When I first saw a vaporizer, I was walking through the streets of Lyon, France. In France, there are smokers talking out on every street corner, sipping coffee at every cafe, and hanging out on every park bench. In short, there are no shortage of smokers, and the sight becomes commonplace fairly quickly. However, I started to notice that occasionally, when I expected to smell the suffocating smell of smoke, I was hit with a lovely, fruity aroma.
Pretty soon, I noticed that these delectable scents were emanating from futuristic boxes in various colours I had absent-mindedly written off as small flasks of water or other drinks. It turned out that these “boxes” were e-cigarettes, and their owners were not smoking but vaping.
If you’ve happened to smell a particularly strong scent that seems just a bit too sharp to be perfume, you’ve probably stumbled across a vaper, as opposed to a viper. If this seems just as strange to you as it did to me, have no fear. E-Cig Brands has compiled a complete guide to vaping for beginners so vaping seems a little bit less foreign even if the baguettes still might.
Vaping for Beginners: What Is Vaping?
Vaping is tobacco-free alternative to smoking. Vaping looks like smoking. It feels like smoking. It tastes like smoking, but it’s not smoking. Instead, an electronic heating element called an atomizer vaporizes liquid until it forms a vapour you can inhale. It’s called vaping because it involves vapour and not smoke. This guide for vaping for beginners will teach you about all the equipment you need to do that and how exactly to use it.
Why Vape?
There are, of course, nicotine patches and nicotine gums that help smokers to quit gradually without going cold-turkey, but unfortunately, these don’t really resemble smoking. Smokers typically report that they feel awkward without a cigarette in their hands and that they don’t know what to do with their extra time.
Vaping looks and feels like smoking, and, in fact, you can even purchase e-liquid flavoured like tobacco. Vapers blend right in with the crowd, and in most cases, it’s impossible to tell from afar whether someone is vaping or smoking because they appear the same.
How Does Vaping Work?
Vaporizers are electronic heating elements attached to a battery that heat up when the device is turned on. When breathing in on the mouth piece, cotton wicking material whisks e-liquid from a tank onto the heating element which turns the liquid into vapour. Vaporizers can be more or less complicated, but they all make use of these essential components.
Buying the Right Vaping Products for Beginners:
If you’re already on board, that’s great, but you may be wondering now what to buy. Vaping can get incredibly complicated and even dangerous if you decide to build your own equipment, which many do. If you’re a beginner you need the right kind of equipment.
There are some mods sold by discount stores that beginners should be able to configure. However, the majority of beginners will want to start with an e-cigarette, e-cig for short, or vape pen.
Vaping for Beginners: Electronic Cigarettes
Vapour cigarettes are named as such because they look almost exactly like cigarettes, and many now even come with a carrying case that looks like a cigarette box. They have a simple eGo style battery that attaches to a cartridge containing e-liquid. All you have to do is screw the battery onto the cartridge and start puffing.
Electronic Cigarettes will either come with a manual or automatic battery. Automatic batteries begin to work as soon as you inhale while manual batteries require you to press a button when puffing. Either way, e-cigs do not have any voltage, wattage, or temperature settings to manipulate so as soon as you put it together, you’re ready to go.
ePuffer’s Magnum SNAPS come in a cute, little carrying case that resembles a real box of cigarettes but doubles as a portable charger. It can carry one e-cigarette plus an extra cartridge and battery. Even though each battery only has 120mAh, with the battery pack, you’ll always have another battery charged and ready to go. Plus, the battery comes with a glowing LED tip to resemble the burning end of a cigarette butt. ePuffer sells cartridges either with a base of e-liquid or e-shisha/hookah, the former of which is 70/30 and the latter of which is 60/40, meaning both of them will be very flavourful and pack a good punch at the back of the throat. You can order the cartridges with 0mg, 0.6mg, or 1.2mg of nicotine per ml, and each cartridge will give you about 300 beautiful puffs. For only about $60, you’ll get a portable battery pack, two batteries, a charging cable, three cartridges, and a car charger.
Disposables E-Cigarettes:
If vaping sounds cool, but you’re not quite ready to indulge in a starter kit, then you might want to check out disposable e-cigs. Disposables are single-use devices that function exactly like any other e-cigarette. They typically cost less than ten dollars a pop, and one disposable e-cig will last you about 500 puffs or about 2 packs of analogue, traditional, cigarettes. Do note though, many vapers notice that because you cannot finish an e-cigarette, it’s easy to lose track of how much you vape per day. So, even if you are used to smoking a pack per day, you may notice that you go through e-cigarettes more quickly.
ePuffer, widely known as a reputable company that caters to beginners and older vapers looking to quit smoking, also has a wonderful line of disposable e-cigarettes. You can purchase premium tobacco or menthol-flavoured cartridges or various fruity, coffee, and even shisha-flavoured e-liquid cartridges. The e-cigs themselves have a 3.7V battery and glowing orange LED tips. They are pre-charged and ready-to-go right out of the box so that all you have to do is vape.
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Vape Pens & Vape Mods:
Vape pens look more like an electronic device than a cigarette look-a-like, and they usually come in more designs and have more exciting features. Vape pens generally run on high-drain 18650 batteries if they don’t come with their own battery. While there are pens that do tend to be quite advanced, the majority of pens run on either cartomizers or cartridges. A cartridge is a small tank pre-filled with e-liquid that snaps into place right next to the atomizer, the heating element. A cartomizer combines the two into one device. Some vape pens will have basic voltage controls, and many of them will have more battery power than e-cigs.
The Pro 3 Vape from VaporFi comes in eight vibrant colours and comes with a 1000mAh battery that should last all day and even into the evening. The tank holds 2.5ml of e-juice and can be easily refilled by screwing off the top cap. Plus, with an atomizer with 2.0Ω resistance, you shouldn’t ever have to worry about taking dry hits. You can get this best-selling device for less than $50, and it’s sure to be your favourite device for vaping on the run.
Vaping for Beginners: E-Liquid
E-liquid is a mixture of propylene glycol, PG, and vegetable glycerin, VG, with flavourings and nicotine. Both PG and VG are odourless, colourless liquids that produce a vapour when heated. The flavourings are suspended in PG, which is also responsible for the hits at the back of the throat. VG is considerably thicker, and so vape juices created with VG are going to have a smooth feeling at the back of the throat. Different blends of PG and VG create different effects, but as a beginner, you should probably stick with 50/50 or 60/40 until you become more familiar with the terminology.
Vape juice also comes in different flavours. Beginners who are trying to quit smoking usually like a tobacco- or menthol-flavoured e-juice, but you can find all sorts of flavours. There are vape juices that taste like mango or passion fruit, vape juices that taste like mocha or hazelnut, and even vape juices that taste like cotton candy and ice cream. If you can eat it, chances are you can vape it! South Beach Smoke even allows you to mix up your own e-juice blends.
Do note though that if your vaporizer comes with cartridges, you will have to purchase new cartridges. E-juice is sold in bottles and cartridges. If you have a cartomizer or tank, then you can just refill the tank, but cartridges are disposable.
Vaping for Beginners: Accessories
E-Cigarettes come with all sorts of accessories. You can get a stylish carrying case or lanyard or maybe even a cool battery charger, but the most important accessory in any vaporizer is the battery. The majority of beginner’s devices come with a battery included especially if the battery is part of the design. However, if your device runs on 18650 batteries, you’re going to want to shop around for a nice, strong battery. Batteries are measured in wattages and amperes. MaH, or milliampere hours, tell you how long the battery will last and the wattage will tell you how powerful it will be.
We don’t want to get into Ohm’s law here and the technical details involved in choosing a battery. However, you should know a few basics. First of all, a battery is either long-lasting or powerful, but what allows it to be one prevents it from being the latter. Sony, LG, and Samsung are the major producers of 18650 batteries, so make sure to only buy a battery if it has one of their names listed on it. Loads of companies will buy large quantities of batteries that failed to pass company standards and rewrap them with their logo. They generally exaggerate the battery’s capabilities and don’t subject them to proper scrutiny.
How to Use Vaping to Become Nicotine-Free?
Even though vaping won’t destroy your lungs, many of the e-liquids still come with nicotine for those who are addicted. You can, however, reduce your intake over time by purchasing e-liquids with lower nicotine concentrations. Average pack-a-day smokers should probably start with 1.8 mg/ml and slowly reduce from there. If you feel as if you need to customize your nicotine intake, then you can purchase two bottles of e-juice with different nicotine concentrations and mix them together. Either way, thousands of vapers have weaned themselves off of nicotine entirely with vaporizers.
Conclusion
Vaping is the perfect, not to mention trendy, way to quit smoking, and on top of all that, there are plenty of options from which to choose. If you want, you can even find vaporizers that come with metallic rainbow designs on the side. If you have any questions, then feel free to peruse the articles on E-Cig Brands to find everything you need to know about vaping. We hope you enjoyed our guide to vaping for beginners, but don’t take our word for it. Go out and try it yourself!