How To Mix Your Own E-Liquid: The Complete UK DIY Guide

What You Need To Mix Your Own E-Liquid

Four things make up every DIY mix: VG, PG, flavour concentrates, and (if you want it) nicotine. Everything else is measuring and patience. Get the ingredients and a bit of kit sorted before you touch a bottle, because mixing on the fly is how you end up with a batch you have to bin.

Ingredients: VG, PG, flavour concentrates & nicotine

Your base is vegetable glycerine (VG) and propylene glycol (PG). VG is the thick stuff that carries vapour and sweetness; PG is thinner, carries flavour and throat hit. The split you choose drives how the finished mix behaves in your kit, and we go deep on that in Understanding VG & PG in E-Liquid.

• VG - dense vapour, slightly sweet, thick to work with
• PG - thin, sharpens flavour, adds throat hit
• Flavour concentrates - highly concentrated, used at roughly 10-20% depending on the flavour
• Nicotine shots - optional, added last to hit your target strength

On nicotine, the UK rules are firm. Nicotine shots sold here are capped at 20mg/ml and come in 10ml bottles under the TRPR. A standard shot is a 10ml, 18mg or 20mg, 70/30 or 50/50 unflavoured nic base. You do the maths on how many shots your batch needs to land at your target strength.

Equipment checklist

You do not need a lab. A handful of cheap, reusable bits covers you for years of mixing.

Freebase vs nic salt bases

Choose your nicotine type before you mix, because it dictates the kit you can vape it in. This is the bit switchers most often get wrong.

• Freebase nicotine suits sub-ohm and DTL setups. It gives a firmer throat hit and works best at lower strengths (3mg or 6mg) in higher-VG mixes.
• Nic salt suits low-power MTL pods. It is smoother at higher strengths, so you can run 10mg or 20mg without the harshness, which is why pod vapers lean on it.

We run refillable pod kits day to day and sub-ohm tanks in the evenings, so we mix salts and shortfills in roughly equal measure. If you are building for a pod, go salt; if you are building for an evening sub-ohm tank, go freebase. Our full breakdown lives in What Are Nic Salts?.

Ratios & Percentages: Getting The Mix Right

Get the ratio right and everything else falls into place. Three numbers decide how your mix performs: the PG/VG split, the flavour percentage, and the target nicotine strength. Sort those out on paper first and the mixing itself is quick.

Choosing your PG/VG ratio

PG carries flavour and gives throat hit. VG is thicker, produces more vapour and runs sweeter. The ratio you pick should match the device you are filling.

• 70/30 (VG/PG): the standard for sub-ohm tanks and mesh coils under 0.6 ohm. Thicker vapour, smoother throat hit, best on DTL setups in the evening.
• 50/50: the go-to for MTL tanks and refillable pods. Thinner, wicks fast, sharper flavour and a firmer throat hit. This is what most switchers want.
• 60/40 or 65/35: a middle ground if you run one liquid across a pod and a sub-ohm tank.

If you are unsure which coils suit which mix, have a look at How To Match E-Liquid To Your Coil before you commit to a big batch.

Flavour concentration percentages by type

Flavour concentrates are potent, so you use less than you might expect. Most recipes land between 10% and 20% of the total volume.

• Single-flavour recipes: typically 10-15%. One strong concentrate does not need much backup.
• Complex, multi-flavour recipes: typically 15-20%, split across three or four concentrates that each need room to speak.
• Fruits and menthols: tend to sit at the lower end.
• Custards, tobaccos and bakery blends: usually want a touch more and reward longer steeping.

Start at the lower end of the recommended range for each concentrate. You can always add a drop more next batch, but you cannot pull flavour back out once it is in.

A mixing calculator does the sums for you. Punch in your bottle size, target PG/VG ratio, target nicotine strength and flavour percentage, and it converts the lot into ml of each ingredient. Every serious DIY mixer we know uses one rather than working it out by hand.

Adding nicotine shots

Most UK DIY mixing uses unflavoured 18mg or 20mg nicotine shots to bring a nic-free base up to strength. Under the TRPR, nicotine e-liquid sold in the UK is capped at 20mg/ml and shots come in 10ml bottles, so you build strength by adding shots to a larger nic-free shortfill.

The maths is straightforward once you see it in action:

• Two 10ml 18mg shots into a 50ml shortfill gives you 70ml total at roughly 3mg.
• One 10ml 18mg shot into the same 50ml shortfill gives you 60ml at roughly 3mg as well, just less liquid.
• Add the shot, cap the bottle, then shake hard for a minute to blend it through evenly.

Work out your target strength before you buy anything. Our full breakdown in How To Choose The Right E-Liquid Strength covers what suits pods versus sub-ohm tanks, and it saves you mixing a whole batch at the wrong mg.

Step-By-Step: How To Mix A Batch

Weigh or measure in the same order every time and mixing stays simple: base first, flavour next, nicotine last. That order gives you the most control over your final strength and stops you overshooting. If you are still fuzzy on what each ingredient actually does, our E-Liquid Explained: The Complete UK Guide breaks the components down before you start pouring.

Prep and measure

Get everything laid out before you open a single bottle. You want a clear bench, gloves on, and your recipe written down.

• Measure your VG and PG first into the mixing bottle, hitting your target ratio (say 70/30 for a sub-ohm shortfill-style mix)
• Use a syringe or scales for accuracy, guesswork is how you end up with a weak or harsh batch
• VG is thick and pours slowly, so give it time to settle in the bottle rather than rushing it

Combine base, flavour and nicotine

With your base in, add flavour concentrate next, working to the percentage in your recipe. Most fruit and dessert concentrates sit somewhere between 10% and 20%, but follow the specific figure for the flavour you are using.

Add nicotine last. Measuring it in at the end means you are adjusting the final piece against a known volume of base and flavour, so your strength lands where you want it. Remember TPD limits your nicotine base to a maximum of 20mg/ml in the UK, so factor that ceiling into your recipe before you start.

Shake, cap and label

Cap the bottle tight and shake hard. VG is heavy and slow to blend, so a quick swirl will not cut it. Give it a proper minute of shaking until the liquid looks uniform with no streaky layers.

Then label every single bottle before it goes anywhere. Write down:

• Strength (mg/ml)
• VG/PG ratio
• Flavour and percentage
• Mix date

That label is not admin for the sake of it. It tells you the strength at a glance, lets you track how a recipe performs after steeping, and keeps a nicotine-containing bottle clearly identified for safety. An unlabelled bottle of homemade e-liquid is a problem waiting to happen, especially if you mix more than one recipe in a session.

Steeping: How To Make Your Mix Taste Its Best

Freshly mixed e-liquid rarely tastes its best straight away. Steeping is the resting period that lets the flavour compounds, nicotine and base blend together and mellow, and it is the difference between a thin, sharp mix and a rounded one that actually tastes like the recipe promised.

Why steeping matters

When you first shake up a batch, the concentrate sits on top of the VG/PG base rather than fully married into it. Give it time and the harsh edges soften, the notes deepen, and everything reads as one flavour rather than a stack of separate ones.

• Store your steeping bottles in a cool, dark place, a cupboard or drawer well away from sunlight and heat
• Shake the bottle periodically, a good few seconds every day or two
• 'Breathe' the mix occasionally by leaving the cap off for a few minutes, which lets off-notes escape and a little air in

Sunlight and heat degrade nicotine and flavour over time, so dark storage is not optional if you want the mix to hold up.

Steeping timings by flavour type

How long to steep DIY e-liquid depends entirely on what you have made. As a rough guide:

• Fruits and menthols: a couple of days to a week. These are bright and volatile, and over-steeping can actually dull them
• Bakery, cream and custard: two to four weeks. The heavier compounds need proper time to develop that thick, rounded body
• Tobaccos: three to four weeks and often longer, as they mellow and gain depth the more patience you give them

If a recipe tastes flat or too sharp on day one, that is usually a steeping issue, not a bad recipe. Give it the time before you write it off.

Speed-steeping methods

If you cannot wait, a warm-water bath speeds things up. Seal the bottle tightly, sit it in a bowl of warm (not hot) water for 15 to 20 minutes, then shake. Repeat as needed. The gentle warmth helps the compounds blend faster.

The catch is that heat is hardest on delicate flavours. Fruits, menthols and lighter profiles can degrade with a warm bath, so keep it brief and keep the water warm rather than scalding. Custards and tobaccos handle it far better. For the full breakdown of timings, methods and what actually works, have a look at our E-Liquid Steeping: The Complete Guide.

Cost Per Batch: Is DIY Actually Cheaper?

Yes, and by a wide margin once you buy in bulk. The upfront outlay on VG, PG and concentrates stings a little, but the cost per ml drops fast once you spread those base ingredients across a few batches. Shop-bought shortfills and salts carry the cost of bottling, branding and, from 2026, excise duty. DIY strips most of that out.

Cost breakdown per 100ml

Here is roughly where the money goes on a typical 100ml batch, mixed from bulk base and concentrate:

• VG and PG base: buy a litre of each and your base works out at pennies per 100ml
• Flavour concentrate: usually the biggest single cost, around 10% of the mix, but a 30ml bottle stretches a long way
• Nicotine: optional, and if you add it you buy compliant strengths and factor duty in separately
• Bottles and labels: a one-off cost that disappears once you reuse them

Mixed sensibly, a 100ml unflavoured or lightly flavoured batch lands well under what the same volume costs pre-mixed on the high street. The concentrate is what moves the needle, so a cheaper single-flavour recipe costs less per ml than a complex six-concentrate blend.

How vape tax changes the maths

The 2026 UK e-liquid duty widens the gap. From October 2026, GOV.UK confirms a Vaping Products Duty applies to all e-liquid at a flat 22p per ml, plus VAT on that duty. That lands on every pre-filled bottle you buy, and it lands hard on small formats.

Here is the duty impact on a shop-bought 10ml bottle:

Base10ml e-liquid bottle (pre-duty)

£1.99

DutyVaping Products Duty: 10ml x 22p

+£2.20running: £4.19

VatVAT on that duty (20% of £2.20)

+£0.44running: £4.63

TotalTotal per 10ml bottle after 2026 duty

£4.63

That is over £2.60 of tax stacked onto a bottle that cost under two quid to make. DIY concentrates and base are also caught by the duty regime where they contain nicotine, but nicotine-free bases and concentrates sit outside the per-ml liquid duty, so mixing your own keeps far more of your money in the batch and less in the tax. For the full picture on how the levy is applied and what is and is not caught, read The Vaper's Guide to UK Vape Tax (2026).

When DIY pays off

The return improves the bigger you mix. Fixed costs like bottles, a set of scales and your concentrate collection get spread thinner across more ml, so cost per ml keeps falling as batch size climbs.

• 250ml or 500ml batches of a house recipe you vape daily are where DIY genuinely earns its keep
• One-off 30ml tester mixes rarely beat shop prices once you count your time and wastage
• Nicotine-free shortfill-style bases benefit most from the duty gap, since you dodge the per-ml liquid levy entirely

If you go through a lot of one all-day flavour, DIY is comfortably cheaper than the high street and the 2026 duty only sharpens that. If you like variety and small quantities, the savings shrink and a good-value shortfill may suit you better.

Safety, Storage & UK Legal Compliance

Neat nicotine is a hazardous substance, so treat it with respect. Handled sensibly it is nothing to fear, but a splash on bare skin or a bottle left within reach of a child is exactly the kind of thing DIY safety is built to prevent.

Handling nicotine safely

The nicotine base does the concentrating, so it needs the most care in your mixing routine.

• Wear nitrile gloves whenever you handle nicotine base. It absorbs through skin, and a spill on your hands is easily avoided.
• Mix in a ventilated space. A kitchen with a window open is fine. You are not working in a lab, but you do not want to be breathing over an open bottle of high-strength base.
• Keep nicotine well away from children and pets. Store it separately from your everyday liquids, ideally in a locked or high cupboard.
• Wipe up spills immediately with paper towel, and rinse any skin contact with plenty of water.

Once your base is diluted down into a finished 3mg or 6mg mix it is far less concentrated, but the same commonsense storage still applies.

Storage, shelf life & disposal

Heat, light and air are what degrade an e-liquid, so store everything to keep those out.

• Cool and dark is the rule. A cupboard away from radiators and direct sun is ideal. Amber or opaque bottles help.
• Freebase nicotine typically lasts one to two years stored properly, and noticeably less once a bottle is opened and exposed to air. Buy nicotine base in quantities you will realistically get through.
• Watch for a colour shift. Nicotine that has gone from pale to a deep amber or brown has oxidised, and the flavour and throat hit will have dropped off.
• Dispose of old liquid responsibly. Do not pour it down the sink. Soak it into paper towel or cat litter, seal it in a bag, and check your local council guidance for household chemical waste.

Labelling and gifting rules

DIY for your own use sits in a different bracket from selling. If you mix a batch, keep a simple label on it: the strength, the VG/PG ratio, and the date you mixed it. That saves confusion when you have three shortfills on the go and cannot remember which is the 6mg.

UK rules on nicotine strength and bottle size still frame the picture here. Retail nicotine-containing e-liquid cannot exceed 20mg/ml or come in bottles over 10ml, and nicotine shots you buy to add to shortfills are capped at 20mg/ml for the same reason. When you mix at home you stay comfortably inside those strengths by diluting down to a normal vaping level.

Gifting or passing on your homemade liquid is a grey area, and anything resembling selling brings you into TRPR and notification territory that is well beyond home mixing. Keep DIY batches for your own use. For the full detail on strengths, bottle sizes and where the law draws its lines, have a look at our guide to UK Vaping Laws, Safety & Compliance.

Troubleshooting Common DIY Mixing Problems

Most DIY problems come down to three things: ratio, nicotine, or patience. Get those right and the majority of dodgy batches sort themselves out. Here is how to diagnose what has gone wrong and fix it on the next mix.

Harsh throat hit or too strong

A harsh, scratchy hit usually points at one of two culprits: too much PG or too much nicotine.

• Too much PG: PG carries throat hit. If your mix bites hard on the inhale, drop the PG and lean higher-VG on your next batch. Moving from 50/50 to 60/40 or 70/30 smooths things out noticeably.
• Nicotine too high: If the strength stings more than you expected, your maths may be off, or you have simply mixed stronger than you vape. Recalculate your target mg and mix a lower-strength batch. Remember UK-legal nicotine bases and finished e-liquid top out at 20mg/ml.
• Coil mismatch: A high-VG mix on a high-power sub-ohm coil hits harder than the same juice on a gentle MTL pod. Match the mix to the kit.

If the harshness feels dry and papery rather than sharp, that is more likely a coil issue than a mix issue. Have a read of Why Does My Vape Taste Burnt? before you blame the recipe.

Weak or muted flavour

Homemade vape juice with no flavour is nearly always one of two problems, and time fixes the first.

• Not steeped long enough: Fresh mixes taste flat and thin. Many flavours, especially custards, tobaccos and creams, need days to a couple of weeks to come together. Give it time before you write the recipe off.
• Concentrate percentage too low: If it is still muted after a proper steep, bump the flavour percentage on your next mix. Nudge it up by 1 to 2% at a time rather than doubling it.
• Over-flavoured, oddly: Too much concentrate can mute a mix as much as too little, muddying the profile into something dull. If more flavour made it worse, dial back down.
• Palate fatigue: Vape the same flavour all day and your taste buds stop registering it. Switch to a different profile for an afternoon, then come back to it.

Separation, cloudiness and 'off' taste

A freshly mixed bottle looking cloudy or showing distinct layers is completely normal before you shake it. PG, VG, nicotine and concentrates settle at different rates and need mixing back together.

• Cloudiness or layers after mixing: Shake it hard, then leave it to breathe. This nearly always clears on its own.
• Persistent cloudiness or won't blend: If it stays cloudy or grainy days later, you likely have incompatible concentrates, or a water-based flavouring fighting a heavy VG base. Some concentrates just do not play nicely together.
• 'Off' or sour taste: A genuinely bad, chemical or sour note points at oxidised nicotine (usually old or badly stored base) or a concentrate past its best. Check your nicotine base is fresh and stored cold and dark.

When in doubt, mix small test batches of 30ml before committing a big batch. It is far less frustrating to bin a small mix than a full 250ml bottle you have waited a fortnight to steep.

Prefer Not To DIY? Simpler Alternatives

Full DIY is not the only way to build a flavour you actually like. If measuring bases and weighing concentrates sounds like more faff than it's worth, there are three routes that get you most of the way there with far less kit and mess.

Mix bar services

A mix bar service lets you build a custom flavour in-store without buying a full DIY setup. You pick your base ratio, choose your concentrates, and a member of staff mixes it up on the spot, often to a preset menu of blends you can tweak. Plenty of shops around the Midlands and beyond run them, so a search for a mix bar near you (Solihull, for instance) will usually turn up a counter that does it.

What you get:

• A bespoke bottle without owning scales, bottles or concentrates
• Someone experienced steering the ratio and nic level for you
• A quick taste-test loop before you commit to a bigger batch

The trade-off is you're paying for the service and you can't fine-tune it at 2am when inspiration strikes. For a one-off custom blend, though, it's the easiest way to make custom e-liquid without any of the setup.

Shortfills and longfills

This is the middle ground, and it's where most of our customers land. A shortfill is a larger bottle of nicotine-free liquid with room left at the top for a nic shot. You add the shot, give it a shake, and you've got a full-strength batch in under a minute. A longfill works the same way but with a concentrate-heavy base you top up with more liquid, giving you a touch more control over strength and volume.

Why it works so well:

• Near-DIY flavour range without measuring anything yourself
• Just one nic shot to add, no concentrates or PG/VG bases to buy
• Ready to vape almost immediately, with any steeping already done by the maker

We run refillable pod kits day to day and sub-ohm tanks in the evenings, so we mix salts and shortfills in roughly equal measure. For most people, a good shortfill covers 90% of what DIY offers with about 10% of the effort.

Refillable pods vs full DIY kits

Refillable pods keep things dead simple while still letting you use your own liquid. You fill the pod from whatever bottle you like, be that a shortfill, a 10ml salt or your own DIY mix, and swap the coil or pod when the flavour fades. Full DIY kits, by contrast, suit hobbyists who enjoy the mixing itself and want total control over every ratio and note.

The honest split:

• Refillable pod: low fuss, portable, works with any liquid you own. Ideal if you just want to vape your chosen flavour without the workbench.
• Full DIY kit: more upfront cost and time, but complete control over flavour, ratio and cost per ml. Worth it if mixing is part of the fun.

We've seen more switchers move from big-puff disposables to refillable pods since the 2026 duty landed, and it's easy to see why: the same liquid choice, far less spend, none of the mixing admin.

Whichever route you take, the goal is the same: your flavour, your strength, on your terms. Full DIY gives you the most control, shortfills give you most of that for far less effort, and a refillable pod means you can vape whatever you've made or bought with none of the kit sat on the side.