# Selling Your own vape juice



## Morne Delport (16/4/17)

Hey guys, I've been making my own juices for a while now and I'm thinking of starting my own juice line on the side, to make some extra cash. But I'm not sure what the legal issues would be for selling my own juices? Does anyone know what legalities I should be aware of?

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## zandernwn (19/4/17)

There are no legal issues. My advice is as follow:

1.) Keep it clean: no one is watching you, but take pride. Create a sterile environment, use gloves, hair nets etc to make sure you offer a product that is safe.
2.) Quality recipes: give your clients a recipes that justifies the money they will spend. You are not going to make money off single flavor recipes and you will get a lot of flack wherever you try market them
3. Be original: I, personally have an issue with people stealing recipes and selling it off as their own. You will not be successful.selling clones and no vendor will take you on one day (they know their shit)
4. Price reasonably: I do not believe you should be selling a 30ml bottle for more that R80. Especially not if you selling it in wespack 30ml drip tip bottles. Be fair with your price and you will get a fair return and repeat business
5. Be open: you need to be 100% open that this is a diy line and under what conditions it is prepared. You client need to know exactly what they can expect and that it is not mixed under clean room conditions.
6. Steep your juice: asking R80 for an unsteeped juice is bad style. Do.it properly.
7. Don't f#ckup up the market: don't do this industry more harm. Many bathtub mixers are doing this. The push kak juice into the market, hardly make any money and makes it more and more difficult for legit DIYers to sell good juice. They taint the market so badly that no one is interested in buying diy juice, and there are DIY guys that make juice that will stand up to any commercial variant (most start off that way) 

So keep it fair, safe and make it worth everyone's while

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## zandernwn (19/4/17)

And be careful... if you push a 36mgml juice out to someone by accident and the suffer harm, you will be held liable and you may face dire consequences.

Lastly test your juice. Don't send you stuff out believe the nic is perfect or because you have made it 100s of times it will be the same. Produce an around quality product

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## NankeS (26/1/19)

zandernwn said:


> There are no legal issues. My advice is as follow:
> 
> 1.) Keep it clean: no one is watching you, but take pride. Create a sterile environment, use gloves, hair nets etc to make sure you offer a product that is safe.
> 2.) Quality recipes: give your clients a recipes that justifies the money they will spend. You are not going to make money off single flavor recipes and you will get a lot of flack wherever you try market them
> ...


Hi. 
Thanks for the response and advice on selling ones own vape juice. Just wanna ask what would you consider as good steeping like mentioned in point 6. Made vape juice the 24th of January. Been shaking and giving it a WARM bath everyday since I created it. Planning on doing that for a week...Do you think that “enough” or good?

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## Hooked (27/1/19)

Morne Delport

Even if it's DIY the presentation must look professional. Have stick-on labels printed for your bottles (it's not that expensive).
The label *must* show the nic strength and it *must* have warnings:
Keep away from children and pets
Do not use if pregnant or breast-feeding
Do not ingest

All vapers know these things, but a new vaper might not. Besides, the warning covers your ....

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## Paul33 (27/1/19)

Hooked said:


> Morne Delport
> 
> Even if it's DIY the presentation must look professional. Have stick-on labels printed for your bottles (it's not that expensive).
> The label *must* show the nic strength and it *must* have warnings:
> ...


I feel bad now that I didn’t print a label for you

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## Hooked (27/1/19)

Paul33 said:


> I feel bad now that I didn’t print a label for you



Oh no please don't feel bad @Paul33. You know me, even if it's only from the forum, so in that case it doesn't matter at all. But if one sells DIY to strangers, I think it should have a printed label.

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## Paul33 (27/1/19)

Hooked said:


> Oh no please don't feel bad @Paul33. You know me, even if it's only from the forum, so in that case it doesn't matter at all. But if one sells DIY to strangers, I think it should have a printed label.


I was just teasing. 

I agree. Selling to anyone outside your circle should come with the necessary warnings and info etc.

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## Paul33 (27/1/19)

Plus a printed label looks good and like you put some effort into it.

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## NankeS (27/1/19)

I was referring to the steeping...

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## RichJB (27/1/19)

There will be different individual views on this but I would not want to buy juice that had been artificially steeped. I don't do it to my own juice, I wouldn't do it to juice for others. 

If someone is selling juice, I would expect that juice to be ready before they offer it for sale. If they are making a custard or tobacco that takes a month to steep properly, the onus is on them to steep it for the required time, the onus isn't on me to accept an artificially steeped juice.

If I mixed some juice and gave it to an acquaintance without having time to steep it before meeting them, I'd advise them that it isn't fully steeped and give them an indication of how long they should wait before vaping it. But that is giving away juice. Selling is different.

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## zandernwn (30/1/19)

NankeS said:


> Hi.
> Thanks for the response and advice on selling ones own vape juice. Just wanna ask what would you consider as good steeping like mentioned in point 6. Made vape juice the 24th of January. Been shaking and giving it a WARM bath everyday since I created it. Planning on doing that for a week...Do you think that “enough” or good?


Well it is entirely profile dependant. Some recioes are good off the shake. Others like tobaccos and complex layered recipes may require up to a 6 weeks. 

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## NankeS (30/1/19)

I seriously SUCK at mixing my own. (Jumps off a cliff)

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## zandernwn (30/1/19)

We all did when we started. Hang in there

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## NankeS (1/2/19)

Quick question...I’m looking at some recipes online. They would for instance say;
Concentrate A 2%
Concentrate B 4%
Concentrate C 5%
And that’s ALL they say. 

That percentages go into how much ml’s of juice?

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## Paul33 (1/2/19)

NankeS said:


> Quick question...I’m looking at some recipes online. They would for instance say;
> Concentrate A 2%
> Concentrate B 4%
> Concentrate C 5%
> ...


It depends on how much you’re making. 

You decide on your Nic strength and VG/of ratio so all you need to know is the % of concentrate going into the juice. Make sense?

So concentrate A at 2% would be 2ml if you’re making 100ml, 1ml if you’re making 50ml. 

Hope that helps. Ask if you need more help.

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## Hooked (1/2/19)

@Paul33 I also want to try DIY soon but need to check my understanding.

Example:
I want to make 100ml.
Concentrate A is 2% = 2ml
Concentrate B is 1% = 1ml
No problem understanding that.

Now, I want a 60/40 VG/PG. To convert 60% VG to ml I assume that I must calculate 60% of the remaining 97ml? Or is it 60% of 100ml?

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## Silver (1/2/19)

Hooked said:


> @Paul33 I also want to try DIY soon but need to check my understanding.
> 
> Example:
> I want to make 100ml.
> ...



Its 60% of 100ml (i.e. of the full volume)

@Hooked - the concentrates are usually PG
So in your example above, concentrate A and B are contributing 3ml of PG to the mix
So if you used VG nic and only VG base to make up the 100ml, you would end up with 97% VG

If you want 60 VG, and lets say you are not using nic - i.e making a zero nic juice, you would add 37ml of PG and 60ml of VG

The end mix would have 40PG (3 from the flavour concentrates and 37 from the added PG). And it would have 60% VG from the 60ml VG you added.

*Things get a little more complicated when you need nic* - beause lets say you are using 36mg PG nic and you want a 3mg final nic strength. Then you need to add about 8.3% of the total volume as the nic. (8.3% of 36mg is 3mg.) So you need 8.3ml of the PG nic. That would mean that out of the 100ml final juice, 8.3ml is 36mg nic, so the final strength is 8.3/100 x 36 or 3mg.

So your 100ml is looking like this so far

concentrates - 3ml (all PG)
nic - 8.3ml (PG) - to get you to 3mg strength
i.e. we are on 11.3ml (all PG so far)

Now you need to get the PG up to 40% or 40ml - we are on 11.3ml, so we need to add 28.7ml of plain PG to get the PG up to 40% or 40ml. Convenient that your bottle size is 100ml, makes the calculations easy.

Then you just need 60ml of VG to make up the 100ml - and get your 60/40 VG/PG ratio.

So the final ingredients would be

concentrates - 3ml (all PG)
nic - 8.3ml (PG) - to get you to 3mg strength
PG - 28.7ml
VG - 60ml

You asked do you use 60% of the full 100ml - the answer is yes - the final 100ml juice must have 60ml of VG in it.

When you use a calculator program - it makes it easy because you enter in each ingredient and whether its PG or VG - and then your nic - and the final nic strength you want - and it spits out the answers like we calculated above. In your example you used a 100ml bottle which makes it easy - but the calcs are a bit less intuitive when using other bottle sizes - and thats what makes the calculator program so useful.

Does help though to understand how its done so you can check it too.

Hope that makes sense?

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## Paul33 (1/2/19)

Silver said:


> Its 60% of 100ml (i.e. of the full volume)
> 
> @Hooked - the concentrates are usually PG
> So in your example above, concentrate A and B are contributing 3ml of PG to the mix
> ...


What @Silver said

I use ELR for my calculations. 

It’s so easy. Put in your concentrates, choose your Nic strength, input your pg and vg target levels and it works the rest out for you. 

For example:




The final output gives you mls and grams so it really takes the thinkin goit of things. 

Let me know when you ready to diy and I’ll walk you through it. It’s super duper easy and fun.

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## Deemo (1/2/19)

Good day @ Paul and Silver,

Love your explanation and it makes 100% more sense for our noobs.

I have been mixing a few recipes using ELR and it is just brilliant, i have also listed all my flavours and makes as it brings it up automatically.
What i gathered and grasped from this topic is that steeping is very important especially with tobacco type flavours, custards and i assume alcohol type flavours like absinth etc. I tried reading up more on this every time i get a change to understand steeping, streathing and breathing better. Question is what types needs what type of the before mentioned?

Also how does saline and citric acids help popping the flavours eg fruits and at what percentages would it be suggested if any?

I also mainly use FA/TFA, Cap and a few clyrolinx flavours as it seems to be the most tried and tested concentrates. Flavorah has a good recipe book but flavours available in SA is so few. I mainly use BLCK vapour as a supplier and placed an order with flavour world as well as their home brands and hoping for the best. This is such a fascinating process and i love the end result even if it is bad, i try to see where the short falls are and better on it, also reading what is on the forums here is so inspiring.

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## Hooked (1/2/19)

Silver said:


> Its 60% of 100ml (i.e. of the full volume)
> 
> @Hooked - the concentrates are usually PG
> So in your example above, concentrate A and B are contributing 3ml of PG to the mix
> ...



Thanks so much for the detailed explanation @Silver - much appreciated! I'm glad that you've explained it so well because I would never have thought of taking the PG in the concentrate into consideration etc. If I'd used a calculation program I would have thought *it* is wrong (not me, of course not .. I'm never wrong!)

Now I (think) I understand the theory behind it all, but I will definitely use a calculation program when the time comes!

EDIT: I tagged Paul33 instead of @Silver - oops, sorry!

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## Hooked (1/2/19)

Paul33 said:


> What @Silver said
> 
> I use ELR for my calculations.
> 
> ...



Thanks soooo much @Paul33 !

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## Lawrence A (2/2/19)

Deemo said:


> Good day @ Paul and Silver,
> 
> Love your explanation and it makes 100% more sense for our noobs.
> 
> ...



In my opinion, when it comes to the whole steeping/streathing/breathing/magnetic stirrer/holding next to a warm unicorn etc etc, you shouldn't break your head over it. Simply mix the ingredients together, give the bottle a good shake and toss it in a dark cupboard and let TIME do the rest.

I have not played around with saline or things like malic or citric acid and I can't say I feel like I have missed out on anything.... there are so many quality recipes out there that don't make any use of them that I don't see them being something that is needed.

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## Silver (2/2/19)

Hooked said:


> Thanks so much for the detailed explanation @Silver - much appreciated! I'm glad that you've explained it so well because I would never have thought of taking the PG in the concentrate into consideration etc. If I'd used a calculation program I would have thought *it* is wrong (not me, of course not .. I'm never wrong!)
> 
> Now I (think) I understand the theory behind it all, but I will definitely use a calculation program when the time comes!
> 
> ...



Pleasure @Hooked
Glad it helped

Other than the recipe - there are two dimensions to get right in your juice. One is the PG/VG ratio and the other is the nic strength. It's not difficult, if you can add and divide then you can work out these mixes to get you where you want to be. 

If you are out a little bit with the nic and the PG/VG its not a big problem. I think the more important thing is not being too far out on the concentrate percentages as per the recipe.

I am comfortable working out the percentages and the mix strength etc - but as for the recipe and knowing what flavours to put in to create my own recipes - I am far behind

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## Hooked (4/2/19)

Silver said:


> Pleasure @Hooked
> Glad it helped
> 
> Other than the recipe - there are two dimensions to get right in your juice. One is the PG/VG ratio and the other is the nic strength. It's not difficult, if you can add and divide then you can work out these mixes to get you where you want to be.
> ...



@Silver I'm going to go v-e-r-y slowly with this new learning curve. First, I've bought a few one-shots to mix. When I've done those I'll venture into proper DIY with published recipes. Then, I might change the published recipes slightly to put my own slant on them. Finally, I'll try to create my own recipe!

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## meganshaw754 (13/6/20)

zandernwn said:


> There are no legal issues. My advice is as follow:
> 
> 1.) Keep it clean: no one is watching you, but take pride. Create a sterile environment, use gloves, hair nets etc to make sure you offer a product that is safe.
> 2.) Quality recipes: give your clients a recipes that justifies the money they will spend. You are not going to make money off single flavor recipes and you will get a lot of flack wherever you try market them
> ...



Will I be able to sell my juice through a legit store, I do t have my own, if it's made in my kitchen? As long as the area is sterile?


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## meganshaw754 (13/6/20)

NankeS said:


> Quick question...I’m looking at some recipes online. They would for instance say;
> Concentrate A 2%
> Concentrate B 4%
> Concentrate C 5%
> ...


E-liquid Recipes website has a calculator you should use.

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