How To Transition From Smoking To Vaping: Top Tips From An Expert

If you’re looking to swap the cigarettes for the vape kits, but don’t know where to begin or don’t feel like you have enough knowledge to quit completely, you’ve come to the right place.

We’ve sat down with one of the UK’s biggest vaping YouTubers, Victor Mullin — who runs the channelVaping with Vic– to get his top tips on how to transition from smoking to vaping.

Here’s what he had to say.

Table of contents

1. Background on how Victor quit smoking
2. Victor’s tips for budgeting
3. Victor’s tips for choosing the right nicotine strength
4. Victor’s tips for dual users
5. Victor’s tips for finding suitable e liquids
6. Victor’s picks of the best e liquid brands for new vapers
7. Victor’s picks of the best kits for new vapers
8. Victor’s tips for choosing the right power level

When you first began to transition from smoking to vaping, which aspects of this did you find the most challenging?

It was a different time back in 2014 — stop smoking services practically didn’t exist here. A pack of patches cost £25 to £30, gum was expensive, and there was no spray. Subsequently, a lot of people fell through the net.

When you compare the cost of a pack of five patches to the cost of a cheap cig-a-like that you can get from a local vendor, vaping provides much better value for money.

I was recommended a cig-a-like by a surgeonwhen I was having my gall bladder out, and he was one step ahead when you look back at that moment in hindsight. He knew that a pack of patches only really lasted a week and cost £25, which is a hell of an outlay – it’s not sustainable for most people.

Even though vaping is a much cheaper alternative to smoking and some of the ‘old school’ cessation methods you mentioned, did you underestimate how much liquid you needed at the start and actually overspend?

It was difficult to judge how much I needed initially. I started with the little cartomisers, and I didn’t have a clue how many I was going to go through because the battery was screwed in.

None of the eCigarette reviewers or websites back then covered anything to do with smokers switching to vaping, so I spent a fortune on cartomisers. It turned out that one single cartomiser could last me two to three days, but because I didn’t know this, I had packs of the fu***g things lying around!

Thankfully, I still saved a bit of cash, as the retailer I bought them from was running a discount on bulk orders, but I definitely wouldn’t have bought as many had I known what I know now.

On that point, what budgeting tips do you have for new vapers?

There’s an easy way to do this — the quick, cheap and nasty way, which has about a 50 per cent chance of working!

A pack of cigarettes costs just over £10, no matter which brand you go for. You can take that £10, and instead of buying a pack of cigarettes, you can walk into your local vape shop or anyonline retailer,and Iguaranteethey’ll have a pod for either £8.99 or £9.99. That’s one rule of thumb that you could follow.

The other way — the more guaranteed method that’ll likely work the first time — is to figure out how many packs of cigarettes you buy in a week.

Most smokers budget to keep a load of cash to hand so that they don’t run out of cigarettes. The smokers I know started budgeting once a pack of cigarettes hit a tenner — they usually keep £60, 70, or £80 in their pocket on a Monday.

They take that money, go online (or pop into a brick-and-mortar store), and buy anAspire Zelos,or aVaporesso GTXmouth-to-lung kit. They’ll then get their hands on a 50ml bottle of a decentfruit-flavoured shortfill e liquid, with space for a 10ml nicotine shot.

These people are more likely to give up smoking using these kits than if they use a pod kit because, let’s face it — the cheaper the pod kit is, the worse the pod tends to be!

Choosing the right nicotine strength is tough for a lot of smokers moving over to vaping. What advice do you have for them?

There are two ways to look at this.

Firstly, what kind of cigarette do they smoke? If they’re smoking a filtered cigarette, then they’re used to a much smoother smoke than someone who smokes roll-your-own cigarettes and isn’t using any filter.

If you’re smoking woodbine or roll-ups and are used to that harsh hit at the back of the throat that goes all the way down to the lungs, I’d suggest you start at 12 milligrams (mg) of freebase nicotine e liquid and work your way up.

If you’re a filtered cigarette smoker, especially someone who’s smoked Silk Cut cigarettes which are much smoother, I’d start at as low as 9mg freebase or even 6mg.

It’salwaysbetter to start low and work up than start high with a nicotine strength that’ll rip the back of your throat out. You’ll start coughing profusely, think vaping isn’t for you, and go back to smoking.

I’ve seen that far too many times, with people starting on 18mg and sometimes even 20mg freebase! Now, if it was nicotine salts, that wouldn’t be so bad, but freebase is a whole different ball game.

That leads me to the second big thing to consider – not trying to do too much too early.

On the first day of giving up smoking and moving over to vaping, some people start on a little pod kit and go for the ‘house juice’. Nine times out of ten, that house juice is 18mg or 20mg salt.

They take a vape of the juice, mouth-to-lung, and they don’t feel a thing at the back of the throat. They chain vape and chain vape until one of two things happens – either they burn out the pod, or they get a nicotine headspin and think, ‘I’m allergic to vaping!’ then they go back to smoking.

Therefore, here’s the advice I’d give to all smokers switching to vaping:start on freebase nicotine, start low, and work your way up.Once you’ve vaped for five, six, or seven days and beyond, this is the point at which you can start taking yourself off freebase. You can move on to nic salts for a much smoother vape, but you ideally want to start at 12mg or 16mg.

If the vape shop offers you nic salts,say noand go for 6mg, 9mg, or 12mg of freebase nicotine. That way, you’ll feel the nicotine hit at the back of your throat as if you’re smoking — a lot of smokers miss that. They don’t get the throat hit, they think vaping isn’t working, and they go back to the cigarettes. It happensa lot.

How quickly would you advise new vapers to move up the nicotine strengths once they’re in the swing of things?

There’s a simple rule of thumb here. Let’s say you’ve started off at 9mg freebase — if you’re sitting there chain vaping and you feel as though you’re overdoing it, don’t immediately jump from 9mg to 18mg.

I’d advise increasing your strengths in increments of three. So, if you’re on 9mg, jump up to 12mg. If you’re on 6mg, jump up to 9mg.Don’t double your strength because if you do this, you might find it far too harsh at the back of your throat.

What do you think about dual-using (vaping and smoking), and do you think this is a sustainable strategy?

There’s an old saying from Dave Dorn, one of the founders of the New Nicotine Alliance, that sums it up perfectly. I can’t remember the exact wording, but the jist of it was – if you’re dual-using, it’s all about the cigarettes you don’t light up.

I’d rather somebody dual-used and cut down on the cigarettes in a manner in which they felt comfortable than do nothing but vape and struggle for days and days before going back to smoking.

From your experience and understanding, would you say that dual-using is more prevalent amongst a particular age group?

The dual-users I know tend to be in their 50s and 60s. They tend to be the older generation of smokers, and that’s not a surprise because they’ve been used to smoking for decades. They just can’t quite let it go.

But if they have one cigarette in the morning and one after dinner and vaping for the rest of the day, I’m fine with that. Dual-using still makes a marked difference to your quality of life compared to if you were just smoking cigarettes.

How should new vapers go about testing e liquids, and what should they look out for?

It depends on how heavy a smoker the person was, but the general rule is for the first three days of giving up smoking, your sense of taste is non-existent because you’ve done loads of damage to your tongue, sinuses, and lungs.

It takes anywhere between three to five days for the repair work to take place within the body. By repair work, I mean losing all the gunk in your sinuses and tongue from all the tar you’ve consumed.

If I were a brand new vaper, I’d go for amenthol e liquidwithin the first three days of making the transition.That’ll help cut through the gunk that’s in your tongue, and you’ll get your sense of taste back that little quicker.

Once you feel you’re starting to get your sense of taste back, you can move on to what you like, whether it’s fruits, custards, or whatever else. A lot of new vapers go straight for fruits. There are a multitude of flavours that you can play around with — vapers have so many options nowadays.

What do you consider to be the best e liquid brands for new vapers?

I like a lot of e liquids that aren’t readily available in local vape shops, so online is your best bet if you want to give yourself a breadth of options.

When it comes to the readily-available brands, the main ones I’d recommend would beVampire Vape andRiot Squad. I think that if you go for e liquids from these brands, you won’t go far wrong.

Vampire Vape’s e liquids are on the sweeter side, but you usually find that UK-made e liquids aren’t as sweet as the imported stuff from the United States or Malaysia. Malaysian manufacturers putwaytoo much sweetener in their products!

I’ve found that the older a vaper is when they start to make the transition, the less likely they are to like the sweeter e liquids. Younger vapers in their 20s and 30s gravitate more towards the sweet stuff, but the older vapers who I know want something more neutral. That’s why I tend to direct them to a UK manufacturer – That’s why I tend to direct them to a UK manufacturer – so they know the liquid’s not going to taste like Lyle’s Golden Syrup when they try to vape it!

Are there any other tips you’ve got for new vapers when it comes to choosing e liquids?

If you’re a brand new vaper, whether you’re in your 20s or 70s, you need to make vaping as simple as possible. Go for the TPD (Tobacco Products Directive) or TRPR(Tobacco and Related Products Regulations)-compliant bottles with a 12mg liquid. All you do is unscrew the bottle, fill your pod up, and screw the cap back on.

Once you’re used to filling your pod up and dealing with e liquid in your bottle, you could then progress to shortfills.You should take a very tentative step towards shortfills if you’re new to them– I wouldn’t do this until after the first couple of weeks of vaping. You need to get used to having e liquid on your fingers first before you take on a 50ml bottle with two shortfills! All this will do is confuse you.

What do you consider the best kits for new vapers?

If you’re not technically-minded and don’t want to feel overwhelmed by the technology, I’d recommend theUwell Caliburn. You can’t get a more easy-to-use kit than this. You just take your pod, fill it with juice, plug it in, make sure the battery’s charged, and treat it like a cigarette. Whether you go for the old Caliburn or theCaliburn G Series, they’re basically the same. You can’t beat them for simplicity.

If you’re more technically-orientated, something like theAspire Zelos 3is your best bet. You get the Zelos 3 mod andphenomenallygood Nautilus tank on top. This would be my top pick.

You also have the older Vaporesso GTX mouth-to-lung kits. Ok, they’re not quite as good as the Zelos, but they’re usually cheaper, and you can bump the wattage up and down.

Innokin is another really reliable brand that produces some great kits like theT18E, which is perfect for beginners.

Just finally, how easy was it for you to over or underestimate your device’s power levels when you began vaping? Did you find that your devices ran out a lot quicker than you expected?

When it comes to power levels, especially with the Aspire Zelos, you can put the power upfartoo high and burn your coil out.

The principle here is the exact same as what I said about nicotine strengths –start low and work your way up slowly.Don’t start high and work your way down.

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