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An in-depth explanation of nicotine E-Liquids, including their types & which nicotine strength to buy.
Maybe you’re trying to quit smoking, but your vape doesn’t quite scratch the nicotine itch. Maybe you’ve got a new vape kit, but you don’t know where to start when you need to buy E-Liquids. Maybe you’re looking for someone to tell you that smoking exactly 8 cigarettes a day means you need exactly x amount of nicotine in your vape.
In truth, no chart or conversion tool can tell you how much nicotine you need. However, learning a little about how the nicotine in E-Liquids works (both in your device and in your body) can help you find your perfect strength.
In this article, we’ll delve deeper into nicotine E-Liquids and give you the tools you need to find your perfect strength.
This one comes down to your smoking habits. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when considering which strength to start with:
Less than 5 cigarettes per day
5 to 10 cigarettes per day
+10 cigarettes per day
If you’re living in the UK, you’ve seen the glaring, graphic warnings on every tobacco and tobacco-related product out there (Fun fact: my dad calls the colour of the UK’s cigarette packaging, Pantone 448C, “cancer brown”).
We know that cigarettes are dangerous. We’ve been told by everyone from our parents to the government itself that “Nicotine is an addictive chemical.” What’s interesting, however, is that nicotine isn’t the carcinogen that many, many people wrongly believe it is.
Nicotine is what keeps people using tobacco products. This much is proven. However, it’s the thousands of chemicals in tobacco smoke that make it so deadly. Over 7,000 chemicals, in fact, that make it harder for smokers to quit.
Those thousands of chemicals—not nicotine—are the cause of serious tobacco-related health issues.
Because vaping is fairly new, researchers and medical professionals haven’t had a chance to study the long-term effects of vaping. But while the long-term effects of vaping are unknown, the long-term effects of tobacco smoking are undisputed. Coupled with vaping’s proven efficacy as a smoking cessation aid in recent years, the UK has embraced vaping as a harm-reduction strategy for current tobacco smokers.
The question of whether vaping nicotine is harmful in the long term is therefore difficult to answer. However, Cancer Research UK has stated that the side effects of vaping are roughly equivalent to those of NRT (such as nicotine patches or gum). This is to say that, at the present moment, vaping appears to be no more or less dangerous than using NRT to quit smoking.
Yes. If you have a box mod or a sub-ohm vape kit, you should be using high-VG E-Liquids like shortfills—which contain no nicotine, unless you choose to add some in the form of a nic shot.
You can also get nicotine-free vape juices for your pod vape or starter kit.
If you’ve never been a smoker, you should not be using E-Liquids with nicotine.
There are two different formulations of nicotine, present in two types of E-Liquid. Neither is better or worse; it comes down to what you need out of your E-Liquid.
For those who are quitting or have just quit smoking, we recommend nic salts. Also known as “salt nicotine,” these E-Liquids are made with nicotine derived from the tobacco leaf.
They contain an added natural acid—usually benzoic or citric—which alters the pH of the nicotine, helping it enter the bloodstream faster and providing a better throat hit at high strengths compared to E-Liquids with traditional freebase nicotine.
Quitters go for nic salts because they provide the closest sensation to a cigarette. Salts are available in three strengths—20mg, 10mg, and 5mg—though only some vape juice brands produce the lower strengths. 20mg is the most popular strength among smokers.
Another form of nicotine, called “freebase” nicotine, is found in 10ml freebase 50/50 juices as well as in the nic shots which are added to shortfills.
Freebase nicotine is slower to enter the bloodstream and provides less of a throat hit, which is good for those looking to wean off of nicotine, or for those who want to continue using nicotine at lower strengths. In the UK, 50/50 E-Liquids are available in a range of strengths, including 0mg, 3mg, 6mg, 12mg, and 18mg.
You can read more about the different types of nicotine in our article comparing salt nic and freebase E-Liquids.
Of course, you can have too much nicotine, which can lead to a host of truly unpleasant symptoms. It’s colloquially referred to as being “Nic-Sick.” It’s imperative to moderate your nicotine intake to avoid light-headedness, headaches, and nausea.
People looking to quit smoking, however, should be more careful of not getting enough nicotine. Read that again.
To illustrate, if you were to switch to vaping as a pack-a-day smoker, and you chose a 3mg strength E-Liquid (the lowest strength available) to vape, you’d likely find your device glued to your palm for the entirety of your day as you endlessly puff on a device that gives you no fulfilment. Trust me: that was me, for years, stuck as a dual-user (a smoker and a vaper) because my vape just wasn’t enough.
Then, I tried a 20mg nic salt. I quit smoking—after a decade—in five days.
Have you ever just finished a cigarette, thought about lighting another one, and the very thought made you feel ill? Most smokers, whether they realise it or not, already regulate their nicotine intake—or, rather, their bodies do. Everyone has their own nicotine tolerance which changes over time. When you’re addicted to smoking, your body tells you when to have a cigarette. The same happens when you vape nicotine.
When I switched to a high-strength E-Liquid, I found that my vape no longer lived in my grasp during my waking hours. I was able to put it down—something I only did when absolutely necessary before. This is because my body has a limit, and once it’s reached its max amount of nicotine—once my tolerance level is hit—I simply stop vaping.
This is why, when you’re first switching from smoking to vaping, we recommend starting with a higher strength E-Liquid. One benefit of starting at a higher strength is that it’ll allow you more wiggle room to wean yourself off of nicotine when you’re ready, as there will be more “steps” between your current strength and zero if you start at a higher dose.
Essentially, yes, you can have too much nicotine. However, if you’re just starting your transition to vaping, you should be more concerned about satisfying your nicotine cravings.
As mentioned, while there is no perfect calculator to tell you which strength to start with, you can generally follow this rule of thumb:
This is, of course, just a general guide. If you’re very unsure about what to buy, our recommendation is to purchase two or three different strengths and types of E-Liquid to see which nicotine strength is best for you.
If you need further help, don't hesitate to contact us. Our expert team of vapers (and ex-smokers) are on hand with sage advice and personalised recommendations to help you find your perfect nicotine strength.
A self-proclaimed American Weird Girl in London, Rachel is a writer with 10 years of vaping experience. In 2021, she severed her decade-long love affair with Marlboro Reds using a pod vape and hasn't looked back since. Armed with degrees in creative writing and media, she's a passionate proponent of THR and helping smokers quit. Outside of writing, Rachel is a multi-instrumental musician, singer, wife, and mother of two black cats.
