Salt nic juice has really taken the industry by storm in recent years. Thanks to the rise of pod-style devices, which operate at lower powers and drastically simplify vaping (especially for new users), the need for salt based nicotine e-juice has risen too, with no signs of slowing down.
This has led to many of the most well-known e-juice brands in the industry releasing alternative lines of nicotine salt juice in their most popular flavors. In a sense, this makes it easy to find great nic salt flavors, but in practice, there are enough specific lines and enough vape juices that have mainly gained popularity through salt nic that it’s worth going a little deeper before making your choice.
15 Best Salt Nic Juice Brands
Pachamama Salts
Pachamama is a fruit-focused juice brand from the company responsible for Charlie’s Chalk Dust, with a focus on well-captured and cleanly-presented fruit flavors. The Pachamama Salts line offers some of the best flavors from the line up as salt nic juice, including Apple Tobacco, Fuji (an apple and strawberry mix), Icy Mango Salts, Strawberry Watermelon, Starfruit Grape and Sorbet. The juices are pretty much self-explanatory, but the quality of the flavors and inventiveness of some of the combinations really take them to the next level, and they’re definitely worth trying if you’re looking for high nicotine e-juice. They come in either 25 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine, and you can pick up 30 ml bottles for $13.99.
I Love Salts
Mad Hatter’s I Love Salts line offers 15 excellent flavors and is some of the best salt nic juice on the market today. The flavors include some basic options like Classic Tobacco, Sweet Tobacco, Classic Menthol and Spearmint, along with a huge range of fruity flavors such as Blue Raspberry, Tropic Mango, Grapeberry (grape, apple and berry), Strawberry Candy and Pacific Passion (strawberry, coconut and pineapple). The flavors for the I Love Salts line are all really well-captured, with accurate representations and delicious combinations throughout the line-up (check out our review for more information). You can pick them up for $14.99 per 30 ml, in either 25 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine.
Dinner Lady
Dinner Lady is a UK-based mixer that has gone from being a relative unknown to a big name in a pretty short space of time, and their line of nicotine salt juices are some of the best on the market right now. They’ve essentially re-released some of their most popular flavors using nicotine salts, including Strawberry Macaroon, Lemon Tart, Blackberry Crumble, Berry Blast, Purple Rain, Lemon Sherbets and Watermelon Slices. If you’re looking for something like a simple menthol salt nic flavor, they might not be the best choice, but if you want something fruity and sweet, they offer some of the best options out there. They come in 30 ml bottles, with a choice of 30 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine, and cost $14.99 each.
Jam Monster
Jam Monster (or just Monster) is best known for their limited line-up of jam and toast based e-juices, but they’ve expanded considerably since then while keeping the quality just as high as it always was. Along with the Custard Monster and Tobacco Monster lines, they’ve also put a selection of their most popular juices into salt nic juice form. These include Strawberry Custard, Blueberry Custard, Apricot Jam, Vanilla Custard, Rich Tobacco, Menthol Tobacco Raspberry Jam, Mixed Berry Jam, Banana Jam, Blueberry Jam and Strawberry Jam. They’re all good but Strawberry Jam was the flagship juice and for us, it’s still the best (read more in our review). You can pick them up for $14.95 per 30 ml, in either 24 or 48 mg/ml of nicotine.
Juice Head
Juice Head is a fruit-focused mixer with a range of six different salt nic juice flavors, with high-strength liquids ideal for anyone who wants a fruity vape for their pod system. You have a choice between Strawberry Kiwi, Pineapple Grapefruit, Blueberry Lemon, Peach Pear, Watermelon Lime and Guava Peach, with a 50/50 PG/VG mix to the liquids so they work perfectly in pods. The options are all interesting combinations of flavors, with plenty of variety even while sticking to the “vapeable fruit juice” concept for the line. You can pick them up in 25 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine, and they cost $14.99 per 30 ml bottle.
TWST Salt
TWST (or Twist) used to be primarily a boutique-style mixer focusing on mason jar lemonade-type mixes, mainly with fruits but almost all having a lemonade backing. The mixer has expanded their offerings a lot since our original review, including offering a line of nic salt juices to cater to the growing number of vapers now using pod systems. There are 10 flavors available in total, with many of the original lemonade offerings – including Pink Punch Lemonade (and the Ice version), Berry Medley Lemonade and Iced Pucker Punch – but with additional options like Tobacco Gold No. 1 and Menthol No. 1 for anybody looking for a more straightforward cigarette substitute. You can pick the juices up in 30 ml bottles with either 35 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine salts for $14.99 each.
Bantam Salts
Bantam Salts has a huge selection of nicotine salt e-liquids, with most major flavor categories covered and great options in most of them. They’re tailored to pod systems through the high nicotine levels, with a choice of 18 or 36 mg/ml, and the 50/50 PG/VG ratio, to thin it out and help it soak into the coils. The flavors include some important staples, such as Toasted Tobacco, a straight-up menthol option, tons of fruits (such as Banana Strawberry, Purple Watermelon and Citrus Strawberry), sweeter options (such as Banana Muffin, Nutty Caramel and Cream & Honey) and more. With such a huge range of flavors, you’ll undoubtedly prefer some to others, but there is a big enough selection that you’ll have tons of potential favorites. They cost $16.99 per 30 ml bottle.
Baton Vapor
Baton Vapor is a great choice if you’re looking for high nicotine e-juice with more straightforward, “everyday” type of flavors than many of the options on this list. The brands salt nic juice selection includes 9 flavors: Iced Watermelon Limeade, Wild Melon, Crisp Apple, Fruit Confit, Southern Leaf (tobacco), Glacier Mint, Vanilla Wafer, Island Mango and Iced Banana Milk (banana milkshake with a bit of icy menthol). The flavors might not be as complex as what you get from companies like Yami Vapor or Pachamama, but if you’re looking for some less complex flavors, they’re all executed impressively well and always give you exactly what you’re expecting. The bottles are smaller than most salt nic juices (10 ml), but you can pick them up in either 25 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine for $8.99 each.
Fruitia
As the name suggests, Fruitia focuses on fruity flavors, with a specific salt nic juice line-up for vapers using pod-style devices. The line-up includes a total of seven flavors: Sweet Peach Soda, Smooth Banana Ice, Strawberry Coconut Refresher, Pineapple Citrus Twist, Passion Fruit Guava Punch, Blood Orange Cactus Cooler and Apple Kiwi Crush. The combinations are inventive enough to separate Fruitia’s offerings from the many fruit e-liquids on the market, and they’re also impressively realistic in terms of flavor. As with most salt nicotine juices, the bottles are 30 ml, and you can pick them up in either 35 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine. They cost $16.99 a bottle.
Yami Vapor
Yami Vapor has made a name for itself pretty quickly thanks to a focused line-up of standard e-liquids and some of the best salt nic juices in the industry. There are only three of their most well-known flavors available in salt nic form, but they are three of the best flavors from the ordinary line-up, and give enough variety to satisfy most vapers. The salt nic line-up includes their best-selling flavor, Taruto, which is based on Portuguese egg tart, combining a flaky pastry with custard, as well as the fruit mix Juusu (mixing apple, peach and lychee) and Icy Trio (strawberry, kiwi and lychee with menthol added). You can pick up 30 ml bottles for $14.99, with a choice of 35 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine.
Propaganda
Propaganda is one of those companies that doesn’t have a huge range of flavors but really knocks it out of the park on the ones they do have on offer. The Salts line-up only contains four salt nic flavors in total, but the flavors on offer cover enough ground to keep most vapers happy. Blue Frost is a blue raspberry slushie mix, Illuminati is a fruity mix with blood orange, strawberry and pineapple, Wildfire is a unique tobacco blend that combines chocolate almond cookies with a smoky tobacco flavor, and Cookie Butter combines oatmeal cookie with brown sugar and milk. The juices come in 30 ml bottles with either 24, 35 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine each, and cost $13.99.
Solace Vapor
Solace Vapor has been in business since 2015, and despite the understated design of the brand, they’ve put out an impressive range of flavors in both standard and salt nic juice formulations. There are 18 flavors in total to choose from (with an option of unflavored on their website as well), mainly fruits such as Banana Dragonberry, Pineapple and Berry Bash, but with some menthol options like Mint and Dragon Fruit Menthol, as well as a Bold Tobacco that many just-switching smokers love. The juices come in 30 ml bottles, with options of either 36 or 48 mg/ml of nicotine. You can pick them up for $16.99 a bottle.
Naked 100 Salts
Naked 100’s salt nic line-up may have technically been discontinued, but with such high quality e-liquids it’s hard to leave them off a list like this while they’re still available from some sellers. The flavors are all based around fairly clean-tasting fruity combinations, which shoot for accuracy above overt sweetness or candy-like combinations. For example, Lava Flow combines strawberry, pineapple and coconut, and Brain Freeze mixes pomegranate, strawberry and kiwi, with several other similar options in the line-up and all of them boasting impressively-accurate fruit replications and generally well-crafted e-liquids. You can pick up 30 ml bottles of Naked 100’s salt nic juices for $16.99, with options of 35 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine (i.e. 3.5% and 5%).
SadBoy
While the name might not exactly inspire confidence, it turns out that SadBoy can produce some pretty delicious salt nic e-juices. The line-up revolves around a few key flavors: Mango, Rainbow, Punch Berry and Strawberry, with either Blood or Ice forms of each available. Blood combines the core flavor with some sweetness (either from candy-like flavors or raspberry lemonade), and Ice combines the core flavor with menthol. This is a pretty good approach, because it allows the mixer to focus on getting some flavors just right – which they’ve definitely done – and still offers vapers plenty of choice. You can pick up the SadBoy salt nicotine juices for $14.95 a bottle (30 ml) and they come in either 48 or 24 mg/ml of nicotine.
Hometown Hero
Hometown Hero is a company mainly-known for their delta-8 THC offerings, but they have some awesome nicotine salt e-juice available too. They have three different lines of e-juice available in salted form, with the Artist Series offering a sweet and fruity line-up with one dessert/tobacco included, the Tropical line offering two fruit blends and the Lazer Wolf line, which has one fruit, one dessert and one candy flavor. Witch Doctor is their most popular flavor, which combines smooth tobacco with chocolate sweetness, and Red Dream is a blend of strawberry cream with kettle corn. The flavors are clearly carefully-crafted and the combinations work great together, with plenty of variety too. They come in 30 ml bottles, with either 30 or 50 mg/ml of nicotine and a 50/50 PG/VG ratio. It costs $19.99 per bottle.
Guide to Buying the Best Nicotine Salt Juices
The above list of top-rated nicotine salts is great (and hopefully useful) if you know what you want, but with the constantly-changing technology and the seemingly endless onslaught of new terminology surrounding vaping, it’s understandable if you need a little crash course.
For instance, what does salt nic juice even mean? Can you sub-ohm salt nic liquids? How do you choose the right salt nic levels for your needs?
Although we can’t address everything here – and we have a separate post on the topic if you want more information – here are the basics you need.
What is Nicotine Salt?
The simplest question to ask is: what is a nic salt e-liquid anyway?
Unfortunately, if you get into the full details the answer is a little bit complicated, but the basics are easy to understand.
Most e-liquid uses nicotine in “freebase” form, which is the type that your body can absorb, but in the tobacco plant, natural nicotine comes in the form of a salt.
This is basically a combination of nicotine and an acid. Nicotine is a base, so if you remember your high school chemistry, you’ll know that combinations like this form a salt.
For vaping purposes, it makes sense why most e-juices used freebase nicotine: it can be absorbed by your body but salts can’t. However, if you work out how to create nicotine salts that are absorbed during vaping there are some benefits.
The main advantage is that the “basic” (i.e. “alkaline”) nature of nicotine is what creates a throat hit with vaping, and what usually makes high nicotine e-juice very harsh to vape. But if you make it into a salt, the whole mixture gets more acidic and it makes it much smoother to vape.
So the key difference when it comes to salt nic vs. regular e-liquids is that you can have higher strengths in the form of nicotine salts without pushing the throat hit too far.
Nicotine Salts Pros and Cons
So if you’re considering salt nic juice, the most important positive and negative points are:
Pros
- Less throat hit with more nicotine
- More satisfying to vape (especially for smokers and recent switchers)
- Works well with low power devices
- 50/50 PG/VG mix is standard, so it works with simpler tanks
Cons
- Unwise to use with sub-ohm tanks
- Less common than regular vape juice
- Not for cloud chasing
Guide to Nicotine Salts Levels
Salt nic juice effectively shifts the “desired” nicotine level way higher than in regular e-liquid.
This creates a whole new challenge for new vapers in particular, because finding the right nicotine strength is always a bit of a trail-and-error process, but it renders advice for standard vape juice basically useless.
For example, a 20 mg/ml regular e-liquid would be super strong and basically only worth it for heavy smokers, but a 20 mg nic salt liquid is quite weak.
So how do you estimate what you’ll need?
If you’ve read through the list above you may have noticed there is less consistency in the strength of liquid with nicotine salts compared to regular e-juices. However, a 50 mg/ml nic juice is very common for salts, and most companies either offer 25 or 35 mg/ml as an alternative option.
With this in mind, the basic advice can be summed up quite easily:
- For just-switching smokers and/or those with low-power devices: A 50 mg/ml (5%) juice should be satisfying to you and works well if you have a lower-power device with less battery life.
- For longer-term vapers and/or those with higher-power devices: 25 mg/ml (2.5%) is a good option. It’s still strong enough to keep you satisfied (even if you’ve just switched it may be enough), but it’s not as hard-hitting as the stronger option. If you’re using a high-end pod system with adjustable wattage or a basic mod, this is more likely to be suitable than higher strengths.
However, there is still an element of trial and error when it comes to finding the right strength for your needs.
For example, you might find that even 50 mg/ml juice isn’t enough for you, in which case you might be able to find a company that offers 60 mg nic juice, or on the other hand you might need a low nic salt juice to keep the throat hit to a minimum. Most of the time, though, one of the standard options should work for you.
Devices for Salt Nic Juice
Since salt nic juice is very different to standard e-liquids, you need to think carefully about the device you use alongside it. The good news is that this is fairly simple and the best approach is very beginner-friendly.
Salt nic liquid was basically invented for the Juul – to the point that some people call it “Juul pod refill juice” – and so a pod system is generally the best nic salt device.
These tend to operate at much lower powers, have smaller batteries and are often cigarette-like in operation, so you just take a puff to vape.
Most pod-style devices on the market today allow you to refill the pods and even change coils, so they’re a little like simplified tanks. The majority of the devices accompanying them just operate at one fixed power, which helps you get the most out of the limited battery life and ensures that the setting is appropriate for the pod.
There are some more complex pod-style mods that work well for nic salt juice too, such as the “RPM” series from Smok, the Voopoo Vinci X and the Vaporesso Target PM80. These bridge the gap between pod systems and traditional vape mods, giving you more control over the performance you get and offering more battery life while still maintaining the simple pod-style tanks. This is the closest you can get to nic salt mods.
Traditional mods don’t work well with nic salt juices in most cases. If the power goes too high, you’ll end up with too much nicotine, and the sub ohm tanks they’re usually combined with produce a ton of vapor.
The best you can do with a more traditional setup is a mouth-to-lung (MTL) tank (usually with a resistance over 1 ohm) and a mod set at a low power. But still, pod systems do the job better.
Conclusion – More Ways to Vape Than Ever Before
In short, the rise of pod systems and salt nic juice has changed the landscape of vaping, offering more options for newer vapers in particular.
If you’re just looking for something to help you quit smoking, you can pick up a simple pod system and any regular e-juice flavor, but if you want to really enjoy vaping more than you ever enjoyed smoking, getting one of the best vape pods along with some of the awesome nicotine salts above will really take your experience to the next level.