Mix Your Own E-Liquid – Equipment - Abbreviations, Tips and Tricks for Vaping Part XII
When you’re testing out new flavour notes, you really shouldn’t mix huge batches straight away. That’s why every DIY e-liquid mixer needs something with very fine graduations – and insulin syringes are ideal for that. You can get insulin syringes from any pharmacy. The syringe and needle come separately; you can dispose of the needle. However, never use these syringes for menthol crystals. The syringes are made of plastic and, in theory, menthol crystals can damage the plastic.
The second thing that can be useful for mixing is pipettes. You can get them from the pharmacy too, or keep pipettes from medicines such as nasal drops. Also handy: if you’ve already bought sweetener for e-liquids, it usually comes with really practical, slim glass pipettes! So keep them and definitely don’t throw them away.
And what about bottles for mixing? I use old e-liquid bottles, but if you’re new to vaping, you can simply buy empty bottles in the shop.
You’ll also need some paper and a pen. Plus sticky labels, or a sheet of paper where you can arrange your mixes so you can match each one to the right blend. If maths isn’t your strong point, you’ll also need a calculator or an e-liquid calculator. We’ll come back to that next week.
Then you’ll need some kitchen roll. Personally, I prefer to cover my mixing area with it. You can simply throw it away after mixing, and it’s all too easy for a drop to end up where it shouldn’t.
Do you need gloves? That’s a question you’ll have to answer for yourself. It also depends on the nicotine concentrations you’re handling. The higher the nicotine concentration, the more the answer becomes “for safety reasons – yes”. Nicotine is toxic, so these tips only apply as long as you’re either not using nicotine at all or you’re using nicotine that has already been heavily diluted.
That said, PG and VG are also preservatives – so you don’t need to turn your home setup into a sterile lab just to make your own mixes.
How do you clean your mixing gear? Personally, I swear by this: open the dishwasher, put bottles and pipettes in the cutlery basket, done! If you’re fussy, you can of course sterilise them or clean them with ethanol. But don’t forget: glycerine is a preservative! Bacteria don’t really thrive in this kind of environment. And of course, everything you use for mixing must be kept out of reach of children. As for the insulin syringes, I’d simply throw them away for practical reasons.
All the tips here are explicitly intended for home DIY mixers only. If you want to mix professionally for sale, you’ll need to comply with food law, and different regulations may apply.
Next week, we’ll move on to the liquids.
