Does Vape Juice Expire? All You Need to Know

Many vapers get worried when they realize they have purchased way more e-juice than they require. After gawping at the bottles, what next comes into their minds is perhaps what you are thinking! They get confused about how they will store their vape juice to last longer. Does it expire? Of course yes, vape juice does have an expiry date, and it’s not provided for the show. But not as fast as food goes bad. E-liquid is much more shelf-stable. Sometimes it changes colour but that does not necessarily mean it’s expired. Technically, vape juice lasts until its first ingredient expires. Generally, that would be one to two years from the day it was manufactured. While the principal base ingredients, vegetable glycerin (VG) and propylene glycol (PG) are the main reason why the expiry date is technically placed at one to two years, many changes in e-liquid are caused by oxidation of nicotine as well as the degradation of flavoring additives. The outcomes of aging vary from one vape juice to another. Needless to say, older liquids have weaker (poor) tastes and less nicotine.

Vape juice should be kept away from heat, direct sunlight, and oxygen – they will last up to their expiration date provided that you avoid these three. This doesn’t necessarily imply you must keep all your e-juice bottles in the refrigerator. Store your vape juice tightly closed in a dry and cool cupboard to make sure that it lasts for the longest period possible. Some vape juice bottles feature an expiry date on them, others don’t. But depending on the food and drug authorities’ policies on consumable goods, an expiration date must only be featured on infant formula. It’s up to the prudence of the manufacturer to indicate “Best by” and “Expires on” dates on their products.

What happens when e-juice expires?

Many things occur when vape juices age. They are:

• Separation: e-juice consists of various ingredients. Sometimes, these parts begin to segregate. Some segregation is in order – that’s why you may see “shake well before use” on some bottles. Nevertheless, if the separation is a result of aging, the parts may not coalesce regardless of how much you shake the bottle. Also, there may be solidified flavors that won’t dissolve even after heating or intense mixing. At this point, consuming vape juice would be risky and unsafe for you.
• Colour changes: over time, the e-juice will darken, mostly nicotine-based vape juices. That’s normal and expected. Naturally, nicotine undergoes an oxidation process where it reacts with oxygen. In this process, nicotine gets darker and this changes the colour of the entire vape juice. notwithstanding, if an e-juice begins appearing much darker than it initially was or begins turning into other colours other than brown or yellow, it’s probably time to discard it.
• Smells and Tastes: when fresh, e-juice should scent and taste as such. But as time goes on, flavors do degrade causing the liquid to change taste and smell and lose aspects of its profile completely. If your vape liquid does not smell and/or taste like what you recall it being, the flavours aren’t the same as they were intiatially. So it’s time to find another juice.
• Nicotine content: since nicotine degrades as time goes on, its strength/concentration in the vape juice goes down as well. Apart from tasting and smelling bad, expired e-liquid may not even cure your cravings
• Thickness: generally speaking, if a vape juice becomes much thicker or thinner than it initially was, it has hit the expiration date. It could not only be horrible to consume, but it may also wreck your vape coils or leak out your device.

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What makes vape juice expire?

Over time, all vape juice will expire. A couple of factors affect the rate at which vape juice will expire. Firstly, vape juice prepared from nicotine salts degrades at a slower rate than the ones prepared from freebase nicotine. This can be attributed to the fact nic salts aren’t base but salt. Also, zero-nicotine vape juices aren’t affected by nicotine degradation. Secondly, the type of flavor used determines how fast or slow the vape juice will go bad: some favors will degrade faster than others. For instance, fruity and floral flavours degrade at a faster rate as they lose their strength and change than dough and custard flavours. This may cause changes in a flavour profile that may result in unpleasant tastes and smells. Imagine picking up a bottle stocked with a loaded lemon bar, you would expect a sour lemon treat from it but you end up getting some distasteful tangy puff of pastry.

Whilst the types of nicotine and flavours used to prepare e-juice might be something that you aren’t able to control, you can make your e-juice last longer. Light, heat, air, and agitation can make it go bad faster. So to preserve it:

• Keep your vape juice in a cool, dry, and dark place
• Place it in a secure place, out of reach from kids and pets
• Don’t leave the vape juice outside, in a warm or humid place, or on window sills.
• Do not share or transfer your –juice bottle unnecessarily
• Only open the bottle when necessary

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Heat, light… isn’t that steeping your vape juice?

Sure, steeping offers some sort of acceleration of aging to make vape juice tastier or make it more uniform. It’s much of making “ripen.” – So some acceleration can make your vape juice taste great, the same way you let the fruit ripen. When you do it too much, you will end up with rotten fruit. Steeping can reduce the lifespan of your vape juice.

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Can your vape juice expire in the tank?

There’s no valid reason why vape juice can expire outside the tank and not inside. Given that a tank often gets heated up, shaken when on the move, and gets exposed to light – tanks build from glass, a tank is a perfect condition for vape juice to age quickly.

Can expired vape juice hurt you when you consume it?

Realistically, taking a puff or two with an expired vape juice won’t hurt you. That’s one way to know your vape juice has gone bad anyway. Vaping an expired e-juice will probably kill your vaping experience. This implies it can only destroy your feelings. It’s not like medicine that will perhaps hurt your body if it had passed the expiry date, yet it’s not like a wine that keeps on getting better while it ages. If you realize that your favorite vape juice has changed its colour, taste, smell, and it’s not giving you the full flavour as before, well, don’t hesitate to buy another bottle. Take a shopping tour and pick another vape juice from your preferred vape store.

Before using an old vape juice, first look to find whether the contents are segregated or appears otherwise unusual. If it’s old, it will appear slightly discoulored. And if the colour appears way off, it’s not a good one for you. Smelling the contents in the bottle is a great way to avoid filling spoilt vape juice in your device. If it smells way offensive, just discard the bottle.

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Why does your e-juice turn brown?

You had an untouched bottle of vape juice that doesn’t look good anymore? Your sweet nectar has turned into something strange, the darker liquid that looks horrible. Naturally, this annoys everyone and you cannot even imagine using that kind of stuff. You can avoid using it but this will depend on what the ingredients of your vape juice are. Some manufacturers add artificial sweeteners in their products so that might be the cause of the darkening. The main cause of degradation of vape juice is caused by nicotine and flavoring. For instance, if the darkening would have occurred in the vape tank, then you can accuse oxidation that naturally occurs once you’ve opened the vape juice bottle. So you would be consuming something that tastes bad and doesn’t in any way satisfy your nicotine craving. There’s no need to do that when you can try a better one. If you aren’t bothered by what you’re seeing in the bottle, then fill your tank with it, go ahead and use it as cannot harm you.

Once opened?

 As abovementioned, no evidence manifests that an e-juice that has lapsed its shelf life can harm a user. Also, to date, no proof suggests that when an e-juice is left open it should last the period it’s estimated to be useful. Notwithstanding, it’s not necessarily correct that a vape juice must taste or smell horrible when vaped past its expiry date. But to heed the best practices of vaping, you should stick to vaping e-juices within their “Best By” and “Expire On” dates. The majority of vapers do not like hanging on to a particular vape juice for that long, they consistently change to other flavors to prevent “vaper’s tongue” – a sensation where you find yourself used to a particular e-juice to a point you’re unable to taste flavors from other e-juices. And this does not instantly imply the e-juice has gone bad but could be caused by your adamancy to stick to a particular vape juice for too long. You will require a differently flavoured e-juice to avoid overtasking your tastebuds with one type of flavour. It’s like using a specific scent perfume for so long. Your olfactory system will get used to this same smell and you may eventually lose the sensation altogether. Changing it or leaving it for some days will have similar effects to changing your vape juice.

Sealing your vape juice bottle when you aren’t using it, keeping it in a dry, cool, and dark place, and avoiding unnecessary shaking, as aforementioned, should serve you for the next two years. What’s contained in the vape juice also matters, so always do some research on how you’re supposed to store your stuff. Try reading all the principal ingredients used to make the vape juice, vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol act as dilutant carriers. Choose a reputable brand that manufactures high-quality vape juice in a safe environment. If you choose a nicotine-free vape juice, there are reduced chances of oxidation, so you should also consider that.

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What’s the most appropriate vape juice to Choose?

The proportion of your vape juice does not only dictate how long it will stay but also how you will experience it when vaping. Whilst vape juice is traditionally meant to assist consumers of regular cigarettes to quit the habit, it has developed cult patronage due to various reasons: modish vaping devices, mouthwatering flavours, and lovely vaping tricks and styles among others. The most appropriate vape juice will depend on the type of vaping kit you have at hand and your main purpose for vaping. If you are looking for a vape juice that will serve you for a long period, have a runnier consistency to just produce small vapour clouds, then consider buying a high propylene glycol (PG) ratio. Also, consider a low-wattage MTL vaping kit to go in hand with this sort of e-liquid. But if you’re after liquids that form huge vapour clouds and warmer throat hits, consider investing in advanced mods and vape juices with high vegetable glycerin (VG) content. Know that the e-juice may not stay for long since the high content of VG will cause residue build-up in the tank.

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What is the take of the authorities on Expired vape juice?

The authorities have nothing to comment on the shelf life of vape juice. Their policies about expiry timelines for consumable goods are quite informative. This is because some people misunderstand the purpose of this information. Confusions over what these labels mean account for some level of wastage. Some vape juices go unconsumed, resulting in the loss of billions of dollars annually. People throw out the vape juices thinking they’ve gone bad when nothing wrong has really happened to them. By so doing, they end up losing money.