Across the world, millions of people have made the switch from smoking to nicotine vapes – and you might be next. Vaping allows you to enjoy the satisfaction of nicotine without the harshness and foul smell of smoke. Before you can switch to vaping, though, you need to decide which device you’re going to buy and learn how to use it. There are so many different types of vapes available today, though – not to mention hundreds of different vape juice flavors – that choosing your first might feel like a monumental task.
In this guide, we’re going to give you the help that you need. This is your start-to-finish guide to buying and using your first nicotine vape.
Want to see everything that’s available? Browse our selection of disposable vapes or vape kits now. You can also read about the most popular vapes to get some quick suggestions about what’s hot right now.
Choose Your Type of Vape
Before you can really start the process of buying your first nicotine vape pen, you need to choose what type of vape you’re going to buy. Although there are several different types of vapes that you could choose, most new vapers end up going with pre-filled disposable vapes or refillable pod vape kits.
- Disposable vapes are filled with e-liquid and ready to use as soon as you buy them, which makes them very easy for beginning vapers to use. You don’t even have to worry about your nicotine strength, since most disposable vapes only come in one strength. However, disposable vapes are less economical than refillable vapes in the long run since you need to replace the entire device when it runs out of e-liquid.
- Refillable vapes are more cost effective in the long run and allow you to enjoy a much wider variety of e-liquid flavors and nicotine strengths. Many people also believe that they have higher flavor quality than disposable vapes. However, there is a bit of a learning curve involved with learning how to use a refillable vape.
Choose Your Brand and Model
Whether you end up choosing a disposable or refillable vape, you’ll still have to narrow down a fairly long list of products before making your buying decision because there are so many products on the market today. If you’re not sure where to begin, it never hurts to start your search by looking at the most popular brands.
Some of the most popular brands of refillable vapes include:
Some of the best disposable vape brands include:
Choose Your Flavor
Once you’ve selected a vape that looks like it’ll be a good fit for you, the next step is to choose at least one flavor that you think you might like. That’s fairly easy if you’ve decided to start with a disposable vape because most disposables don’t have enormous flavor selections. Although some disposable vapes have dozens of flavors available, that’s nothing compared to the many hundreds of flavors of bottled e-liquid that you could choose if you buy a refillable vape.
Taste is subjective, and there’s no e-liquid flavor that 100 percent of vapers love. Because there’s no way to know what your preferences are until you have a bit of experience, we recommend that you start by making a list of flavors that sound like they might appeal to you and buying a small selection of flavors from the list. You’re probably not going to love every flavor, and having a few different options helps to ensure that your switch from smoking to vaping will be successful.
We also suggest choosing flavors of a few different types when you buy your first nicotine vape. For example, you might buy a tobacco flavor, a fruit flavor and a dessert flavor. Your first instinct might be to buy multiple tobacco flavors because you’re hoping to find something that tastes like a cigarette. The truth is, though, that most vapers don’t actually use tobacco flavors. Fruit and candy flavors are much more popular because most people end up deciding that they don’t actually want their vapes to taste like cigarettes.
Choose Your Nicotine Strength
You’ll also need to choose a nicotine strength when you buy your first vape. This is another area where disposable vapes make things easy for you because most disposable vapes are only available in one strength: usually 50 mg/ml. That’s appropriate for providing a cigarette-like level of nicotine with each puff.
Higher nicotine strengths are also usually best for small refillable pod systems. If you’ve selected a refillable device as your first nicotine vape, you’ll probably have the best experience if you fill it with nicotine salt e-liquid.
If you’re an infrequent smoker who smokes less than half a pack of cigarettes per day, you might want to consider starting with a nicotine strength lower than 50 mg/ml. That won’t be easy to do with disposable vapes since most disposables are available in the 50 mg/ml strength only. You’ll have to seek out one of the rare low-nicotine vapes or use a refillable device.
If you get your first vape and find that you aren’t enjoying the experience as much as you’d hoped, it’s very possible that you’re not using the right nicotine strength for your needs.
- If your nicotine strength is too high, you’ll probably experience throat irritation when you vape, or you might feel edgy or overstimulated. In this case, you should consider switching to a lower strength.
- If your nicotine strength is too low, you won’t feel satisfied even if you vape almost constantly. You’ll probably also feel a strong craving to smoke a cigarette. In this case, you should consider switching to a higher strength.
Set Up Your Vape
Once you receive your first vape, it’s time to get it set up and prepared for use. Although disposable vapes are obviously easier to set up since they’re already filled when you buy them, it’s not that difficult to get started with a refillable device. You’ll want to consult the instruction manual before you get started, but here’s a brief overview of what you can expect.
Setting Up a Disposable Vape
- Tear open the box and retrieve the airtight pouch holding the device.
- Open the pouch and remove the device. Discard the pouch and box.
- Remove the silicone cap or plug from the mouthpiece and discard it.
- Check the bottom of the device for a sticker or strip of vape covering the airflow vent. Remove and discard it. The device is now ready to use.
Setting Up a Refillable Vape
- Remove the device from the package and connect it to your computer with the included USB cable to charge the battery.
- Remove the pod from the device and check for a strip of tape on the bottom. Remove the tape and discard it.
- Open the pod and add e-liquid. To open a vape pod, you usually need to lift a silicone plug, which exposes the filling port. Add e-liquid until the pod is almost full, leaving a little room for the plug. Replace the plug.
- Put the pod back in the device and wait at least 10 minutes for the wick to saturate. You only need to do this if you’re filling a new pod for the first time.
- Turn the device on. If you’re using a pod system with a manual fire button, you can do this by pressing the button five times. If you’re using a pod system without a button, It’s always on when a pod is inserted.
Use Your Vape
Use your device by inhaling gently through the mouthpiece if it’s a puff-activated vape or by inhaling through the mouthpiece while holding the fire button if it’s a button-activated vape. Remember that when you vape, you’re inhaling a vaporized e-liquid – it’s very different from smoking. When you smoke a cigarette, you can puff more firmly if you want to get a bigger cloud. A vaping device doesn’t work that way. If you want to get a bigger cloud from your vape, you should take a longer puff – but you should still use gentle air pressure.
Recharge Your Vape
Disposable and refillable vapes both need to be recharged occasionally. When your device’s battery meter reaches the bottom, you can recharge it by connecting it to your computer with a USB cable. You can usually recharge a disposable vape several times before it runs out of e-liquid.
Refill or Dispose of Your Vape
The big difference between disposable and refillable vapes is what happens when your device runs out of vape juice. If you’re using a disposable vape, you need to replace the entire device. You can tell that a disposable vape is empty because it begins to produce a burnt flavor every time you puff on it. A refillable vape, on the other hand, should never get to that point because you can always look at the pod to see how much e-liquid is left. When the level of e-liquid is low, refill the pod promptly.