How Do PG & VG Affect Your Vaping Experience?

Welcome back Vape Buddies. As promised, today we are going to delve a little deeper into the world of eliquid. This time we are going to explore how the two of the main ejuice components of PG (Propylene Glycol) and VG (Vegetable Glycerine) affect your vape experience and also how they affect the lifespan of your atomisation and eCig device.

OK let's start with......

Vapour vs. Throat Hit

The first two things that concern most people when trying to figure out what blend of PG/VG they should buy is the balance they might wish to  achieve between vapour production and throat hit.

• Throat hit- That's that amazing pop or hit you get at the back of your throat and top of your chest when you inhale. If you want a stronger throat hit its a larger percentage of Propylene Glycol you want..
• Vapour- If your thing is to have bellowing clouds of vapour that swim around your head, then you'll want a higher percentage of Vegetable Glycerine..

The trade off doesn't end there, though... because they also have an effect on taste.....

Sweet vs. Flavourful

Vegetable Glycerine is sweeter than Propylene Glycol and tends to dull other flavours. This sweetness is fine for dessert flavoured eliquids, which should be sweet anyway, but for other flavours you may want to go with a blend that favours PG because it gives a cleaner taste with little to no distortion.

At first when vaping it is ALL about the hit and flavour profile, but as time goes by there will be other factors that come into the equation. VG and PG have an effect on your hardware and this could mean more work in caring for your product or more expense in renewing parts. You will still be spending less vaping that you would have done with that other thing but in the end, we all look for ways to manage our costs so lets look at how these components affect our.....

Coils and Wicks

The last major difference that these two present is that VG, because it is thicker and more viscous is absorbed by the wick much more slowy... because of this thick gooeyness it tends to gunk up your electronic cigarette much faster. Naturally then this will mean that using a liquid that is 100% or a high percentage of VG creates a situation where you will have to clean your hardware more often perform more frequent rebuilds or replacements of wicks and coils.

There is nothing for free in the world. Everything is a trade off..... in the eCig world this is one of the hardest balances to find. 

If you want clouds of vapour, were born with a sweet tooth and don't want a great deal of throat hit, then eliquids that have a high percentage of VG are going to be just right for you and the trade off for this is having to rebuild or replace coils and wicks a litle more often.... 

If you crave a strong throat hit, pure, a clean taste and hate cleaning your e-cig then you will need to stay more on the side of having a higher percentage of PG. This does not mean though that no cleaning or maintenance or replacement of parts are needed.... just a little less...

As a general rule, I don't recommend going past the 70/30 or 30/70 blends in either direction unless you have an allergy problem. It is rare but it does happen and so would definitely need to be taken into account when making liquid choices... actually with an allergy there is no choice to make...If you do find you are sensitive to one of them it is more likely to be with the PG element and if this were the case you will have to go with a 100% VG liquid. 

In my experience most vapers will find that the vape experience they crave will be found somewhere in the 70/30 or 60/40 blend range provides us with that good balance of throat hit and vapour clouds, the right depth and intensity of of flavour.....we know we must invest time and a little money too in keeping our kit in the best order because we recognise that to neglect that is cutting corners and will lessen our enjoyment. 

I hope I have helped in these two blogs exploring the properties of PG and VG that I have been able to spread a little light...  as always your questions and comments and experiences are more than welcomed.

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