Whatever name you prefer to give it—e-juice, vape juice, e-liquid, among others—it is undeniable that this product has been a major factor in the growth of vaping. Both individuals attempting to quit traditional nicotine delivery systems and even beginners find that vaping has evolved into a widespread pastime. This is because of the variety of e-juice flavors and breakthroughs in vaping technology.
Vaping might sometimes seem like a recent invention, but it’s been around for a while. Yet irrespective of whether you’re just starting with vaping or are a seasoned pro, there’s no disputing that the backstory of e-juice is fascinating. You might not be aware of all the developments the vaping sector has undergone over the decades unless you’ve been a seasoned vapor from the onset. However, this blog will educate you by providing background and development of the e-liquid business.
Chinese Labs Made the Initial E-Juices
Vape users might already be familiar with the history of the development of modern electronic cigarettes. Hon Lik, a Chinese chemist, developed the electronic cigarette to help quit the traditional nicotine delivery systems as he believed there would be potential demand for such a commodity. He was right that consumers would want to purchase these devices, and his boss Ruyan instantly introduced the item to the industry.
Ruyan invented the initial vape liquids and gave each one a distinctive flavor inspired by tobacco. He assigned each e-liquids a number, and the RY4 juice became the most popular. Consumers enjoyed the caramel and tobacco taste of RY4, which was loved such that vape juices modeled after it are still available today.
Ruyan later renamed it Dragonite, after which Dragonite’s vaping business holdings acquired it in 2013. However, the e-liquid market had already taken off by that point, and several other Chinese businesses had stepped up to the plate and started making their products. Hangsen and Dekang were two of the most well-known early Chinese vape juice manufacturers and are still operating today.
Chinese juices are renowned for their simple taste profiles and a total absence of sweetness. However, opinions on those properties vary significantly from person to person. Over time, vape enthusiasts started to seek pure and potent vape juice products combinations.
Local E-liquid Manufacturers Started to Emerge
Immediately it became clear in the US and across the globe that this sector would become a game changer, and small e-juice businesses started to emerge. Even though many of these enterprises no longer exist, a handful developed into the well-known vape liquid companies that are still operating today.
Local e-liquid creation led to a slight sweetening of flavors compared to before. It took some time before e-juice manufacturers started including additional sweeteners in their liquids, but the market started to see flavors like vanilla, cheesecake, and other fruity tastes.
Brief Popularity of Tobacco Extracts
Once consumers started to seek juices with more unique taste profiles, several e-juice businesses started making their unique flavoring ingredients by soaking tobacco leaves in solutions to make organic tobacco extracts. Even though tobacco extracts seldomly produced juices that tasted like traditional nicotine delivery systems, they made it feasible to produce the most authentic tobacco e-juice. Naturally obtained tobacco e-juice was trendy for some time, but it lost favor fairly soon because most mainstream vapers preferred sweet flavors.
Professionalization of E-liquid Brands and Sweetening of Taste Profiles
The vape liquid sector was experiencing tremendous expansion by the middle of the decade. The businesses that transformed their processes into clean facilities embraced automation, anticipated impending laws, and complied with those requirements in advance benefited from that growth cycle.
The dominant and most recognized e-juice manufacturers were commonly the first to utilize professionally designed labels, start using child-proof bottles, and include content listings in their packaging. The small vape juice brands started to disappear as the sector reached the stage where sophisticated liquids became available on the racks of every vape store.
The industry’s e-juice manufacturers were becoming more experienced while producing sweeter, sophisticated, and more fascinating taste profiles. By mid-decade, e-liquid brands were incorporating sucralose into their juices, which allowed them to develop the most authentic sweet taste profiles ever produced. This period introduced two taste profiles that are still very popular today–custard and cereal.
The Entry of Nicotine Salt Into the E-liquid Market
Nicotine salt juice, a revolutionary type of e-juice, reached the market in the second part of the decade. Traditionally, vape liquid only utilized the freebase type of nicotine. This nicotine is the most accessible nicotine type employed in nicotine substitute products, including gums and lozenges. The advantage of the nicotine salt version is that it features a neutral pH level, and at greater nicotine concentrations, the reduced pH renders it much smoother to inhale.
The e-liquid sector was at its peak and undergoing its first significant consolidation stage by the decade’s end. Older vape juice businesses went bust, and larger businesses bought smaller firms and thus kept expanding.
Tobacco-Free Nicotine: The E-liquid Market’s Next Big Thing
Since the start of this decade, it has been evident that tobacco-free vape nicotine is the sector’s next big thing. However, until now, it was not viable to incorporate tobacco-free nicotine in e-liquid and offer it at a reasonable price since it was so expensive to make. Nevertheless, as methods for producing nicotine advanced, that started to shift, and today several businesses offer tobacco-free nicotine e-juice. This is likely to snowball in the coming years.
Summary
The manufacturing of e-liquid has evolved significantly in a short period, and more advances could follow in the coming decades leading to quality products.