I'm starting a thread to use as a "catch all" for some of my general thoughts, ideas, tips, etc to keep them organized for future reference.
DIY
The common ground between premade and DIY liquids is that they are both made up for consumption. Beyond that there are endless variables. Vendors have to try to come up with juice recipes that a wide range of people with an even wider range of gear will like, while with DIY you can tailor your liquids to your own personal tastes in your own gear for your own vaping style. Some mixologists that sell their own premade liquids are very good at their craft, or at least have some stellar liquids to offer on their list of premade. But many are not.
Cost to make starts off as relative to the quantities the ingredients can be bought in. Buying bulk always nets a way less expensive per ml end product than buying in smaller volume. So vendors can buy at various levels of bulk depending on their resell customer base, and almost all of them at way less cost per ml cost than the home DIYer can even with their other overhead costs added. IE, if they have a B&M, employees, a real lab and all the tools/equipment they need to make/package them in bulk they also have overhead that adds considerable additional cost to make and market their liquids. The fly in the soup is there are many very greedy liquid vendors, including some that have almost none of those extra costs because they mix at home, in their garage, etc, often with the help of their family members, do not have clean lab conditions yet still sell their wares at market prices that net them very exorbitant profit margins. That is all a big red flag about the quality and safety of their ingredients used as well. What they say on their web site, if they have one, may not all be truthful. If they are cryptic about anything they are hiding something. Many on line vendors won't even tell you where they are (state, providence, natal, country, etc). So it is essential to get to know the vendors personally that you buy premades and DIY ingredients from to be sure that you will not be vaping cow piss. In most cases I do that by calling them, when overseas via email to get to know them, but either way as many times as it takes to get a feel whether they are someone I trust enough to deal with or not. I know of far more liquid/ingredient vendors that I would never do business with than those that I will with regularly.
Having done DIY for over 3 years I get it right for my uses, and at far less cost than buying premades from any vendor. I use so much juice vaping pretty much all day and all night anytime I want to that I can buy my ingredients in fairly large quantities. I also make some of my own extracts for almost no cost compared to what those bought from flavor companies cost.
IMO DIY learned and done the right way takes putting in the time yourself, a lot of it over months/years, and keeping extensive notes along the way. I'm still leaning new things that sometimes improves on what is already known, so when they do I adjust my methods to incorporate them. For DIY done right you have to learn to crawl one flavor or additive at a time before you can walk to simple recipes with only the flavors/additives that you already know well, then walk some more trying something new in them one thing at a time for a time before you run with trying more complex recipes. In time you know what each flavor/additive does to liquids, what compliments and what doesn't when used with specific other ingredients, how much to use, etc so learn what to add to get that something extra you want in a new recipe. There are no shortcuts to the perfect DIY vapes for your own personal tastes because in the end no two people have the exact same tastes. And its even better if you learn how to build for each flavor and device it will be ran in, then with your recipes to get the most out of them. Every juice recipe has it's perfect place it likes to be vaped at to get all it has to offer "to your personal taste". Unfortunately most folks do take shortcuts from the start and continue to do so all along the way. By doing so they are cheating themselves out of what would be their perfect vapes if they had done it right from the start and stuck with it. My recipes work very well for me because I earned ever one of them myself instead of taking free rides on the work done by others.
Bottom line, if you are thinking of trying DIY, take the time to do the research, take notes, make your own plan and wade in. It won't happen overnight, but is well worth the time and effort if you want your own personal best vape experiences instead of just settling on what someone else's idea of them are. And have fun with it.
DIY
The common ground between premade and DIY liquids is that they are both made up for consumption. Beyond that there are endless variables. Vendors have to try to come up with juice recipes that a wide range of people with an even wider range of gear will like, while with DIY you can tailor your liquids to your own personal tastes in your own gear for your own vaping style. Some mixologists that sell their own premade liquids are very good at their craft, or at least have some stellar liquids to offer on their list of premade. But many are not.
Cost to make starts off as relative to the quantities the ingredients can be bought in. Buying bulk always nets a way less expensive per ml end product than buying in smaller volume. So vendors can buy at various levels of bulk depending on their resell customer base, and almost all of them at way less cost per ml cost than the home DIYer can even with their other overhead costs added. IE, if they have a B&M, employees, a real lab and all the tools/equipment they need to make/package them in bulk they also have overhead that adds considerable additional cost to make and market their liquids. The fly in the soup is there are many very greedy liquid vendors, including some that have almost none of those extra costs because they mix at home, in their garage, etc, often with the help of their family members, do not have clean lab conditions yet still sell their wares at market prices that net them very exorbitant profit margins. That is all a big red flag about the quality and safety of their ingredients used as well. What they say on their web site, if they have one, may not all be truthful. If they are cryptic about anything they are hiding something. Many on line vendors won't even tell you where they are (state, providence, natal, country, etc). So it is essential to get to know the vendors personally that you buy premades and DIY ingredients from to be sure that you will not be vaping cow piss. In most cases I do that by calling them, when overseas via email to get to know them, but either way as many times as it takes to get a feel whether they are someone I trust enough to deal with or not. I know of far more liquid/ingredient vendors that I would never do business with than those that I will with regularly.
Having done DIY for over 3 years I get it right for my uses, and at far less cost than buying premades from any vendor. I use so much juice vaping pretty much all day and all night anytime I want to that I can buy my ingredients in fairly large quantities. I also make some of my own extracts for almost no cost compared to what those bought from flavor companies cost.
IMO DIY learned and done the right way takes putting in the time yourself, a lot of it over months/years, and keeping extensive notes along the way. I'm still leaning new things that sometimes improves on what is already known, so when they do I adjust my methods to incorporate them. For DIY done right you have to learn to crawl one flavor or additive at a time before you can walk to simple recipes with only the flavors/additives that you already know well, then walk some more trying something new in them one thing at a time for a time before you run with trying more complex recipes. In time you know what each flavor/additive does to liquids, what compliments and what doesn't when used with specific other ingredients, how much to use, etc so learn what to add to get that something extra you want in a new recipe. There are no shortcuts to the perfect DIY vapes for your own personal tastes because in the end no two people have the exact same tastes. And its even better if you learn how to build for each flavor and device it will be ran in, then with your recipes to get the most out of them. Every juice recipe has it's perfect place it likes to be vaped at to get all it has to offer "to your personal taste". Unfortunately most folks do take shortcuts from the start and continue to do so all along the way. By doing so they are cheating themselves out of what would be their perfect vapes if they had done it right from the start and stuck with it. My recipes work very well for me because I earned ever one of them myself instead of taking free rides on the work done by others.
Bottom line, if you are thinking of trying DIY, take the time to do the research, take notes, make your own plan and wade in. It won't happen overnight, but is well worth the time and effort if you want your own personal best vape experiences instead of just settling on what someone else's idea of them are. And have fun with it.
