It’s pretty crazy how more-or-less everyone and his (or her) dog seems to be talking about vaping these days. You might have even thought to yourself that it’s effectively just the “new smoking” – in other words, something that’s as cool and trendy in the 2020s as smoking was many decades ago.
There is, though, at least one massive difference between traditional cigarette smoking and vaping: while the former is associated with well-established and serious harm to health, the latter has been hailed as a much healthier alternative, and even a great way to quit smoking altogether.
In fact, Public Health England (PHE) has even gone as far as declaring e-cigarettes to be about 95% less harmful than tobacco. So, if you’re curious about getting into vaping, what are some of the first things you ought to know?
First things first… what is vaping?
This one’s a bit of a tricky thing to explain to a complete novice, but let’s have a go anyway.
The basic components that you will need in order to vape are easy enough to understand: you’ll require a battery, a tank in which to hold e-liquid, a heating element and a mouthpiece. However, the fact that these things are referred to by various different names – such as ‘vape kits’, ‘vaping mods’ or even just ‘e-cigarettes’ – does potentially add to the confusion for beginners.
Anyway, if you think of how water becomes steam when it is heated, the same basic principle applies to e-liquid in an e-cigarette. It is heated to the extent of becoming vapour, which is inhaled akin to how a smoker inhales smoke from a traditional cigarette.
To vape, you basically just need to press a button on your e-cigarette, which will cause the battery to send a current through a metal coil, the latter serving as the heating element. The ‘coil’, by the way, is literally a metal wire in the shape of a coil.
Running through the coil’s centre is a wicking material loaded with e-liquid, and as the coil’s temperature goes up, the e-liquid evaporates to produce the familiar vapour we’ve all noticed in the past when we’ve seen people vaping.
The final stage is the vapour being drawn up through the mouthpiece of the device… and that’s it. That’s basically the vaping process.
So, how can I get started vaping?
Naturally, we can’t cover everything novice vapers ought to know in this short article. However, a good thing to do first is to head to one of the many fine vaping stores online or on the high street, such as the London-based Shisha Vibe, and take a look at what vape starter kits they offer.
As you become more familiar with vaping, you will also learn about the various other devices and products available for enhancing and customising your vaping experience, ranging from coils and pods to tanks and batteries.
Another thing that you’ll find out about, is the astonishing variety of e-liquids out there. E-liquids are also sometimes referred to as ‘e-juices’, and they’re available in virtually every flavour you can imagine, ranging from acai, alcohol and almond to waffle, watermelon and yoghurt.
If you’re thinking at this point that the world of vaping sounds pretty cool, with plentiful scope to make the experience your own, you’d be quite right.
It’s important not to feel too overawed by the wealth of possibilities, and by typing “beginners guide to vaping” into Google, you can soon peruse the many other guides out there that will allow you to investigate the all-encompassing field of e-cigarette use in greater depth. Happy vaping!