your concentrates (use the recommended percentages) with your base and it is done.
DIY versus buying ready-made juice?
1.Costs and significant savings: if you DIY your own juice, you will save a lot of money, as you can make your own 50 ml juice for under $4, yes, just a couple of dollars, so instead of paying $30, you can save an extra $26!!This is an example. For making an e-juice, you would mostly need under 10% flavour concentrates and approximately 90% PG/VG:
50 ml e juice * 90% PG VG = 45 ml PG VG for $1.50 (500 ml pre-mixed PG VG for $15).
And it needs 10% flavour: 50*10%=5 ml of flavour, which costs $2.50 (10 ml of flavour is $5), so it means you will use $1.50 for your base and $ 2.50 for concentrates, and boom, you paid just $4! Alternatively, if you buy a 500 ml PG/VG for $15 or even much less directly from wholesalers or even on eBay (just make sure you buy it from a reputable provider as the quality of your base is very important) and a few flavours, e.g., 3 or 4 flavours each $5, then you spent 15+15=$30 and you can make 10* 50 ml juice, only $30 for 10 bottles, not just one! You can also mix and match your flavours by purchasing Strawberry, Kiwi, cream, and cookie (or choosing some of our best flavours to start DIY juice, which are super easy to work with) and then making Kiwi strawberry, Strawberry cookie, strawberry cream, or Kiwi strawberry, or even trying them as a solo!
2. Super easy. As we mentioned above, mixology is as simple as mixing a fruit cordial. You do not need to be a scientist or a lab guy to make your own juice.
3.More choices and flexibility. You can taste more juices without spending heaps of money. As you know, we are humans and we have our tastes and preferences. Even if you like a taste, it does not mean another person likes it too. So if you are tired of trying different juices and paying too much money, just step into DIY. Enjoy more and pay less. Also, you can use your creativity and try mixing flavours which you like more.
4. You can earn some extra money. Who knows, maybe one day you'll become a professional mixer and earn money by selling your brand, or you'll become a YouTube legend.
On the other side DIY is not as the convenience of buying ready e-juice, so if you do not mind about costs, buying ready e-juice would be much easier than stepping into mixology. These two(DIY versus ready e-juice) are totally diferent worlds, how do you campare dining out in a 5 start resturant and their amazing presentation with cooking and dining at home? at resturant you will pay for lots of things, presentation, brand, marketing, production cost, labour and lots of other hiding costs but still we love the food our mum cooks at home too, actually in some recipes they will beat the best chef too, and the reason is, in your home you have full control on your cooking, you can add more salt, less chilli ,more sugar and more important you will pay much much less. At the end, final choice would be on you, will you enjoy this fun art/hobby or you are happy to pay more?
Easy and simple recipes for starting DIY:
DIY is easy if you do not complicate everything, you can mix your own yummy juice even with 1 or two flavours. You do not need to mix 10 flavours to achieve a flavourful and yummy recipe. Of course, if you are a professional mixer, it will be a different story, but for beginners, you can start with fruits. Fruits are pretty easy to work with. For example, for mixing a simple yummy apple, you just need to use Fuji Fa 4%, a bit of sweetener(super sweet Cap is an amazing sweetener for fruits) 0.5-1% You can bump up the sweetener to 1.5%. As you know, most commercial e-juices have around 1-2% sweetener, so don’t be afraid to add sweetener. Actually, fruits need sweeteners to shine, but aim to be around 0.5-1%. Then it's boom! You made a simple and delicious apple e-liquid. It's so easy, so simple, yummy and cheap! For the next time you can add a bit of cream. To give body to your e-liquid you can add Cream Fa (0.5-1%) but don’t pass 1% as it might overwrite the taste of apple:
Simple and delicious apple recipe
Fa Fuji 4%
Super sweet Cap 1%
The choices for fruits are endless, you can substitute Fa Fuji with any other fruits, just keep in mind, for Fa flavours use them around3-4 %, for Capella or TFA flavours you can go up to 8%, but some of TFA flavours are pretty strong too, for them you can go lower, for example TFA papaya is pretty strong and flavourful even 4% of it would be too flavourful, but you can adjust these percentages upon your preferences:
Easy Papaya Recipe:
Papaya TFA 4%
CAP Super sweet 1%
TFA Bavarian Cream 1%
Or even:
Easy Bold Orange Recipe:
Blood Orange FA 10%
Super Sweet Cap 0.75%
Are they the best fruit e-juices? No, of course not. Actually, they are the simplest fruit e-liquid you can make, butt still amazing! Also, no need for any development!
For the next time, you can add WS-23 to them for a cooling effect. WS-23 is a cooling agent that simply adds an icy effect to your juice without affecting the taste. You can also add menthol, but menthol may affect the taste of your juice.
Simple Icy Fruit mix:
FA Forest Fruit 8%
Cap Super Sweet 0.75%
Ws-23 0.5%
You can adjust Ws-23 maybe up to 1.5% if it is not enough icy or reduce it to 0.25%.
Now you have made some simple recipes, this time you can swap cream with cheesecake. Inawera Yes cheesecake, Capella New York Cheesecake, and TFA Cheesecake Graham Crust are some of the best ones. For cheesecake, you can even increase the amount of sweetener to 1.5%. Below is one of the yummy cheesecake recipes from Wayne (DIY or Die):
CAP New York Cheesecake 6%
CAP Sweet Cream 1%
CAP Sweet Strawberry 2%
TFA Strawberry (RIPE) 3%
TFA Graham Cracker (Clear )1.5%
CAP Super Sweet 1.5%
Ice Cream is a popular profile for E-juice too. You can use Liquid Barn Ice Cream to achieve it. You can use it around 4-6%. For example, below is a very simple and yummy Mango Ice-cream e-juice(you can sub Mango with another fruit and adjust the percentage. For FA/INW fruits, use them around 4-5%, for Capella or TFA fruits, you can go up to 8%:
Super Yummy & simple Mango Ice Cream:
Flavour Express Mango 8%
Liquid Barn Vanilla Ice cream 4%
Capella Super Sweet 1%
Remember that you can adjust these percentages, which is why we recommend not making a large batch. For example, if you made the above mango and it was too flavourful, reduce the mango to 5% or less next time, and if it was too sweet, reduce the amount of super sweet to 0.5%.Or even if you were happy, for the next time you can add peach to it. Usually peach and mango go well together. You can use TFA Juicy Peach around 4% or more or less, depending on how peachy you want it, or even add a bit of WS-23 to make it cooler. This is the beauty of DIY, it lets you control your E-juice:)
Bakeries and custards are advanced, there is a video at the bottom of this page which it is about flavour pairing, it will be a good start up point, but for the beginning, you can use Capella Vanilla Custard and top it with any fruits, just keep in mind Custard needs at least two weeks steep.
Simple Apricot Custard (beginner):
TFA Apricot 3%
Cap Vanilla Custard v1 or v2 8%
TFA Sweetener 0.7%
Find below an amazing base for custard (advanced, needs 30 days of steeping):
Hobbs Unicorn ADV:
TFA Bavarian Cream 1%
INW Biscuit 1%
TFA Cheesecake (graham Crust) 3%
FA Custard Premium 2%
you can top it with your preferred fruit, for example:
For Banana Custard, add TFA Banana Cream at 5% or TFA Blueberry Extra 4%, FA Bilberry 0.5% for blueberry custard.
YOGI Base, a yogurt base which you can add your fruits (Wayne DIY or DIE):
CAP Creamy Yogurt 5%
FA Meringue 1%
TFA Sweet Cream 2%
Custard Base (30 days steep):
FA Custard Premium 3%
INW Custard 2%
MOL Legendary Custard 1%
Another good Custard Base:
FA Custard Premium 4%
INW Custard 2%
FLV Vanilla pudding 1.5%
Find more recipes under E Liquid Recipes on our website or at e-liquid-recipes.com/.
The following are the best standalone fruit flavours for DIY e-juice (for beginners):
Please note that the below is Liquid DIY’s view and it might be different from a professional mixer’s view. In the below list we tried to introduce some pretty straight-forward fruits which do not require further development and even if they are used as standalone, they can be recognised easily by most of the intermediate, beginner DIYers, so if you are a professional mixer, then the below might not be applicable to you, so just watch Noted from DIY or DIE You Tube Channel, which it is the best reference for all the different flavours in the DIY e liquid community:
So if you are new into DIY juice and just want to DIY a simple yummy fruit recipes, you can try the below flavours, add a bit of Liquid Barn Vanilla Ice Cream (4-5%), add a bit Capella Super Sweet(1% or less if you do not want sweet juice) or if you are fan of Cool Menthol e juice, add WS 23(0.5–1%) for extra cooling ice effect. On top of WS, you can add 1% of TFA Koolada too:
Best Mango Flavour concentrate:
Mango Flavour Express (FE) at around 8% is our choice of the best mango flavour concentrate for beginners. FE Mango will fade so you need to use it as shake and vape, other good Mangos are FA Indian Mango and FLV Mango, for the best outcome, you may combine each of these mangos together to reach a better Mango.
Duomei Yellow Mango is another legend, if you can source it! By far it is the best Mango EVER!, also super concentrated and just 1% of it would be more than enough, also it will last much longer.
If you are into Nasty Cushman, then Luzon Mango of Duomei or Reka Sexy Mango are the closet ones to this profile, use Luzon under 1% and but for Sexy Mango you can go up to 6%. Some people say the Sexy Mango is the exact ingredient of Nast Cushman, but who knows?! So for cloning Nasty Mango Grape just mix Luzon Mango DU (maybe around 0.5%), Grape (DUO) around 1%, Cap super sweet (0.5-1%), plus WS-23 (0.5-1%), shake it, steep it for 3 days and enjoy it. It will not be 100% clone as it is very hard to reach 100% clone, but maybe you can twick it or add Sexy Mango and be closer to the original one.
Best Apple flavour:
This is very hard as there are lots of good apples, but Fuji Apple of Flavour Art (FA) is our choice, following by Cap double apple .
Best Strawberry:
Strawberry section is a bit tricky as some people are Strawberry blind, but so far we found it out, Sweet Strawberry of Jungle flavour and Strawberry Jam of One On One flavours are two of the best strawberries, which even people who are strawberry muted, most probably would be able to recognise those easily.
The best peach flavour concentrate is:
Honey Peach from Jungle flavours and TFA Juicy Peach are amazing. JF Honey Peach was recommended to us by one of our valuable customers(thanks mate!) It has changed the game for the best peach flavour. It is not honey-style but has a very profound peach flavour. It is a must to try, although it is hard to source!
The best blueberry flavour is:
Flavour Art Juicy Blueberry, TFA Blueberry Extra, or Hangsen Blueberry are all good choices for the best Blueberry bt our choice is Flavorah Blueberry Muffin( an amazing cooked blueberry, almost the same taste of 7-eleven blueberry muffin).
Best Lemon for DIY:
Flavour Express Lemon is an amzing lemon which lasts longer than other lemons, also Flavour Art Lemon Sicily is super yummy but it fades faster than FE Lemon, so it would be on you,will you go for yummy FA sicily or your juice needs a long steep?
Best lemonade, is Liquid Barn Pink Lemonade, just add sweetener and enjoy it, of course you can add a bit of WS-23 too to add icy effect to it(1% of WS-23 would be more than enough).
Best Raspberry:
Although Flavour Art Raspberry and Inawera Raspberry are both good ,but our choice for the best Raspberry is SSA Premium Raspberry following by Raspberry Syrup of SSA.
Best Lychee:
Flavour Art Longan is an amazing lychee special if you combine it with any blackcurrants.
Best Tobacco flavours:
Flavour Express dhil and Desert Ship are pretty strong and amazing Tobaccos but if you do prefer a bit sweeter version then RY4 (FE) is the best, much better and stronger than any RY4, if you are into a desert side tobacoo, then Flavorah Kentucky is the king, super yummy and unique, do not miss it.
Best Cola flavour:
Flavour Art Cola and SSA Cola are the best Cola flavours.
Best Lemonade/Soda:
Liquid Barn Pink Lemonade at 5% is a magic, just add 1% sweetener and some WS-23 , shake it, then done! one of the best Leomandes as standalone. If you are an advanced mixer then for mixing there are some other great lemonades like FLV and LA too.
Best Redbul/Energy drink:
Flavour West Green Goblin is our first choice, following by amzing Duomei's Energy drink.