DIY e-liquid kit | The checklist before you buy

On the product page, everything looks sorted. Base, a box of nicotine shots, a handful of bottles and syringes, sometimes a few concentrates, all under one name. What the page rarely shows is whether those quantities actually fit together for the recipe you have in mind. Before you buy a DIY e-liquid kit, a handful of checks tells you whether it will work as it is or need topping up on day one. The trick is knowing which checks to make.

What a DIY e-liquid kit needs to be usable

A usable DIY e-liquid kit brings together a base, nicotine shots if you want nicotine, bottles with enough room for the concentrate, and a way to measure accurately. Labels and gloves complete it. Concentrates are optional, since many mixers already have their own.

In practice, UK kits fall into two families. Ingredient kits bundle base, shots and sometimes concentrates. Accessory kits bundle the tools, syringes, bottles, beakers, labels and gloves. Neither family always covers the whole list, which is why reading the contents matters more than the name on the box.

Two kinds of kit, and what each leaves out

The two families cover opposite halves of a mixing session. Looking at one real example of each shows where the gaps usually are.

An ingredient kit

Vampire Vape’s Large E-liquid DIY Kit lists two 250 ml bottles of VG or PG, a box of twenty 18 mg nicotine shots, 10 ml, 5 ml and 2 ml syringes, a blunt needle tip, ten empty 10 ml bottles, ten empty 30 ml bottles and four flavour concentrates totalling around 120 ml. Gloves and labels are not on the list.

An accessory kit

Make My Vape’s medium DIY Mixing Accessory Kit takes the opposite approach. It contains 1 ml, 5 ml and 10 ml syringes, a needle, three 10 ml bottles, a 60 ml bottle, three adhesive labels, a pair of mixing gloves, a 10 ml measuring cylinder and a 100 ml beaker. No base, no shots, no concentrate.

The maths that checks a kit’s nicotine

UK shots are 10 ml bottles capped at 20 mg/ml by the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016, and 18 mg/ml shots are common. The nicotine strength follows the formula used across this site, shot strength multiplied by shot volume, divided by the final volume.

A useful rule of thumb follows from it. At 3 mg/ml, one 18 mg/ml shot covers 60 ml of finished liquid (18 × 10 ÷ 3), and one 20 mg/ml shot covers about 67 ml.

A kit’s advice can be checked the same way. A starter kit suggesting four shots per 250 ml for 3 mg gives 4 × 10 × 18 ÷ 250 = 2.88 mg/ml with 18 mg shots, or 3.2 mg/ml with 20 mg shots.

Base and shots do not have to run out together, either. In the large kit above, 500 ml of base and around 120 ml of concentrate would take just over twelve 18 mg shots to reach 3 mg/ml, for roughly 744 ml of liquid, leaving the rest of the box in storage.

Room in the bottle for the shot and the concentrate

The bottles in a DIY e-liquid kit decide how you measure. A 60 ml bottle at 3 mg/ml takes exactly one 18 mg shot, which is the basis of our worked Red Astaire concentrate recipe. A 30 ml bottle at the same strength needs only half a shot, 5 ml (3 × 30 ÷ 18), which has to be measured by syringe or weighed, at about 5.75 g for a 50/50 shot.

The concentrate needs space too. For a 30 ml bottle at 20 %, it takes 6 ml, leaving 19 ml for base once the 5 ml of shot is in. Always fill a bottle to its shoulder rather than its neck, so it can be shaken properly.

Some flavour starter kits skip measuring altogether and tell you to top the bottle up to the shoulder with VG for an 80VG/20PG ratio. That settles the ratio, but the final volume, and therefore the nicotine strength, then depends on how far the bottle is filled. Measure the top-up once and write it down.

What kits often leave out

The final check is the contents list itself. Several things a proper workstation needs are missing from many kits, and it is better to know before the first session.

Gloves and labels

Neither the ingredient kit above nor a flavour starter kit we read lists gloves or labels. Only the accessory kit includes them. Nicotine shots should be handled with gloves on, and every bottle deserves a label, so budget for both if your kit has none.

A scale

None of the kits we read includes a precision scale. Syringes do the job for small volumes of concentrate, but base and shots are easier to measure by weight, as our workstation guide explains.

The checklist before you buy a DIY e-liquid kit

Run through these points on the product page, in this order:

The number of shots, their strength (18 or 20 mg/ml) and their ratio.
The volume of base supplied, and whether it is VG, PG or a premix.
How far the shots go at your target strength, using the 60 ml per 18 mg shot rule at 3 mg/ml.
The size of the empty bottles, and whether they leave room for concentrate and shaking.
The concentrate rate your flavours need, and whether the bottle space covers it.
What is missing, gloves, labels, syringes or a scale.

FAQ

These are the questions that come up most once a kit has arrived.

Can I buy a kit with nicotine already in the base?

Not in the UK. Nicotine-containing liquid can only be sold in bottles of 10 ml or less, so every large base is nicotine free and nicotine arrives in 10 ml shots.

Do the shots have to match the base ratio?

No, but they count in the final mix. A 50/50 shot poured into a VG heavy base lowers its VG share, so include the shot when you work out the finished ratio.

Can I use more shots than the kit suggests?

Yes, if the bottle has room. Two 18 mg shots in a 60 ml bottle give 2 × 10 × 18 ÷ 60 = 6 mg/ml, but they take up 20 ml and leave only 40 ml for base and concentrate.

Should the shots be mixed into the base before the concentrate?

It helps. Shaking the base and shots first spreads the nicotine evenly, then the concentrate goes in at its calculated volume and the bottle is shaken again.

Where should kit shots be kept before use?

Like any nicotine shot, in their original packaging, inside a closed box stored high up or locked away, out of light and heat and apart from food.

Choosing a DIY e-liquid kit on what is in the box

Three checks do the job, how far the shots go at your strength, how much room the bottles leave, and what the kit does not supply. With those answered, you know before paying whether a DIY e-liquid kit fits your recipe or needs completing.

From the same recipe book

Editorial guide for adult readers only. Vaping products usually contain nicotine, which is addictive, and nicotine vaping products are not for sale to anyone under 18 in the UK. This guide describes a mixing method and is not a buying recommendation.