When you draw on your e-cigarette, a special little substance called e-liquid is heated and vapourised, ready to be inhaled by you. Sounds simple enough but, particularly if you are vegan, you’ll naturally want to know exactly what ingredients are being taken into your body during this process.
Vegan or not, we doubt anyone will find the idea of inhaling vapourised animal parts appealing (Lady Gaga took it far enough when she wore that meat dress). In a world seemingly built from animal products, whether they’re on people’s plates, feet or bodies, it would be fair to assume that vaping is yet another activity that isn’t suitable for vegans.
But, fortunately, that assumption would be wrong! The majority of e-liquids are vegan – read on to learn more.
THE FACTS
No animal parts are involved in the process of creating e-liquids.
The more standard, natural flavours, for instance fruit flavoured e-liquids, usually come from natural sources.Natural flavouring is derived from plants, fruits and vegetables.
The e-liquids which are a little more whacky, for instance cake or custard based flavours, tend to be constructed from chemicals to create the more specific taste. Which means no real eggs, milk or butter used!
E-liquids have a base of vegetable glycerine (VG), propylene glycol (PG) or a combination of both:
Vegetable glycerine is vegan friendly, produced from plant oils, typically palm oil, soy or coconut oil.
Propylene glycol is an organic compound produced from petroleum – it is not made from an animal.
E-liquids may also contain distilled waterwhich, shock horror, is fine for vegans!
E-liquids may also contain nicotine. This is an addictive substance found in members of the Nightshade family of plants, including tomatoes, potatoes, green pepper and aubergine.
Whilst this is all good news for vegans, there is always a chance chemicals, like PG or those in artificial flavouring, may have been tested on animals. If in doubt, always contact the manufacturer and express your concern. They should be happy to put your mind at ease!
So, in summary, e-liquids are made from vegetable glycerine, propylene glycol, flavouring, distilled water and nicotine. Many of these ingredients are derived from plants and none contain animal parts or products.
However, depending on how strictly vegan you are, things fall into grey territory when dealing with chemicals, such as PG or artificial flavours. It’s not always easy to determine whether these chemicals have been tested on animals during the production process.
If you are concerned, contact the supplier to see if they can give you more information. If this doesn’t prove fruitful, we would suggest choosing e-liquids which are 100% VG, rather than a PG/VG mix, and also those which use natural flavourings only.
