Nic salts vs e-liquids: which should you buy?

• Nic salt is a gentler form of nicotine. It stays smooth at 10mg and 20mg, which is why almost every pod kit user runs it.
• Freebase is the older, sharper form. It gives a firmer throat hit and is what you want at 3mg to 6mg in a bigger, airier device.
• Both come in the same 10ml bottle. UK law caps nicotine-containing liquid at 10ml and 20mg/ml, so a 100ml nic salt does not exist here. Anything bigger is a 0mg shortfill.
• Nic salt is not the opposite of 50/50. Most nic salts are 50/50 PG/VG. The real split is salt versus freebase, not salt versus 50/50.
• Your kit decides more than your taste does. High resistance coil and a tight draw means salt. Sub-ohm coil and an airy draw means low strength freebase.

The chemistry: what makes a nic salt different

Nicotine in a tobacco leaf exists as a salt, bound to acids in the plant. Freebase nicotine is what you get when those acids are stripped away, and it has been the standard in e-liquid since vaping began. It works, but it is alkaline, and at anything above about 12mg it scratches.

Nic salt e-liquid puts an acid back in, usually benzoic acid. That lowers the pH of the mix and takes the edge off the vapour. The practical result is simple: you can vape 20mg of salt in a small pod kit and it will feel softer in the throat than 12mg of freebase in the same device. Nothing about the flavour range changes, and nothing about the bottle changes. It is the same 10ml, the same TPD warning panel, the same shelf.

That smoothness is the whole point. It is what lets a low-powered device carry a high strength without the harshness that would come from the same number in freebase form. If you want to know how that translates into what you feel on a draw, our beginner’s guide to using nic salts covers the practical side.

There is no such thing as a 100ml nic salt in the UK

This one trips people up constantly, partly because overseas sites sell large salt bottles and the search results leak across. UK rules are strict and there is no ambiguity in them. Any e-liquid containing nicotine must be sold in a container of 10ml or less, and must not exceed 20mg/ml. A 100ml bottle of 20mg salt cannot legally be sold here, so if you see one advertised, you are looking at either a mistake or a seller you should avoid.

What you can buy in 100ml is a shortfill, which leaves the factory at 0mg and therefore sits outside the volume cap. You add nicotine yourself with a 10ml nic shot, and salt nic shots do exist, so you can end up with a large bottle of salt-nicotine liquid at around 3mg. What you cannot do is buy it pre-mixed at pod-kit strength. If you want 20mg, it comes in a 10ml bottle, full stop. Our shortfill vs 10ml guide covers that choice in more depth.

Salt is not the opposite of 50/50

A lot of guides set nic salt against 50/50 e-liquid as though they were two different products. They are not comparing like with like. 50/50 describes the base, the ratio of propylene glycol to vegetable glycerin, and it says nothing about which form of nicotine is in the bottle. Most UK nic salts are 50/50, and most UK 10ml freebase liquids are 50/50 as well.

The ratio matters for a different reason. PG is thin and carries flavour crisply, VG is thick and makes vapour. A 50/50 blend wicks easily through the narrow channels of a small coil, which is exactly why both salts and standard 10mls are made that way. Higher VG blends, typically 70/30, are reserved for shortfills and sub-ohm coils that can pull the thicker liquid through fast enough.

So the two questions to answer are separate. Which nicotine form suits the strength you want, and which PG/VG ratio suits your coil. Get the first wrong and you either cough or find it weak. Get the second wrong and you get dry hits and a burnt coil inside a day.

Side by side

Strengths shown are the UK norms.

Which one suits your kit

Small pod kit, tight draw, coil of roughly 0.6Ω to 1.2Ω at 10W to 18W. Nic salt, almost every time. These devices run at low wattage and hold very little liquid, so the nicotine has to do the work rather than the volume. Refillable pods are also capped at 2ml in the UK, which means a strong liquid is the only way to make a tank last a morning. The battery side is simple: charge with the USB-C cable supplied with the kit, from a standard low-output USB plug or a computer port, avoid fast-charge bricks, and do not charge unattended overnight. If you are picking a device, which pod kit works best with nic salts is the right place to start.

Sub-ohm tank or a mod at 30W and up. Freebase at 3mg or 6mg. A sub-ohm coil vaporises several times more liquid per puff, so a strong liquid in that setup delivers far too much nicotine far too quickly. One firm rule follows from that: never put 18mg or 20mg in a sub-ohm kit.

Something in between, a restricted pod mod with a coil around 0.6Ω. This is the grey zone. Many people run 10mg salt here rather than 20mg, or a 6mg freebase if they like more throat feel. If you are unsure which camp your device sits in, our guide to MTL vs DTL inhalation styles is the quickest way to place it.

Flavours worth starting with

Flavour ranges overlap heavily now, so the choice is less about what is available and more about which side of the fence your kit sits on. These are all UK 10ml bottles.

On the salt side. Blueberry Sour Raspberry Elfliq is the benchmark for a reason, juicy blueberry with a sharp raspberry finish that does not get sickly over a full day. Lemon and Lime ELUX Legend is the palate cleanser of the range, sharp lemon on the inhale and a softer lime behind it. For menthol, Fresh Mint The Crystal Pro Max is cool without the dental note some mints have. The wider Bar Juice 5000 range covers most of the flavours people miss from the old bar devices.

On the freebase side. If you want to work out what you like before committing, the Signature 10 x 10ml bundle lets you mix flavours and strengths in a single order, which is far and away the cheapest way to audition a range. For a big-bottle flavour at 0mg that you top up yourself, Blackcurrant Menthol 100ml V Blood is a solid, sweet and cold shortfill. More ideas are in our top nic salt e-liquids guide.

What each one costs you to run

Per bottle, salts and freebase 10mls sit in much the same bracket. The difference shows up in how fast you get through them. A salt user on a pod kit typically uses 10ml to 15ml a week, so a bottle lasts three to seven days. A sub-ohm user on 3mg empties the same volume far faster, which is why heavy DTL vapers buy shortfills rather than 10mls.

From 1 October 2026 the Vaping Products Duty adds £2.20 per 10ml plus VAT, so £2.64 lands on every 10ml of liquid regardless of what form the nicotine takes or whether there is any nicotine in it at all. That hits the high-volume vaper hardest in absolute terms, because they simply buy more millilitres. Stock released before that date can be sold until 31 March 2027. The full picture is in our vape tax explainer.

If you want a rough sense of how long a bottle should last you before you change anything, how many puffs are in a 10ml nic salt does the arithmetic properly: roughly 600 to 1,500 puffs from 10ml depending on device power and draw length.

Strength by habit, in both forms

Once you know which form your kit wants, the strength follows from how much you smoked. The same table applies whichever side you land on; the numbers differ because freebase is bought at lower strengths for bigger kits and salt at higher strengths for pods. Where a row gives a range, start at the bottom of it.

Where you land may shift after the first week or two. Move one step at a time rather than jumping across the table.

How to pick in four steps

1. 1
   Look at your coil. The resistance is printed on the side of it. 0.6Ω and above points to salt, below about 0.6Ω points to low strength freebase.
2. 2
   Set your strength honestly. Use the table above: 20 a day or more usually means 20mg salt to begin with, and 5 to 10 a day is often fine at 5mg to 10mg. Our guide to how much nicotine to vape walks through it.
3. 3
   Buy one bottle, not six. Flavours read differently in salt and freebase. Test before you commit to a multipack of any single flavour.
4. 4
   Store it properly. Cool, dark, capped and away from children. Heat and sunlight darken liquid and flatten the flavour long before the expiry date does.

Find the bottle that matches your kit

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