One of the best developments in vaping over the past few years is that solid vape starter kits have dropped dramatically in price. There’s no need to buy a cheap – and most likely not very good – disposable e-cigarette if you’re looking for an affordable introduction to vaping when a full e-cigarette starter kit costs only a few dollars more. If you’re a smoker, then, you really have very little to lose by giving vaping a try. The worst-case scenario is that you might decide you don’t enjoy vaping very much. The best-case scenario is that the decision might change your life forever.
If your initial reaction to vaping is that you’re not sure whether you like it, though, there are simple explanations for why you might feel that way. Knowing about some of the common situations that new vapers encounter – and understanding how to handle those situations – can help to guarantee that your experience with vaping will be a great one.
So, what’s it like to switch to vaping? Let’s examine the four most common pitfalls and explain how you can avoid them.
You Might Inhale Incorrectly
One of the biggest potential pitfalls of vaping is that you might start out by inhaling incorrectly because vaping requires much less air pressure than smoking a cigarette.
The cigarette really is a marvel of engineering. The “gunpowder rings” in the paper, for example, regulate the rate at which the cigarette burns. If you don’t puff, the cigarette burns down on its own. If you puff gently, the paper burns slowly. If you puff firmly, the paper burns quickly – and you get more smoke. As a smoker, you’ve trained yourself to puff firmly and quickly when you’re in a hurry and want to extract the nicotine in the most efficient way possible.
That, however, doesn’t work when you vape.
An e-cigarette doesn’t increase its power or produce more vapor when you puff more firmly. In fact, puffing too firmly can cause e-liquid to enter the air tube of your e-cigarette’s cartridge or pod. If you keep it up, you’ll get juice in your mouth!
When you vape, you should inhale only as firmly as is necessary to get your device’s indicator light to turn on. If you want bigger, more satisfying vapor clouds, take longer and deeper puffs – but always inhale with only moderate air pressure.
You Might Still Experience Cigarette Cravings
Vaping looks like smoking, and it also feels much the same as smoking. It also delivers nicotine to the body, which might make you think that vaping is a one-to-one replacement for cigarettes. It isn’t exactly that, though, because while vaping does replace the nicotine in cigarettes, it doesn’t replace the thousands of other chemicals in cigarette smoke. While those chemicals may not be addictive in the way that nicotine is, your body is still accustomed to receiving a steady supply of them.
When you initially switch from smoking to vaping, you’re likely to experience strong cravings for cigarettes for the first few days. Make sure that the nicotine strength of your e-liquid is sufficiently high to help you overcome those cravings. Don’t be too angry with yourself if you happen to break down and smoke a cigarette during your transition to vaping. For the best chance of success, though, make the commitment that you’re going to stop smoking when you start vaping. If you vape and smoke concurrently, you will find it more difficult to switch to vaping full time.
You Might Not Love Your First E-Liquid
If you’re certain that you want to use a tobacco-flavored e-liquid, you might want to choose an e-cigarette brand that has several different tobacco flavors available because you might not love the first one you try. A tobacco e-liquid can definitely satisfy the palate in a way that’s very reminiscent of real tobacco, but an e-liquid’s flavor profile comes from food flavorings – not from tobacco. An e-liquid, therefore, can never taste exactly like a cigarette.
You’re most likely to enjoy vaping if you try as many different e-liquid flavors as possible. There are literally hundreds of different e-liquid flavors in the world, and since vape juice makers use the same flavoring agents that food and snack makers use, e-liquids with fruity, candy and dessert flavors often taste very true to life.
There is definitely an e-liquid flavor out there that’s absolutely perfect for you, and the only way to discover it is through experimentation. Until you find that flavor, try something new every time you buy e-liquid.
You Might Buy the Wrong Vaping Device
The smallest vaping devices such as those from companies like V2 E-Cigarettes UK, may not look fancy, but they’re almost always the best devices for beginners. If a device is tiny and highly pocketable and contains a high concentration of nicotine, it’s probably exactly what you want when you’re making the switch to vaping.
If you buy your first vaping device from a brick-and-mortar vape shop, you’re likely to see some vape kits that look pretty elaborate. You can find vape mods made from exotic materials like carbon fiber, stabilized wood and polished stainless steel. Although those devices admittedly look great, they’re generally wrong for beginners.
The reason why beginning vapers usually shouldn’t start with high-end vape kits is because those devices produce extremely large vapor clouds and are designed to work with low-nicotine e-liquids. When people use large vaping devices with low-nicotine e-liquids, they inhale the vapor directly into their lungs and feel almost no throat hit.
That, however, isn’t what you want when you’re new to vaping.
For a new vaper, the ideal vaping setup is usually a small vaping device paired with a high-nicotine e-liquid. A small vaping device is designed for inhalation from the mouth to the lungs. that’s how you inhale when you smoke a cigarette, and that’s how you’ll feel a satisfying, assertive throat hit that feels like smoking.
When you’re shopping for your first vaping device, it’s best to avoid the fancy, expensive kits. You’ll have plenty of time to experiment with those later. For your first device, though, choose something that looks simple and has plenty of nicotine.
