A beginner’s guide to e-liquid: strength, flavour and ratio

• Match the strength to how much you smoked. 20 or more a day usually means 20mg nic salt, 10 to 15 a day means 10mg, and a few a day means 3mg freebase or 5mg salt. Too weak is a common reason a first kit ends up in a drawer.
• Buy 50/50 PG/VG. It wicks properly in the pod kits and starter kits almost every new vaper begins with. High-VG liquid burns coils in small devices.
• Buy 10ml bottles first. UK law caps a nicotine-containing bottle at 10ml and 20mg/ml anyway, and it is the cheapest way to find a flavour you actually like.
• Pick a simple flavour to begin with. Fruit, menthol or tobacco. Complex dessert blends are easy to tire of and harder on coils.
• Prime the coil and let it soak five minutes before the first puff. Almost every burnt taste in week one comes from skipping that.

The four ingredients in every bottle

E-liquid is simpler than the packaging suggests. Four ingredients, no more.

Propylene glycol (PG) is a thin, clear liquid that carries flavour and gives the scratch at the back of your throat. Ex-smokers tend to prefer a decent amount of it.

Vegetable glycerin (VG) is thick and slightly sweet. It is what makes visible vapour. More VG means bigger clouds and a softer draw, and also slower wicking.

Flavourings are food-grade concentrates, usually a couple of percent of the bottle.

Nicotine is optional and is the number on the front of the label. It is the addictive ingredient, and the strength is the first thing to get right.

That is it. Everything else you will read about e-liquid is a decision about the proportions of those four things, which is why the label carries a strength and a ratio and not much else.

Nicotine strength: get this one right

This is the decision most beginners get wrong. Pick too low for your habit and you will find yourself chain-vaping. Pick too high for a powerful device and it will feel too strong, in which case choose a lower strength next time.

Those numbers assume a small pod kit or starter kit, which is what almost everyone begins on. On a high-power sub-ohm device you are inhaling several times the vapour per puff, so the same strength delivers far more nicotine and 3mg is plenty. Our guide to how much nicotine you should vape goes into the arithmetic.

Judge it after a day, not a puff. If you are chain-vaping and still want more by the afternoon, go up a strength. If it feels too strong, choose a lower strength next time.

Nic salt or freebase?

Same nicotine, different chemistry. The difference shows up entirely in how it feels.

Practical rule: if you are starting on a pod kit at 10mg or 20mg, buy salts. If you are on 3mg in a bigger tank, buy freebase. A Bar Juice 5000 Blueberry Sour Raspberry salt is an easy first buy, and the nic salt guide has more.

PG/VG: the other number that matters

The ratio tells you how thick the liquid is, and thickness has to match your device. Get this wrong and you will taste burnt cotton within a day.

50/50 is the beginner default. It is thin, it wicks into a small coil almost instantly, the flavour is sharp and the throat hit is close to a cigarette. Most 10ml bottles are 50/50 for exactly that reason.

70/30 VG is for sub-ohm tanks and box mods. Big clouds, softer throat, but it is syrupy and a small pod coil cannot pull it through fast enough.

If you are not sure which style of vaping you are doing, our guide to MTL vs DTL inhalation will place you in about a minute. Short version: if you draw on it like a cigarette, you are mouth-to-lung.

Choosing a first flavour

There are thousands of flavours and that is genuinely off-putting at the start. Narrow it down by category rather than by name.

Fruit is where most people land. Berry, mango, apple, lemonade and the blue-raspberry family are bright, hard to get bored of and forgiving on coils. Something like IVG Blue Raspberry 50/50 is a safe opener.

Menthol and ice suit anyone who smoked menthols, and they cut through a stale palate in the first week better than anything else. 88vape Menthol Chill is about as straightforward as it gets.

Tobacco is the obvious first thought for a smoker and it disappoints as often as it lands, because it tastes like the idea of tobacco rather than the cigarette you remember. Worth trying, but try it in a 10ml first. 88vape Rolling Leaf is a reasonable place to start.

Dessert and drinks are excellent in short bursts and heavy as an all-day vape. They also carry more sweetener, which caramelises on the coil and shortens its life.

The cheap way to find your flavour is a mixed multi-pack rather than one bottle at a time. A Signature 10 x 10ml lets you mix flavours and strengths in one order, so you can find out what you like without committing to any of it.

Bottle sizes and when a bigger one makes sense

You will see three formats and they exist because of one rule: a bottle containing nicotine cannot exceed 10ml in the UK.

Do not start with a shortfill. You have to mix it, most are too thick for a beginner device, and you cannot get above about 6mg. Once you know your flavour and you are settled at 6mg or below, it becomes the cheapest way to buy, and our shortfill vs 10ml comparison covers the switch.

One cost note worth knowing now: Vaping Products Duty starts on 1 October 2026 at £2.20 per 10ml plus VAT, so £2.64 lands on every 10ml at the till. Stock released before that date can be sold until 31 March 2027. The vape tax explainer has the detail.

Your first week, step by step

1. 1
   Prime the coil before the first fill. Drip a few drops of liquid straight onto the exposed cotton, then fill and wait five minutes. This is the step everyone skips and it is why a brand new pod tastes burnt.
2. 2
   Draw slowly and longer than you would on a cigarette. Three or four seconds, gently. A sharp hard pull floods the coil and gives you liquid in the mouth. Full method in how to fill a pod kit correctly.
3. 3
   Drink more water than usual. The NHS lists a dry mouth and throat among the side effects some people notice when they start vaping, so keep a drink nearby in the first week.
4. 4
   Change the pod or coil when flavour drops off. Usually every one to three weeks. Waiting until it tastes properly burnt means a week of bad vaping for no reason. Order a spare with your liquid.
5. 5
   Store bottles cool, dark and sealed. Not on a sunny windowsill, not in a hot car. See e-liquid shelf life and storage.

If something goes wrong, it is almost always one of a handful of things, and the mistakes beginners make covers them.

What to buy with it

Liquid alone is not much use. If you have not bought a device yet, a small refillable pod kit is the sensible starting point: cheap, pocket-sized, one button or none, and it takes the 10ml bottles this guide has been describing. Our roundup of the best pod kits for beginners is the place to start.

If you would rather not refill anything at all, a prefilled pod kit comes ready to go with a prefilled 2ml pod in a choice of strengths. Note that single-use disposable vapes have been banned in the UK since 1 June 2025, so a rechargeable prefilled or refillable kit is what you are choosing between now.

Whichever way you go, buy a spare pod or coil in the same order, so a worn coil mid-week does not leave you without a working kit.

Pick a 10ml and a kit to match

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