What’s the difference and Which Is Best For You?
STIG pods are pre-filled with nicotine salt e-liquid made by SaltNic Labs. SaltNic Labs is well known for collaborating with VGOD to bring to you their e-juice in nicotine salt e-liquid form, which is also in STIG pods. Cubano, Lush Ice and now Iced Mango Bomb are all VGOD e-juices that have been formulated with nicotine salts to have higher nicotine strengths for those who want to quit smoking. But, what is the difference between freebase e-juice and nicotine salt e-liquid?
Back in the 1960’s cigarette companies wanted to make cigarettes stronger and more addictive, so they created freebase nicotine. Nicotine found in tobacco leaves has the chemical composition of a salt in its natural state. To make freebase nicotine, chemists convert nicotine from its natural salt state into a base. Ammonia is used to remove protons from the nicotine salts to increase the alkalinity, which then returns the nicotine into deprotonated or a freebase state.
Freebase nicotine, up until recently, was the only type of nicotine available to put into e-juice. People have found it to be enjoyable and satisfying. But freebase nicotine does have its drawbacks such as the fact that nicotine levels cannot be overly increased due to intensely harsh throat hits. This would tend to disappoint those new to vaping because they just couldn’t get the same type of nicotine fix from vaping that they did from smoking.
Scientists were looking to replicate a little more closely the feel of smoking a cigarette with smoother throat hits, but with increased nicotine strengths that did not negatively affect the vaping experience and that is where nicotine salt comes back into play. Instead of altering the nicotine salt to make it into freebase, scientists thought that by increasing acidity in the nicotine salt that it would be able to deliver higher doses of nicotine without the harshness.
In order to balance smoothness, satisfying throat hits and increased nicotine intake, scientists thought it beneficial to add benzoic acid to make the nicotine salt more bioavailable to us humans. Acids bond really well with nicotine and so by adding the benzoic acid, scientists discovered that it gave nicotine salts more structure to be more rapidly absorbed by our bodies, it allowed the nicotine salt to be vaporized at much lower temperatures and enabled smooth satisfying throat hits very similar to smoking a cigarette.
