Your Guide to Finding the Best Vape for a Heavy Smoker in the UK.
It’s not easy for you to buy your first vape if you’re a heavy smoker. Much of that has to do with the vaping regulations in the United Kingdom, which impose a limitation on the nicotine strengths of all e-liquids sold here. Legally, no vape juice can have a nicotine strength higher than 20 mg/ml, which is problematic for heavy smokers because with that strength, a small vaping device won’t deliver as much nicotine per puff as a cigarette. If you try to switch to vaping and aren’t satisfied with the experience, the switch won’t last long – so you need a strategy to overcome the nicotine strength limit.
There are three strategies that can help you choose the right vape as a heavy smoker.
- You can buy a higher-capacity device that allows you to vape as often as you need to without pausing frequently for refills.
- You can buy a device that produces big enough clouds to make up for the nicotine strength limitation.
- You can buy a vape mod with enormous cloud production and use an e-liquid with a lower nicotine strength.
We’ll go over all three of those strategies in this guide, and we’ll talk about the pros and cons of each one. We’ll also describe some additional tips that you’ll find helpful if you’re a heavy smoker and are shopping for your first vape.
These are the best vapes for heavy smokers.
Elf Bar AF5000: Best Disposable Vape for a Heavy Smoker
The first strategy for overcoming the regulatory limit on nicotine strengths is to buy a vape that holds enough e-liquid to allow you to vape as often as you need to without pausing constantly to refill your device. Ordinarily, it’s difficult to find a vaping device that supplies a large number of puffs because regulations also limit the storage capacity of vape pods and tanks to a maximum of 2 ml. The Elf Bar AF5000 overcomes that limitation with a separate 10 ml bottle that attaches the device and feeds e-liquid to an internal 2 ml pod while you vape. With 10 ml of e-liquid in all, the Elf Bar AF5000 lasts up to 5,000 puffs before running out of vape juice. At that point, you’ll recycle the device and start using a new one.
Because the Elf Bar AF5000 is a small device with modest cloud production, it doesn’t deliver as much nicotine as a cigarette on a per-puff basis. However, it is an extremely convenient vaping solution that will allow you to vape as heavily as you like for several days before you’ll need to replace it.
What Makes a Vape Good for a Heavy Smoker?
There are many different vapes that can be good fits for you as a heavy smoker. In general, though, the best vapes for heavy smokers always have at least some of these qualities.
- Ample e-liquid storage.
- Quick and easy refilling.
- Adjustable airflow.
- Adjustable voltage or wattage.
- Excellent vapour production.
Voopoo Argus G2: Best Pod Vape for a Heavy Smoker
The second strategy for having a good experience with a maximum nicotine strength of 20 mg/ml as a heavy smoker is buying a device that produces large enough clouds to allow you to have a satisfying experience anyway. The more vapour your device produces, the more nicotine you’ll inhale with each puff. We think that the Voopoo Argus G2 is the best small, refillable pod system for a heavy smoker because it has adjustable wattage and operates at a maximum power of 30 watts. It also has a more heavy-duty atomizer coil compared to most other small pod systems, ensuring that you’ll get the biggest clouds that a device in this size range can possibly deliver. With the Argus G2, you’ll enjoy efficient nicotine delivery and an assertive throat hit comparable to what you’d get when smoking a cigarette.
What’s the Best Vape Juice for a Heavy Smoker?
Choosing Your Nicotine Strength
- If you’re using a small vaping device, you should choose the highest nicotine strength. That’s typically 20 mg/ml for a nicotine salt e-liquid and 18 mg/ml for freebase e-liquid. Switch to a lower strength if you feel like you’re getting more nicotine than you need.
- If you’re using a large vape mod, you should start with the lowest nicotine strength available, which is typically 3 mg/ml. Switch to the next higher strength – typically 6 mg/ml – if you don’t feel satisfied. Unless your nicotine requirements are extremely high, you shouldn’t use a strength higher than 6 mg/ml with a full-sized vape mod.
Freebase or Nicotine Salt?
- If you’re a heavy smoker, you should generally start with nicotine salt e-liquid because it’s normally available in higher strengths than freebase e-liquids. Nicotine salt e-liquids from most brands are available in strengths up to 20 mg/ml, while freebase e-liquids usually top out at 18 mg/ml. Nicotine salt also tends to be a little smoother than freebase e-liquid, so it can help you avoid throat irritation when you vape.
- Freebase e-liquid usually comes in lower nicotine strengths than nicotine salt e-liquid, but freebase nicotine is slightly more alkaline than nicotine salt and creates a stronger sensation of throat hit as a result. You should try freebase e-liquid if you need to experience a strong throat hit in order to feel satisfied.
SMOK Morph 3: Best Vape Mod for a Heavy Smoker
The final way to have a good experience with vaping as a heavy smoker is by buying a powerful vape mod with such enormous vapour production that the nicotine strength of your e-liquid doesn’t matter. The SMOK Morph 3 is the flagship vape mod from the world’s biggest manufacturer of vaping hardware, and it’s the best vape mod to buy if you’re a heavy smoker. The Morph 3 uses two lithium-ion batteries – which you’ll need to buy separately – and it operates at a maximum power of 230 watts. That’s more than enough power to drive the included SMOK T-Air tank, which uses a mesh heating element to produce enormous clouds. The SMOK T-Air is designed for the direct-to-lung inhaling style, which will be a new experience for you if you’re a smoker and are switching to vaping for the first time. It’s an experience you’ll enjoy, though, if you’re looking for a vape capable of producing room-filling clouds.
How Can a Lower Nicotine Strength Be Better for a Heavy Smoker?
You’re probably wondering how it’s possible that a vaping device optimised for a nicotine strength of just 3 mg/ml can be a good vape to buy if you’re a heavy smoker. That’s because the amount of nicotine that you absorb when vaping isn’t just a function of your e-liquid’s nicotine strength; it’s also a function of how much vapour your device produces. Using a vape juice with a low nicotine strength doesn’t mean that you won’t get as much nicotine as you need as long as your device has the vapour production to make up for it.
It’s important to note that although you can enjoy huge clouds and bold flavours with a vape mod, you won’t experience much throat hit if you use a low-strength e-liquid. So, as a heavy smoker, you should base your decision on your requirement for throat hit. If big clouds and intense flavours are most important to you, you should buy a vape mod and use a lower-strength e-liquid. If throat hit is more important to you, you should buy a pod system or disposable vape and use a higher-strength e-liquid.
As we mentioned above, it’s usually not recommended to use a nicotine strength higher than 6 mg/ml with a vape mod. Because today’s large vape mods are capable of producing such enormous clouds, you’re likely to absorb much more nicotine than you need with a higher strength than that even if you’re a heavy smoker.