Freebase Nicotine Strength Guide

Why I Switched from Shortfills to Mixing My Own Vape Juice (And What It Actually Saved Me)

For years I was a shortfill loyalist. Grab a 100ml bottle, snap in a nic shot, give it a shake, and you're vaping for the next week or two. Easy. No thinking required. My go-to was always a 80VG/20PG mix — that's what most of the shortfills I was buying came as, and it suited my setup perfectly. Decent flavour, big clouds, smooth inhale. Then one day I sat down and actually added up what I was spending every month, and that's when things started to change.

The Moment It Clicked

I'd just picked up three shortfills in one trip — nothing unusual, just my normal restock. The total came to about £35. Standing at the till, it suddenly felt like a lot for what is essentially flavoured liquid in a plastic bottle. That stopped me in my tracks. I started wondering: how much of that £35 was actually the e-liquid itself, versus the convenience of having someone else mix it, bottle it, and put a nice label on it?

So I did some digging. Turns out shortfills are mostly PG/VG base with flavouring already added, sold in a 70-80ml bottle with space left for a single nic shot. The actual cost of the base liquid (PG and VG) is genuinely pennies. The flavourings add a bit more, but even premium concentrates work out far cheaper per ml when you buy them in bulk rather than pre-mixed.

That's when I went down the DIY mixing rabbit hole.

Freebase vs Nic Salts — Why I Chose Freebase

One of the first decisions you'll hit when mixing your own is whether to go with freebase nicotine or nicotine salts. For me, freebase was the obvious choice — and it comes down to what I was actually trying to achieve.

I wanted to reduce my nicotine intake gradually, and freebase gives you that distinct cigarette-like throat hit — that "kick" at the back of the throat that tells your brain you've had your nicotine. Even at lower strengths like 3mg, freebase still delivers enough of that sensation to feel satisfying. That feedback loop is genuinely useful when you're trying to step down, because you're not tempted to chain-vape just to feel something.

Nic salts work differently. They're processed with benzoic acid, which makes the nicotine smoother and less harsh — meaning you can vape much higher strengths (typically 10-20mg) without it tearing your throat apart. That's brilliant if you're a heavy smoker switching to vaping for the first time and you need a serious nicotine hit from a small pod device. But for someone like me who was already on low-strength freebase and actively trying to taper down, nic salts would have been a step in the wrong direction — too smooth, too easy to over-consume without realising.

So freebase it was. I matched my mixing to the same 20PG/80VG ratio I'd been using in shortfills, kept the nicotine at 3mg, and the transition was seamless. Same vape experience, fraction of the cost.

Working Out the Real Cost Savings

The savings add up fast if you vape regularly. Here's roughly how the maths played out for me.

Buying shortfills (my old routine): A decent 100ml shortfill typically cost me somewhere in the £10-15 range, depending on the brand and any deals running. I was getting through two or three of these a month. That's somewhere between £20-45 a month just on e-liquid, before even factoring in nic shots, which usually came as a single 10ml shot per shortfill at a couple of quid each.

Mixing my own: Once I started buying base liquids (PG and VG) in 1-litre bottles, flavour concentrates in 30-100ml bottles, and freebase nicotine base separately, the per-ml cost dropped dramatically. A litre of VG and a litre of PG between them cost less than a single shortfill, and that's enough base for litres and litres of finished juice. Flavour concentrates are usually used at around 8-15% depending on the brand, so even a 30ml bottle of concentrate goes a surprisingly long way — often enough flavouring for 200-300ml of finished e-liquid.

When I actually broke it down per 100ml of finished juice, the cost dropped to roughly £0.80-£0.90 when buying flavour concentrates that were on sale, depending on the flavour concentrates I use and how much I buy at a time (buying bigger bottles of PG/VG and concentrate in bulk pushes the cost towards the lower end). Compare that to around £12-£15 for a ready-mixed 100ml shortfill plus the nic shot to go with it, and the difference is stark — even at the higher end of my mixing costs, I'm paying roughly a tenth of the shop price. Over a year, for someone vaping at a similar rate to me, that easily adds up to quite a considerable saving — for doing maybe 10 minutes of mixing every couple of weeks.

The other thing nobody really mentions is that buying in bulk means you stop running out at inconvenient times. No more emergency trips to the vape shop because you've run dry on a Sunday evening.

The Equipment You Actually Need

This is where I think a lot of people get put off — they imagine it's like running a chemistry lab. It's really not. Here's what I actually use:

• PG (Propylene Glycol) and VG (Vegetable Glycerine) – sold in 1L or 5L bottles. These form the base of your juice and affect throat hit (PG) and vapour production (VG). I mix at 20PG/80VG to match what I was used to from shortfills — plenty of cloud with just enough PG to carry the flavour.
• Freebase nicotine base – I use a 72mg/ml VG-based nicotine concentrate. At 3mg target strength, a small amount goes a long way. Freebase gives me the throat hit I want and lets me control exactly how much nicotine goes into each batch. If you're after a smoother experience at higher strengths (10-20mg), nicotine salts are the better option — they're designed for that range and work particularly well in low-power pod devices.
• Flavour concentrates – the fun part. There are hundreds of brands and flavours, and this is really where the personalisation comes in.
• Empty bottles – I use a mix of 100ml and 120ml unicorn-style bottles (the ones with the nozzle tip) for mixing and storage.
• Digital scales – Genuinely useful if you want more precise mixes, since liquids have different densities and weighing is often more accurate than measuring by volume, especially for small amounts.
• Nitrile gloves and safety glasses – particularly important when handling concentrated nicotine. Worth taking seriously, not just a "nice to have."
• Labels and a marker – so you don't end up with a drawer full of mystery bottles (speaking from experience).
• A small funnel and some paper wipes – for decanting PG/VG into smaller bottles. Spills happen, especially early on, and VG in particular is sticky stuff once it gets on a worktop.
• Syringes – If you don't have digital scales, these plastic, blunt-tip syringes in a few sizes (1ml, 5ml, 10ml) for accurately measuring PG, VG, and concentrates are necessary. These are honestly the most important bit of kit — accuracy matters, especially with nicotine.

Total startup cost for the equipment side was modest — most of it is one-off, and things like scales, syringes and bottles last ages if you look after them.

The "Steep Time" Learning Curve

One thing I wasn't expecting: freshly mixed juice often needs time to "steep" — basically resting for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the flavour, so the ingredients can blend properly. My first few batches tasted a bit thin or harsh straight away, and I nearly wrote the whole thing off. Patience fixed that. Now I just mix in batches and always have something steeping in the cupboard while I'm vaping through the previous batch.

Was It Worth It?

For me, yes — easily. The cost savings were the initial draw, but honestly the bigger win has been control. I can dial in exactly the 20/80 PG/VG ratio that suits my setup, adjust nicotine strength precisely as I continue stepping down, and tweak flavours to actually suit my taste rather than picking from whatever's on the shelf. Sticking with freebase means I still get that satisfying throat hit even at lower strengths — something that'd disappear entirely if I switched to nic salts.

If you're someone who gets through e-liquid regularly and you don't mind a small bit of upfront learning (and the occasional dodgy-tasting test batch), the numbers genuinely stack up.

If you want to play around with your own PG/VG ratios, nicotine strengths, or work out how much concentrate you need for a target steep volume, the calculator above does the maths for you — it supports both freebase and nic salt calculations, so whatever your preference, it's handy for figuring out exactly how much of each ingredient to grab before you start mixing.