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If you’ve made the jump from smoking to vaping with the help of some Raz vapes, you’re probably feeling pretty good about yourself right now. You’re also smelling better and saving a lot of money – it’s a big win. The fact that you’ve switched to vaping doesn’t mean that you’re going to stop caring about what you put into your body, though – so what are the ingredients in Raz vapes?
Compared to the 7,000 chemicals in cigarettes, the ingredients in Raz vapes are actually surprisingly simple. They’re also the same as what you’ll find in any other vape juice. In this guide, we’ll list the things that are in a Raz vape and explain where those ingredients come from and what they do.
Vegetable Glycerin and Propylene Glycol
Vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol (VG and PG) make up the vast majority of what’s in a Raz vape or any other vaping device or 10 e-liquid. These are the ingredients that give the give the vapor its substance and mouth feel. Without VG and PG, vaping wouldn’t generate the large clouds that remind you of smoking a cigarette. They’re also important because the other key ingredients in a Raz vape – the flavors and the nicotine – are very concentrated in their original forms. All of the e-liquid in a vape contains just a few drops each of nicotine and flavors; VG and PG comprise the rest of the vape juice.
So, what are VG and PG? Vegetable glycerin is a chemical that’s created naturally as a byproduct of soapmaking. Propylene glycol is synthetic. VG and PG are emulsifiers, moisturizers and preservatives, and they’re used in a wide variety of products that you eat, drink and put on your skin. Some of the everyday products that include VG, PG or both include shelf-stable foods, soft-serve ice creams, powdered drink mixes, deodorants, eyedrops, lotions, haircare products and cosmetics.
If VG and PG serve similar purposes in foods, drinks and topical products, couldn’t you use just one of them in a Raz vape? Why use both? The answer is that VG and PG have slightly different properties when they’re used in an e-liquid. VG is more viscous than PG and forms big, billowy clouds that many people find enjoyable. PG, on the other hand, is a better flavor carrier. Since VG and PG both have benefits, it’s common for an e-liquid to include both.
Nicotine
Although nicotine-free Raz vapes do exist, most of the company’s devices do contain nicotine since that’s what the majority of former smokers want. In the past, vaping companies used pharmaceutical-grade nicotine extracted from tobacco leaves when creating their e-liquids. Recently, though, it’s become more common for Raz and other companies in the vaping industry to use synthetic tobacco-free nicotine.
Synthetic nicotine uses the vitamin niacin – which is also known as nicotinic acid – as a precursor. As you can probably tell from the name, niacin is chemically similar to nicotine. So, it’s possible to convert it to nicotine by putting it through a series of chemical reactions.
Functionally, synthetic nicotine is the same as tobacco-derived nicotine. Switching to tobacco-free nicotine has been an important step, though, for a vaping industry that wants to remove every connection between itself and the traditional tobacco industry.
Food-Grade Acid
Most Raz vapes have a fairly high nicotine strength of 50 mg/ml, and all vapes with nicotine strengths that high use a form of e-liquid called nicotine salt e-liquid. Lower-strength vapes, on the other hand, use freebase nicotine e-liquid. The difference between the two is that a nicotine salt e-liquid includes a mild food-grade acid – such as benzoic acid – that converts the nicotine to its salt form.
Understanding the distinction between the freebase and salt forms of nicotine is less important today than it used to be because all modern disposable vapes use nicotine salt e-liquid, and disposable vapes represent the majority of the vaping products sold today. The reason why it’s important for these vapes to use nicotine salt, though, is because freebase nicotine is alkaline and can cause throat irritation at high strengths. The acid that’s added to nicotine salt e-liquid reduces its alkalinity, allowing you to enjoy an experience that’s as satisfying as a cigarette but still completely smooth.
Food-Grade Flavors
You’re already aware of the fact that Raz vapes are available in dozens of tasty flavors, and the reason why such an enormous variety of flavor profiles is possible is because Raz and other vape companies flavor their products with the same food-grade natural and artificial flavors used in the things that you eat and drink every day.
Just about every flavor that you can possibly imagine – fruit, cream, cake, candy and even tobacco – is available in a concentrated bottled form ready for adding to an e-liquid. Companies like Raz buy those flavors and combine them in creative ways to come up with flavor profiles that are tasty, satisfying and interesting. Menthol is also a common flavoring agent used in vapes; it adds an icy finish to create an overall experience that’s a bit like drinking a beverage out of a frosty glass.
Some of the most popular flavors from Raz include:
- Blue Razz Ice
- Blueberry Watermelon
- Frozen Banana
- Miami Mint
- Raspberry Limeade
- Strawberry Kiwi Pear
- Watermelon Ice
Sucralose
In addition to a variety of food-grade flavors, it’s also common for Raz vapes to include a bit of sucralose for sweetness. Sucralose isn’t the same thing as sugar – no vapes include sugar. Sucralose is a low-calorie sweetener that’s sold in stores under the brand name Splenda, and it’s one of the most common ingredients in vapes today because almost everyone loves sweet flavor profiles.
Adding sucralose to e-liquid does have one downside, though, in that sucralose leaves a dark residue on your vape’s heating coil and can eventually cause the vape to taste somewhat smoky and caramelized. You might notice the slightly smoky flavor as you reach the end of your Raz vape’s e-liquid supply. If you don’t enjoy that flavor, Raz also offers several more neutral flavors such as Clear, Polar Ice and Tobacco.
