Vaper’s Tongue and How to Overcome it

Got the feeling that your flavour’s fatiguing from your e-cigarette? You may be thinking to yourself that the e-liquid you’ve become accustomed to isn’t quite doing the trick anymore or that perhaps your e-cigarette device isn’t quite up to scratch. But before you pass the blame onto the products, we suspect it may be that you have a case of what some in the vaping community call ‘vaper’s tongue’.

Let’s find out what it means to experience flavour fatigue and how you can fix it .

What is Vaper’s Tongue and How Does it Cause Flavour Fatigue?

If you’ve been vaping for a prolonged period of time, you may notice that the flavours are becoming somewhat diminished and that you have also developed a case of dry mouth. You’re struggling to taste your choice of fruity flavoured e-liquid. All of a sudden, the thought of vaping has lost its appeal. The good news; there are things to do to fix it, this is more of a common phenomenon than you may think, the fault is not with your e-cigarette, and you are not alone.

Our tongues are covered in thousands of taste buds and one might assume that if we’ve lost our sense of taste and are struggling to taste the vapour from the e-liquid, that the problem may lie with our palate – hence the term, ‘vapers tongue’. But alas, the body and our biology don’t quite work like that. The actual reasoning for our reduced experience in taste lies with our ailing olfactory sensors found in the top of our nasal passages, which are our primary senses when it comes to vaping and helps the brain to decipher flavours.

When we continue to vape the same flavoured e-liquid, our olfactory sensors are becoming slowly oversaturated, clogged up, and essentially go into shutdown mode. It’s similar to when you have a cold and you start to lose your taste and smell. This is a gradual process, but you’ll only notice your olfactory sensors failing at the last moment and usually without warning, meaning that any kind of immediate remedy you may be hoping for will soon dissipate like the vapour cloud you’re used to exhaling.

Can You Overcome Vaper’s Tongue?

Looking for a solution to vaper’s tongue? Fortunately, there are a number of things you can do as a vaper to limit this:

1. Drink more water – when you vape you actually exhale small quantities of water from your body. Vaping does create localised dehydration in the mouth, tongue, and sinuses, ultimately meaning you may lose your sense of taste. Stay hydrated and drink water between vapes.

2. Alternate your flavours – by continuing to use just one flavour, you’re enhancing the risk of flavour fatigue. The five different sensations that our olfactory sensors can detect are sweet, sour, salty, savoury and bitter. Try having a variety of flavours to hand so that your sensors aren’t being oversaturated with the same sensations.

3. Use a Vegetable Glycerin (VG) based e-liquid! If you solely vape using PG (propylene glycol) based e-liquids the dry-mouth that you’re experiencing will probably be down to dehydration. Propylene Glycol molecules are hygroscopic and will actually draw moisture from your mouth as you vape.

4. Get a Starter Kit – A cost-effective way to retain control of your senses, and a great way to experiment with flavours, the V2 Starter Kit comes with a choice of flavoured e-liquid cartridges to experiment with that will go some way to restoring the functionality of your olfactory sensors.

Finally, as a last resort if all else fails, try refraining from vaping for 1-2 days. This breathing space allows your olfactory sensors time to recover. It in turn allows you to continue vaping and experience all the familiar flavours. Keep a watchful eye on the tips above to ensure you avoid future flavour fatigue.

If All Else Fails – Try Something New

A great way to go about reducing the intermittent failure of your olfactory sensors is to regularly switch up the flavours of your e-liquid. Why not start by trying something new. Our best suggestion is to experiment by having multiple options at your disposal and to change often. An affordable way to do this is selecting the Platinum E-liquid sample pack. This comes with a choice of six different flavours to try – a great way to avoid flavour fatigue altogether. Check out our range and be free from flavour fatigue.