The short answer: PG carries flavour and gives you throat hit, VG gives you smoothness and vapour, and the ratio printed on the bottle tells you which way the blend leans. Match it to your device and you will rarely think about it again.

What the two letters mean

Every e-liquid is built on two base liquids. Propylene glycol, shortened to PG, is thin and clear. It holds flavour well and produces the slight catch at the back of the throat that many former smokers recognise from cigarettes. Vegetable glycerine, or VG, is thicker and faintly sweet. It softens the draw and makes the visible vapour.

Neither is better. They do different jobs, and the blend is written as a ratio. A 50/50 liquid is an even split. A 70/30 liquid is 70 per cent VG to 30 per cent PG, which is how the higher-VG blends are usually written. If you want the full ingredient picture, our e-liquid ingredients facts sheet sets it out.

Which ratio suits your kit

This is really a device question, not a taste question, and getting it wrong is the most common cause of a disappointing vape.

50/50 is for pod kits and mouth-to-lung devices. The liquid is thin enough to wick easily through the small, higher-resistance coils these kits use. You get defined flavour, a firm throat hit and the tighter, cigarette-like draw that suits most people making the switch. Nicotine salts almost always come in 50/50, which is why the two go together so naturally. Our 10ml e-liquid range is largely built around this.

70/30 and higher VG is for sub-ohm and direct-to-lung kits. These devices use larger, lower-resistance coils with much more airflow, and they need a thicker liquid to keep up. You get a warmer, softer draw and considerably more vapour. Most shortfills are high-VG for exactly this reason.

Put a thick 70/30 through a tight pod coil and it will struggle to wick, which produces the dry, scorched taste people describe as a burnt hit. Put a thin 50/50 through a big sub-ohm coil and it tends to leak past the seals and spit. Both problems disappear the moment the ratio matches the hardware.

A note on throat hit and sensitivity

If you find a 50/50 a little sharp, dropping to a higher-VG blend softens it, provided your device can handle the thicker liquid. A small number of people find PG irritating and prefer higher VG for that reason alone. If a liquid consistently makes you cough where others do not, the ratio is worth looking at before you blame the flavour.

Nicotine strength affects this too. A high-strength freebase liquid feels harsher than a nicotine salt at the same strength, regardless of the ratio.

The rule of thumb

Small device, tight draw, higher nicotine, salts: choose 50/50. Bigger device, open airflow, low nicotine, clouds: choose 70/30 or higher VG. If you are unsure what your kit is, the coil resistance is the giveaway, and our friendly advisers will tell you in seconds. We are rated 4.8 out of 5 by over 4,800 UK customers, and no question about a bottle is too small to ask.