How Much Nicotine Should You Use In Vape Juice?

One of the biggest questions new vapers have is how much nicotine they can expect from their e-juice and if it can be a viable alternative to smoking. There is a lot of complexity in the answer to the first part of the question, which calls for an analysis in depth. According to increasing numbers of studies, vaping can indeed be used as a viable substitute for smoking. According to most experts, switching from smoking to vaping has both immediate and substantial health advantages.

Our main focus in this post will be on how much nicotine is in vape e-juice and what selection of e-juices is most appropriate for people looking for a smoking replacement. Since there are a host of options available at any local vape shop or online vape shop, it gets pretty confusing if it’s your first time. The benefits of vaping versus smoking must be mentioned in more detail, however.

Vaping Vs. Smoking

When trying to quit smoking, vaping can be a very effective method, but it is important to choose the right nicotine level. Vaping has emerged as one of the most effective ways to stop smoking, according to an accumulating body of evidence. Recent studies point to an 18 percent smoking cessation success rate for people who switch to vaping from cigarettes. Despite the fact that this number may not sound impressive, the fact remains that it is far higher than the average success rate of 3 percent seen among those who try to quit on their own. Even nicotine gum produces success rates of about 10 percent less than vaping.

Choosing The Right Nicotine Level

Nicotine levels should be chosen carefully for two main reasons. The first is that vaping will not replace smoking for a long time if you don’t provide enough nicotine to your body. Relapsing to smoking is highly associated with cravings. In addition, if you use too much nicotine, you can make people sick and ruin the vaping experience, returning former smokers to their old habits. In high concentrations, nicotine’s high alkalinity can result in very harsh throat hits that can cause coughing and a generally unpleasant overall experience. Smoking does not require much consideration of nicotine levels. Light smokers, especially those who take deeper hits and smoke more frequently, can easily compensate for the lower nicotine levels by taking deeper hits and smoking more often. Vapers must select the right nicotine strength in their e-juice, however, in order to avoid smoking’s deadly risks or stick with vaping.

How to Convert Nicotine Percentages to mg/mL

A vape juice’s nicotine content is usually expressed in milligrams per milliliter. However, it can also be expressed as a percentage. When converting milligrams per milliliter to percentages, there is an easy rule of thumb to follow: divide the milligram-per-milliliter number by 10. Using the above example, 16 milligrams per milliliter of nicotine will result in approximately 1.6 percent of nicotine in an e-juice bottle.

Calculating the cigarette equivalent of a given volume of e-liquid and nicotine percentage is another challenge. It is a bit more difficult. Generally speaking, a typical cigarette hit is equivalent to a 16 milligram vape juice hit. Depending on the pen or mod used, this can vary significantly. The best way to find the right levels for nicotine is by testing and moving up or down one level at a time.

Approximately 100 hits will be contained within a one milliliter bottle of e-juice, as an example. This is about the same as a half-pack of cigarettes. Consider this example: you are wondering the number of cigarettes one bottle of 16-mg/ml e-juice equals. One milliliter of juice is equal to 10 cigarettes. By multiplying this number by five, we get 50 cigarettes. That is roughly the equivalent of 2 1/2 packs of cigarettes.

We should emphasize once again that this is an inexact science that heavily depends on how individuals smoke cigarettes, what style, make and model of vaporizer they use, as well as whether they are using freebase nicotine or nicotine salts. There is no way to get the perfect vaping experience unless you test it in the real world.

Nicotine Levels in E-juice

A nicotine-free e-juice can contain as little as 0 mg of nicotine, while nicotine salts can contain up to 50 mg of nicotine per liter or more. The most common dose of e-juice used by smokers is 3-15 milligrams per milliliter. Those who smoke heavily may wish to use e-juice with up to 24 milligrams per milliliter.

There is a broad range of nicotine concentration in typical e-juices, raising the question of equivalence. In other words, what should someone look for if they are looking to have a vaping experience that roughly equals the smokes they consume? It is quite a challenge to answer this last question because it is highly dependent on the type of vaping device used, how large the draw is and how the vaper used to smoke cigarettes.

A milliliter bottle of e-juice will yield about 100 hits, so this is a solid rule of thumb. Based on this rough estimate, five packs of cigarettes are equivalent to one bottle of e-juice. When all things are equal, vaping releases more nicotine than smoking does milligram-adjusted. Vaping at sub-Ohms allows for a faster vaporization process. Most cigarette smokers are fine with about three to six milligrams per milliliter of e-juice.

Tens of millions of smokers and former smokers have tested the appropriate levels of nicotine in e-liquids in the real world, quite literally ad nauseam, since levels that are too high often lead to sickness in the real world. Regardless of the type of cigarette used, smokers can ingest enough nicotine to reduce cravings. Nicotine levels in e-juice can be broken down roughly as follows:

• Vaping e-juice without nicotine is great for those who simply enjoy the experience, but it will obviously provide no benefit for those trying to step away from nicotine.
• In general, e-juice containing between 3 and 6 milligrams of nicotine per milliliter is a great choice for those looking to reduce their daily nicotine consumption without fully satisfying the cravings of regular smokers.
• One-pack-per-day smokers typically replace their one-pack-per-day smoking habit with e-juice containing 12 milligrams per milliliter of nicotine.
• With nicotine concentrations of 18 milligrams per milliliter, e-juice can replace moderate to heavy smoking involving one pack of cigarettes per day.
• Heavy smokers who smoke more than two packs per day should only use e-liquids containing 24 milligrams per milliliter.
• If the concentration of nicotine in the e-juice is 36 milligrams per milliliter or more, it could be hazardous, so it should only be used to dilute lower nicotine-content e-juices.

Nicotine Salts

Nicotine salts deserve special attention. E-juice and cigarettes both contain freebase nicotine, which is the simplest form. Benzoic acid is chemically added to nicotine to form nicotine salts. In chemistry, a salt is a compound that is neutralized by an acid and a base. Rather than having the high alkalinity or acidity of its component chemicals, the outcome is a substance with a middling pH level.

This may sound overly technical. But for vaping, it means one thing: Nicotine salts deliver much mellower hits. This is important because the quality of the hit is one of the key factors that determine whether people stick with vaping or relapse to smoking. However, nicotine salts tend not to vaporize as readily as freebase nicotine. And when they do vaporize, they still aren’t as bioavailable or easily absorbed by the body as freebase. This means that e-juice containing nicotine salts is often available at much higher concentrations than e-juice that uses freebase nicotine. A general rule of thumb is that e-juices that contain nicotine salts will smoke at about half the effective concentration as they would if they contained freebase nicotine. In other words, if you’re used to freebase-nicotine e-juice with a concentration of 12 milligrams of nicotine per milliliter, then going with a nicotine-salt-based e-juice with a concentration of about 24 milligrams per milliliter will be about right.

However, it should be noted that this rule of thumb may break down when using nicotine salts with sub-Ohm vaping devices, which may be able to much more thoroughly vaporize the nicotine salts. Therefore, extreme caution should be exercised when first attempting to vape nicotine salts with sub-Ohm pens or mods. Failing to do so could result in a mild nicotine overdose, which may be intensely unpleasant.

Conclusion

There you have it folks. Everything you should know about nicotine in vape juice and how much nicotine you should go for. For the best DL, MTL, and sub-ohm devices, contact us, and we would gladly help you out. We carry the best devices, freebase salts, and nic salts vape juices for you. Whether you want a 0mg/ml vape juice or 50mg/ml, you’ll definitely find what you’re looking for at our online vape shop.