If you’ve recently purchased your first vaping device and are still getting to know it, one thing is probably already abundantly clear to you: Vaping definitely isn’t as simple as smoking. Not even the best vapes on the market could be as simple as lighting a bundle of leaves on fire. Even inhaling the vapour – something that seems like it ought to be fairly straightforward – is made more complicated by the fact that there are many different types of vapes on the market today, each with their own airflow characteristics.

So, how do you inhale a vape properly – and are you even supposed to inhale the vapour at all? We’ll answer all of your questions in this straightforward guide to the three different inhaling techniques for vaping.

Getting Started: Do You Need to Inhale When You Vape?

You’re not the first person to ask this question! There are some types of tobacco products – most notably cigars and pipes – that are smoked but aren’t traditionally inhaled. Although a few vapes with pipe stems do exist, the vaping manufacturers of the world haven’t done the greatest job of courting cigar and pipe smokers and have primarily focused on providing an alternative for cigarette smoking instead. When you smoke a cigar or pipe without inhaling, the nicotine absorbs through the oral mucosa. If you want to vape without inhaling, you can. You’ll get the same slow, steady nicotine absorption that you enjoy when you smoke a pipe or cigar.

Most people who vape do inhale the vapour, though, so that’s what we’ll focus on for the remainder of this article. There are three different inhaling techniques that you can use when vaping. We’ll discuss each of those techniques and explain why they might be right for you.

How to do it: Use air pressure to draw the vapour into your mouth before inhaling it

The mouth-to-lung inhaling technique is probably the one that will feel most comfortable to you if you’re new to vaping because it’s the same inhaling technique that you use when you smoke a cigarette – so it’ll feel completely familiar. Because smokers want a familiar experience when they switch to vaping, most of the beginner-oriented vaping devices on the market are designed for the MTL inhaling style.

MTL inhaling works best with high-nicotine e-liquids, and higher nicotine strengths are best suited for smaller vaping devices with modest cloud production. This is the inhaling style you should choose if you want a level of nicotine satisfaction and throat hit comparable to smoking.

How to do it: Inhale the vapour directly into your lungs

The largest and most powerful vape mods are generally designed for the direct-to-lung inhaling style, which produces the biggest clouds and works best with the lowest nicotine strengths. People who use the DTL inhaling style are typically more experienced vapers who prioritise flavour intensity and cloud production over throat hit. They have been full-time vapers for a while. They’re long past the point of missing the throat hit of smoking, and the thing that keeps them interested in vaping is the enjoyment of the flavour.

The most common nicotine strength for DTL inhaling is 3 mg/ml. If you’re a newer vaper, you might assume that you wouldn’t get enough nicotine if you used such a low strength. That’s not the case, though, because devices designed for the DTL inhaling style produce very large clouds. The fact that you’re inhaling a much greater volume of vapour makes up for the lower strength of the e-liquid.

How to do it: Inhale the vapour directly into your lungs

In terms of your inhaling technique, the restricted direct-to-lung vaping style is the same as the DTL style in that you inhale the vapour directly into your lungs. The difference is in the hardware. A device designed for RDL inhaling has slightly more restrictive airflow compared to one designed for DTL inhaling. The smaller airflow vents force you to inhale more slowly, so you’ll get slightly smaller clouds and slightly more throat hit than you would with a DTL vape. In other words, the RDL inhaling style provides a balanced experience that gives you the strong points of the MTL and DTL styles.

Vapers don’t usually switch directly from MTL to DTL inhaling. It’s typically more of a gradual process. As people gain experience, they begin to experiment with different techniques that promote bigger cloud production. You might try inhaling directly to your lungs with your first vape, for example – and if you like the experience, you may decide to get a larger vape, so you can enjoy even bigger clouds. RDL vapes occupy a middle ground that’ll probably be ideal for you when you reach that point.

How to Adjust Your Vape to Match Your Inhaling Style

Now that you understand how to inhale a vape properly and what the three different inhaling styles are, it’s time to put it all together and make sure that your vape provides the experience you want. Here’s what you need to know.

• The best way to make sure that your experience will be exactly what you want it to be is by buying a device designed for your preferred inhaling style. You can tell what inhaling style a vape is designed for by looking at the mouthpiece and airflow vents. The smaller the mouthpiece and vents are, the more restrictive the airflow will be. For the MTL inhaling style, you’ll want the airflow to be as tight as possible. A vape designed for DTL inhaling, on the other hand, will have a large mouthpiece and vents.
• If you already own a vaping device – and it doesn’t quite have the airflow characteristics you want – you can often adjust the airflow by adjusting the vents, replacing the mouthpiece or using a different coil or pod. Many vaping devices have multiple coil or pod options intended for different inhaling styles.