Nic Salts

Nicotine Salt E-liquids

Nicotine salts are the latest advancement in e-liquid technology and are ideal for people quitting smoking and vaping for the first time, or for regular vapers who want an extremely smooth vaping experience. Gone are the days when there were set e-liquid strengths and one type of nicotine to choose from. As technology in the vaping world moves, Totally Wicked is right at the forefront of the industry, creating UK made nic salt e-liquid and regular e-liquid that speaks to its customers’ needs and ensures that there truly is something for every vaper.

In recent times vaping appears to have come full circle and vapers have been after more choice when it comes to personalisation of throat hit and vaping satisfaction. So, the e-liquid new product development team at Totally Wicked have made leaps and bounds in the advancement of new nicotine and nicotine salt formulations, creating e-liquid ranges that don’t just meet the expectations of our customers, but vastly exceed them.

What are Nicotine Salts?

You are used to one type of nicotine in your traditional e-liquids, this is called ‘freebase’ nicotine. We don’t want to be too technical here, so we will keep it extremely simple. This is the type of nicotine that is most widely used, the ‘go-to’ nicotine in most e-liquids and nicotine replacement therapies such as gums, patches and sprays.

Nicotine salt is essentially the same form of nicotine, just in a different chemical state more like the nicotine naturally present in the tobacco leaf.

What are the benefits of nicotine salts?

With that said, what are the benefits of nicotine salts? Again, leaving most of the science jargon aside, the nicotine salt chemical structure means you get smoother nicotine satisfaction with much less throat hit. So, the main benefit of using nic salts is the ability to use a higher nicotine strength while still getting a smooth vaping experience and throat hit. The harshness that can be experienced when using higher nicotine strengths is gone. 

There is a common misconception that your main goal should be lowering your nicotine strength, quickly. But this isn't strictly true and can actually result in vapers vaping more than they usually would because their nicotine strength is too low. Nicotine salts and the speed in which they act on the body means that you should find yourself using your e-cig much less, so in turn actually using less nicotine than you were, even though they are a higher strength. 

The benefits are really noticed by people who are quitting smoking and making the switch to vaping. As using nic salts is very similar to what they are used to.

How are they different from freebase nicotine?

Freebase nicotine takes longer to act on the body than nicotine salts. This means a delayed satisfaction from your nicotine, so you are more likely to over vape your e-cig. Nicotine salts are absorbed into the blood stream much quicker, around 6 seconds from the moment you inhale to feeling the effects of the nicotine, so your overall vaping experience is much closer to that of smoking. Some people also find that nicotine salts have a much smoother flavour than standard freebase nicotine. This is because freebase nicotine has a slight flavour naturally, whereas nic salts are completely flavourless.

This rapid nicotine effect in the body means those who vape nic salts should end up with much lower juice consumption than those who vape freebase nicotine.

How do salts differ from e-liquid?

Salts don't exactly differ from e-liquid as they are contained within it. But a nic salt based e-liquid will most likely differ from what you are using as it will probably contain the more widely used freebase nicotine.

Regular e-liquid that contains freebase nicotine will have more throat hit and as you move up in nicotine strength this harshness gets more pronounced. It is also less bioavailable meaning that the satisfaction from your nicotine takes longer. Nic salts are taken into the blood stream much quicker than freebase nicotine, meaning your nicotine satisfaction is much quicker, couple this with a much smoother overall vaping experience and you have a vape that closely resembles smoking.

What devices should I use with nic-salts?

As nicotine salts make much higher nicotine strengths easier to vape, it means in each draw you are taking in more nicotine than when vaping a regular freebase nicotine e-liquid. This means that if you use your nicotine salt e-liquid in a high-powered e-cig it would be very easy to vape too much and feel the effects from that.

With regular freebase nicotine liquid as you move up in nicotine strength the throat hit becomes harsher, so you would struggle to vape an 18mg/ml (1.8%) e-liquid at high wattages. But nicotine salts are so smooth that you could easily vape an 18mg/ml (1.8%) e-liquid at high powers. Because of this it is recommended to use nicotine salt e-liquids in low powered e-cigs such as a pod vape or an e-cig starter kit.

Some great ways to start vaping nicotine salts are with the byte pod, the switz2 pen style e-cig, the Skope S pen style e-cig or the arc Palm starter kit.

What is Totally Wicked’s next generation nic-salt?

While nic-salts sound like a catch all for vapers who may not get on with traditional nicotine, who may experience coughing and too much throat hit, there are pros and cons.

Nic-salts have a complete lack of throat hit, so you can vape an e-liquid with 1.8% (18mg/ml) nicotine strength and feel no ‘kick’. This is great for some, but smokers can become frustrated that they are missing the key ‘throat hit’ that they are used to with traditional cigarettes, from their vaping experience. Also, without the control of the throat-hit “kick” it is very easy for vapers to accidently get too much nicotine.

Next generation nic-salts address this perfectly. They give all the benefits from both types of e-liquid. There is the smooth vaping experience found with nic-salts, with just enough throat hit to keep vapers satisfied.

Who should buy nic-salts and next gen nic-salts?

Nicotine salts and next generation nicotine salts are usually recommended for heavier smokers. But this isn’t always the case.

They are ideal for any vaper who wants more nicotine, without a massive throat hit, or who wants a smooth yet satisfying vaping experience.

If you want to view our ranges of next generation nic-salts you can see our Switz Smooth and Symphonic e-liquid ranges here.