Short Fill E-Liquids

For most vapers, these products are commonplace. New vapers, however, always ask the same questions

21 Mar 2018 | Daniel Hollyman

What are short fill liquids

As the name suggests, the idea is that you buy a part filled bottle of e-liquid. The bottle leaves enough room for you to add a half, a full, or multiple nicotine shots. That’s all there is to it!

Originally, the vast majority of short fills were 50ml in a 60ml bottle. Adding a 10ml 18mg nicotine shot then gives you a full bottle of 3mg e-liquid.

Then came 80ml in a 100ml bottle. For this, adding 2x10ml 15mg nicotine shots gives you 100ml of 3mg. Then came brands like The Big Tasty.

These give you 100ml in a 120ml bottle, so you add 2x10ml 18mg shots for a whopping 120ml of 3mg e-liquid.

The lastest incarnation is 25ml in a 30ml bottle. Add half of an 18mg nicotine shot and you’ll end up with 30ml of 3mg.

Whatever next?

We’re really surprised nobody has done 20ml in a 30ml bottle, and created a 9mg nicotine shot. That way, a 6mg vaper could be just as happy as a 3mg vaper, with a short fill product.

From what we understand, it’s difficult to do this type of product and make it look like good value. But if there is a big enough demand from 6mg vapers, we can see this being the next big thing in the short fill market.

Why do these products exist?

One small acronym: TPD. The EU, in their infinite wisdom, decided that no vaper needs a bottle of e-liquid bigger than 10ml.

The trouble is, at least 50% of existing vapers disagree. The other 50% vape high nicotine strengths in low power devices and 10ml could easily last 4-5 days.

Cloud chasers average 10ml of liquid per day. However, we’ve heard of some high power vapers easily chugging through 30ml in a single day!

Some people will read this and think that’s insane. Others will probably read this and think “is that all”? Anyway, we digress…

Short fill products were created because the TPD does not apply to products sold without nicotine.

This means you can buy your favourite flavours in bigger volumes, meaning better prices.

So if TPD doesn’t apply, can we trust short fill products?

In essence, no. A TPD notified e-liquid must, by law, be subjected to two important testing regimes:

1. A toxicological assessment of every chemical compound found in the base liquid. If any of these compounds present a risk to health greater than the risk of nicotine, the product does not comply.
2. An assessment of the emissions of the e-liquid from an e-cigarette. This includes screening things like aldehydes, heavy metals, headline irritants, and other markers that could cause concern.

If short fill products aren’t subjected to the same standard, then you can’t have as much trust in them.

The question, then, is how much do you trust the company producing them, and how much do you trust the vendor?

Some brands will supply basic headline irritant screening data to support the safety of their products. Others have notified a TPD compliant version of the same product, so you can have confidence it complies with the same standards.

How does MyVapery determine that their short fill products are safe?

We won’t take on any brand that can’t supply at least test results for headline irritants (this tells us how many parts per million are detected for the compounds: Diacetyl, AcetylPropionyl and Acetoin). These are the ingredients that give the largest cause for concern in a vape product.

We encourage all of the brands we take on to create a notified version of their product as soon as possible. Jammin Vape Co have completed this work already, and we know the other brands here aren’t too far behind.

If brands aren’t prepared to agree to these terms, we aren’t prepared to stock their products.