Your 101 Guide to mixing E-Liquid.

With the Labour Government launching its Legions of HMRC at us all soon to conduct, yet another, full frontal assault on our bank accounts and wallets, talk among the vaping community has inevitably turned to DIY E-Liquid and making it yourself.

Obviously this comes with many benefits, it’s far cheaper to produce your own and it’s up to you to inform HMRC you’ve made it and to pay yet more tax if you choose to. I’d encourage everyone to obviously obey the law and pay the Government yet more money which they never earned and will inevitably waste anyway but it’s your choice whether you will do that or not, no judgement here!

Another clear benefit is to make an e-liquid precisely to your liking. If you find something too sweet, back the sweetener off, want it cooled, add Ice (WS-23), want a chicken chilli with cheesy crisps flavour, you can make it. Those flavours are available though you’d be a braver person than me. You can also fine tune the amount of nicotine you’d like, no more stuck with the industry standards of 3mg, 6mg etc. Basically, the world becomes your oyster and if you can imagine it, you can make it.

So what’s the catch with making your own e-liquid?

Making e-liquid can appear very daunting, there is some maths involved and quite a long, steep learning curve that many people struggle to get past.

I started mixing my own e-liquid in 2014, purely because back then e-liquid was expensive and the market was still very small. I threw away more juices than I actually vaped simply due to the fact they were rubbish and I was still learning. I’m still learning to this very day.

How do you make e-liquid?

This part is actually simple. You combine all your ingredients together, give it a good shake and try it. If it’s not quite right but has some potential, put it away in a dark cupboard for a week then try it again. Time is one of the main factors when making an e-liquid from scratch as this gives all the components time to blend properly, it’s called Steeping.

The base ingredients are Vegetable Glycerin (VG), Propylene Glycol (PG), Nicotine if you use it and flavours, that’s it. Food grade flavours are all you need, just be mindful that the flavours for using in e-liquid need to be selected carefully, don’t just go to the supermarket and buy vanilla extract, you need to do alittle research first. Avoid anything which contains alcohol or oils and select flavours that are PG based (Use PG as the carrier liquid). Most reputable food flavour suppliers will have this information readily available.

What flavours do I pick for e-liquid?

This is the trickiest part for most people, as with anything, there are good and bad. Some flavours are superb and others taste like you’ve dunked your head in a dirty washing up bowl. You can follow recommendations from other people and reviews but ultimately flavour is very subjective so it will mostly come down to trial and error to find what works best for you.

You can mix with one single flavour only or mix up lots of different ones to create something unique.

The Maths!?

Yes… well… the maths… I should start by saying I’m useless at math but there is a number of cheats out there to take out nearly all the stress of it, mixing calculators.

One of the best and most accurate is E-Liquid Recipes which will also give you numerous recipes others have created as well as guides to the thousands of different flavours which suggested mix percentages. If you are looking at dipping your toes into DIY E-Liquid, this is the place to start and learn.

Again though, this is part of the learning curve and after time and experience, it all clicks into place nicely and you’ll be able to do the more basic calculations in your head.

What will I need to make E-Liquid?

I’ll just bullet point this part and say this is the basics you’ll need but as with anything vale related, your collection and things you “need” will grow!

• Clean area to mix
• Vegetable Glycerine
• Propylene Glycol
• Nicotine (if required)
• Flavours
• Bottles
• Syringes or pipettes 

That’s it for very basic mixing if you are mixing by volume or drops, if you mix by weight, which I personally do as it’s more accurate and less time consuming, you would also need a set of high accuracy scales (0.00).

Sum up

E-Liquid mixing seems daunting but it’s fundamentally rather easy once you’ve learnt the basics. You may go down the mixing route, you may pay the new much higher prices or you may stop vaping entirely (Just please avoid going back to smoking if you can). The new taxes are due to hit us 1st October 2026 however there is a 6 month window to 31st March 2027 where you can still buy older stock produced before 1st October 2026. This gives you 10 months to research, play and get the basics in place if you do decide to mix.