How much nicotine is in my E-Cigarette?
Nicotine content in your E-Cigarette depends on the strength e-liquid chosen. The maximum legal strength available to buy is a 2.0% solution, or 20mg per ml of e-liquid, working out to be around 20 cigarettes worth of absorbable nicotine per ml. Lower levels are available, down to zero nicotine. Shortfill e-liquids allow the vaper to mix their own liquids, so can therefore make e-liquid that is stronger than 2.0%.
Introduction
For many of us when we start with e-cigarettes one of the most important questions to ask is what strength you are getting. If you are looking into e-cigs it can be confusing to figure out how much nicotine is in your e-cigarette, as all these numbers are shown as percentages, mg or mg/ml.
Once you know what these terms mean though you can choose the best strength for you to make the switch from cigarettes with peace of mind.
What does ml/mg mean on my e-cig?
E-cigarettes and e-liquids are almost always measured in milligrams (weight) per millilitre (volume); expressed as mg/ml. This is essentially how much pure nicotine liquid has been mixed into the total e-liquid. For example if you are using a 2mg/ml that means 2 milligrams of pure nicotine are in 1 millilitre of e-liquid.
The “per mL” (/mL) is often dropped on many labels and definitely in blogs about e-cigarettes to save the writer’s wrists, and as the amount of nicotine is the vital piece of information.
The amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes can vary wildly, though the upper limit in the UK and the EU is 20mg, which was chosen as enough nicotine for almost all smokers. At SMOKO we have a range of strengths from 20mg, 18mg, 15mg, 11mg and even a Zero mg option. We have done this to give the widest option so you can find the strength and flavour right for you.
Understanding what the strengths mean to you can make the difference between a positive experience and a negative one with vaping, especially for first time vapers.
What's the difference between % and mg/ml nicotine strengths?
There is no practical difference between the two, percentage is looking at the total amount of nicotine in your e-liquid, while the mg/ml is looking at how much nicotine is in each millilitre of your e-liquid. They are both trying to tell you how strong the e-liquid or e-cigarette refill is.
Different e-cigarette companies will favour different ways of telling you, but as it’s fairly easy to convert between the two styles it shouldn’t be an issue.
How to Convert Nicotine Percentages to mg/mL
SMOKO and other e-cigarette companies will use both % and mg/ml, depending on the context and whatever the designer liked the look of. The good news is that it’s fairly easy to figure out one from the other.
Mg/ml shows the amount of nicotine per milligram (mg) per millilitre (ml) of liquid, and a percentage figure shows the amount of nicotine as a percentage per total.
Because the metric system is a wonderful thing, converting one method of measuring the amount of nicotine to the other is as simple as moving a decimal place left.
For example:
- A 20mg e-liquid equals 2% - A e-cigarette saying this would contain 20mg of nicotine per millilitre of liquid. Meaning 2% of the liquid is nicotine.
- A 15mg e-cigarette or e-liquid is the same as 1.5%
- A 3mg e-liquid or e-cigarette is the same as 0.3%
This will apply to any e-cigarette or e-liquid you can buy.
Nicotine Levels When Vaping Versus Smoking
Numbers like 20mg or 2% are great if you are comparing e-cigarette refills to find the best e-cigarette for you, but if you are new to e-cigs you will probably want to compare these numbers to cigarettes. And it sounds easy, but sadly that is not the case.
Finding how much nicotine is in a cigarette is harder than you think though as each cigarette brand is different. On average a cigarette has about 1g of tobacco in, and according to the CDC (The American Centre for Disease Control) worked out that the mean average of all the cigarette brands they tested was 19.2 mg per gram of tobacco.
So 1 cigarette on average has the same amount of nicotine in as a 20mg refill.
Cigarettes though don’t give the full amount of nicotine to the smoker when they are smoked. In fact they only give about 1.2 to 1.4mg per cigarette!
But what make this even more confusing is that the amount of nicotine absorbed from a vape is also lower, and as e-cigarettes produce vapour and not smoke it takes longer from nicotine to work its way into your system. This means that most people need a higher nicotine level in their vape to counteract the slower absorption.
Long story short you can compare the nicotine in cigarettes to e-cigarettes, but it will have limited use. What we at SMOKO suggest is that if you are just making the switch to start at a higher strength and once you are comfortable with e-cigarettes and vaping move downwards. That’s why all our starter kits are filled with 20mg refills, as it’s better to start a little strong but keep with e-cigarettes then starter weaker and fall off the wagon because e-cigs weren’t giving you the nicotine you needed.
How much Nicotine Levels are in E-juice
In general you can get a wide variety of nicotine levels in e-liquids, and which is right for you will depend on what you are using and how much you smoked.
If you are using an e-cigarette like SMOKO you will find that the nicotine levels are going to be higher, ranging from 1.1% to 2%. This because e-cigarettes were designed to look and feel like a cigarette, so only give enough vapour to replicate a cigarette. This makes it easier to make the switch from smoking and the nicotine levels are balanced to give you the same hit as a cigarette would.
You can also get lower nicotine levels such as 0.3% to 0.6%, which are designed for larger vapourisers which produce much more vapour. These machines don’t try to feel like a cigarette but rather give you a huge amount of vapour which makes up for the low levels of nicotine.
If you have been put off starting to use an e-cigarette because of the nicotine levels, hopefully this helped clear up the confusion. Each person is going to be different but as a general rule it is better to start strong and work your way downwards.
If you don’t believe us give our starter kit a try, it contains 2% (the highest nicotine level allowed in the UK an EU) and gives you the same feeling and taste as a cigarette, without the 4000 chemicals and 50 known carcinogens.
So if you want to give SMOKO E-cigarettes a try then just click here