Tips For Successfully Vaping In Cold Weather This Winter

A lot of people who are reading this might have bittersweet memories when they think of bundling up and walking outside in -40℃  weather to have a smoke. It’s an inevitable drawback of being a smoker in Winnipeg - if you’ve quit smoking and decided to vape, you’re going to have to put up with the cold and device maintenance. On the plus side, you won’t have to fiddle around with a Bic freezing the tips of your fingers off.

We’re going to give you some advice to improve your winter vaping experience. These tips vary from helping you get the best hits to helping you avoid serious damage to your lips - they’ll also get you out and in as fast as possible. We don’t want you getting frostbite!

Tip #1: Avoid metallic tips

Have you ever licked a frozen pole? Hopefully, you answered no, but if you answered yes, it probably wasn’t a very pleasant experience. Those of you who answered no still probably have a pretty good idea why you shouldn’t lick frozen poles.

Metallic tips are that frozen pole, but for your lips. At the very least, they’ll sap the warmth and moisture from your lips, leading to cracking, bleeding, and other unpleasant things. At the worst, your lips will stick to the tip, and you’ll have to ask your co-worker to pour some of the water from their Cup of Noodles onto your face. Not fun.

Tip #2: Adjust for thick juice

Bring a carton of OJ outside in -30℃ weather, and it’s going to freeze pretty quickly. While vape juice doesn’t freeze as fast as orange juice (even if it is orange-flavoured), it does still freeze eventually. That’s especially true for vapes with a lot of VG content - while VG technically freezes at a lower temperature than PG, its higher viscosity leads it to flow at a molasses-like pace in the cold.

That means you should opt for higher PG mixes. Saturating the wick will also take a lot longer, so you’ll have more waiting time between hits. For those of you who are worried about standing around in the cold, you might want to use a pod system for vaping outside in the winter, opting to use your coil system in warm places/seasons.

Tip #3: Watch your battery life

Batteries operate much less efficiently in the cold. You’ve probably noticed this with your cellphone - it’s equally true of vapes, and you’ll find that your battery is going to drop like a stone when you vape in temperatures below freezing. 

There are a couple of things you can do to mitigate this. The first step is to keep your vape in your pocket to keep it warm - an inner pocket can be a good idea if you want to keep it as warm as possible. 

The second thing is to make sure you keep your vape charger nearby at all times, and to make sure you’re consistently charging your vape. 

Tip #4: Use psychological hacks to stay warm

Those of you who have been to Festival du Voyageur will understand this premise - even if it’s very cold out, if you’ve got something to distract you from the chill, you can still have a good time.

When vaping, you should probably avoid menthol flavours if you’re sick and tired of the cold - they’ll just remind you of how quickly the heat is leaving your body. Instead, opt for smoky or maybe even tropical flavours - things that will remind you of warmth. Tobacco flavours can do a nice job of this, especially if you’re missing the ritual of lighting a cigarette in the dead cold of January.

Tip #5: Keep your vape safe

This article is being written during an unseasonably warm December - there’s almost no snow on the ground. Most of the time, though, winter is a very snowy, messy season. That means there’s a lot of opportunities to get your vape wet - say, after you throw a snowball at someone, and then go for a drag.

Make sure you dry off your vape if you get any moisture on it. In the same vein, you might consider taking off your gloves when vaping - dropping your vape onto ice is never fun, and gloves don’t make handling a vape very easy.