How to Minimize the Smell When You Vape

Maybe you’re vaping in a public park or an indoor space and want to be respectful to people nearby. Maybe your roommate or spouse just doesn’t like the smell of your e-cigarette.
There are many reasons that you might want to minimize the smell your e-cigarette produces when you vape. It allows you to vape more politely, discretely, and minimize the impact your vaping has on people around you.
Even if you prefer to vape thick clouds of vapor by yourself, there are many times and places where big clouds are not appropriate.
If you vape in public or in any other space you share with other people, there may be occasions that you need to limit the amount of vapor and smell your e-cigarette makes.
That’s why, in this article, we’re going to give you a variety of tips and tricks for reducing the smell of vaping. That way, you can still still enjoy your e-cigarette while being discrete and minimizing the nuisance to other people.

Tips for Reducing the Smell of Vapor

Making vaping smell less is about three primary things: reducing the scent of the vapor, minimizing the volume of vapor you create, and clearing vapor out of the air more quickly.

Luckily, there are many simple ways to achieve all of these goals and minimize the smell when you vape.
If you’re looking for ways to make vaping less smelly or less of a nuisance to people around you, then this article is for you. In the following sections we’ll show you a number of tips and techniques you can choose from that can help you vape more politely in a variety of different places and situations.

Choose a Mild-Flavored E-Liquid

A certain amount of vapor smell is unavoidable, no matter what kind of e-juice you vape. However, different flavors of e-liquids have different scents when vaporized, and some smell stronger than others.
For example, some vapers say that tobacco flavors tend to have a stronger, more offensive odors. Sweeter flavors, like candy and dessert flavors, also tend to have a more noticeable smell.
On the other hand, some vapers report that cool, minty flavors tend to have a milder odor that dissipates more quickly than other flavors. In general, anything that doesn’t contain fruity flavors or sweetener is less likely to have a strong smell.
If someone you share space with is bothered by a particular e-liquid scent, try playing around with some different flavors to see if they find any of the m more tolerable.
With a little patience and trial and error, you might be able to find a flavor with a more pleasant scent that those around you don’t mind having to smell.
Another option is to vape a completely unflavored e-liquid, which has a much more neutral scent than flavored e-juice. This is easy to do by buying unflavored juice or vaping pure propylene glycol (PG), which is the main liquid base used in virtually all varieties of e-liquid.
While vaping bland or unflavored juice may not be as pleasant as vaping deliciously flavored e-liquid, it can be a great occasional or temporary solution when someone is bothered by the smell.
You can even use a nicotine-containing PG e-liquid so you can still get your nicotine fix while being considerate to those around you.

Choose a Low-VG E-Juice

All e-liquids have a PG/VG ratio, which tells you how much of the base liquid ingredients propylene glycol (PG) and vegetable glycerine (VG) that it contains. As we’ve discussed on this blog before, high-PG juice is thinner and carries more flavor, while high-VG juice is thicker, sweeter, and produces more vapor.
As any cloud-chaser knows, e-liquids with a high VG content make clouds that are larger and thicker than low-VG juice, which is why high-VG e-liquids are the top choice for vapers at cloud competitions.
High-PG juice, on the other hand, produces a much lighter vapor and smaller clouds.
That’s why, when you want to vape discretely or politely in public, you should try to avoid high-VG juice. Vaping high-PG e-liquids instead will make your vapor less thick, less smelly, and less bothersome to those who don’t exactly appreciate the smell.

Vape at a Lower Heat

Another well-known aspect of e-cigarettes is that vaping at higher heats produces more vapor. That’s why, when you’re trying to minimize the amount of vapor and smell, you should vape at a lower heat.
That might mean adjusting the voltage or wattage of your mod to lower the temperature your coils fire at. It’s even simpler if you have a temperature-control mod, which allows you to set the heat of your coils directly.
Even if your e-cigarette doesn’t have any of these features, you can still exert some limited control over the heat. You do this mainly by adjusting how often and how long you fire your vape.
First of all, you can keep the coils cooler by reducing the amount of time that you hold down the firing button before taking a drag. You can also take smaller, shorter drags so you blow out less vapor with every puff.
Another way to keep your coils from getting too hot is by taking longer breaks in-between drags. Instead of taking one drag right after another, give your vape a 30-second to one-minute break to cool down before taking your next puff.

Use an E-Cigarette that Produces Smaller Clouds

Different e-cigarettes have different features and different strengths and weaknesses. Some are designed for power and high vapor volume, while others are designed more with discreteness and efficiency in mind.
When you’re trying to reduce the smell you create when you vape, it’s best to choose a lower-heat vaporizer with smaller coils and wicks. That usually means using a smaller, less-powerful device than you might choose for your other vaping needs.
For smaller clouds and less smell, then you essentially want a vape that wicks and burns e-juice less efficiently. That means choosing an e-cigarette with a smaller coil surface area that burns less juice and produces less vapor at a time.
Good options include smaller mods, cig-a-like’s, and pod mods, which tend to create less vapor than more powerful devices.
Drippers are another great option; since you only drip a little bit of e-juice on the coils at a time, you can better control how much vapor you get with each puff.
It can also help to use an e-liquid with a higher nicotine content (e.g. nicotine salt e-liquids) when you’re going for smaller clouds and less frequent drags. That way, you can still satisfy your nicotine craving while taking much smaller puffs.

Choose a Well-Ventilated Area

Whether you are vaping indoors or outdoors, ventilation is key when you want to keep the smell to a minimum. That means choosing an open space with lots of air flow to help the vapor dissipate quickly.
When you vape outdoors, that means not vaping near buildings, overhangs, and alleyways, which block air circulation and allow the vapor to collect in one space. When you are indoors, you can reduce the smell by vaping in larger, well-ventilated rooms.
One way to improve the amount of air flow in your home when you vape is to open up a window or door. Even better is to use a fitted window fan, which is especially efficient at sucking air out of the room.
You can also turn on your HVAC fan to circulate air through your house’s main ventilation system. The more air flow, the better, and the quicker the vapor and smell will disappear.
You could also vape near a ventilation fan, which you can find in many bathrooms and kitchens, to help vent the vapor out of the room. As a final option, since warm vapor rises, you could vape in a higher level in the building, which may reduce the smell on lower floors.
Of course, if a coworker, family member, or anyone else is very bothered by your vapor, the most polite thing to do is to take your e-cigarette outside.
However, in some cases making the effort to improve ventilation can reduce the smell enough that others will hardly notice.

Remove Vapor Smell with an Air Purifier
Using an air purifier can reduce the smell of vapor in two ways: by improving air circulation and by removing smelly vapor particles from the air. According to some vapers, using an air purifier can be surprisingly effective for getting rid of the scent produced when you vape.
The best kind of air purifier to get rid of smells like e-cigarette vapor is one with a charcoal filter to trap odors. HEPA air purifiers are also effective because they can trap ultrafine particles in the air.
Using an air purifier is also an effective way to “clear out” a room after a heavy vaping session. Instead of lingering for hours, the purifier will actively neutralize the scent and leave the room smelling fresh in no time.

Cover Up the Scent

Because e-cigarette vapor does not have a very strong smell, it is often easy to cover it up with other scents. You may find that using things like candles, air fresheners, incense, and other pleasant aromas can effectively off-set the scent of your vape.
There are even some special candles designed to cover up smoke and other odors. You could also use a scented oil burner, wax warmer, or plug-in fragrance dispenser when you vape.
Another option is to use the classic “sploof,” which is simply a cardboard tube filled with fresh, scented dryer sheets.
If you exhale your vapor through the tube after taking a drag, it will come out the other end smelling like fresh laundry.
Although sploofs have a long tradition of being used by teens and college students trying to hide the smell of smoke, they can be just as effective a tool for adult vapers to use.
Sploofs counteract the smell of the vapor immediately after it leaves your mouth and is a perfect tool for vaping indoors.
You can even get a “professional” sploof, called the sploofy, which is a specially designed tool for catching and eliminating the smell of smoke. That makes it especially effective for e-cigarette vapor, which is much lighter and milder-smelling than smoke.

Wipe Down Surfaces

If you tend to vape heavily or often in an enclosed space like your bedroom or office, the smell can build up over time. Even when the vapor totally clears out of the air, you may still notice it leaves a faint scent behind in the room.
If this happens, it may be that vapor remnants have settled on the surfaces in the room. In that case, wiping down the windows, walls, and other surfaces can get rid of the lingering smell.
Glass cleaner, soap and water, or an all-purpose cleaning solution should be enough to do the trick. It also helps to vacuum the carpet and wash any fabrics, including curtains, bed sheets, and rugs, that might catch the smell.
To keep the odor from building up in the future, try to keep the space better ventilated. Even simply opening up a window and turning on a fan can do wonders to air out a room when you vape.

Conclusion
Despite the fact that e-cigarette vapor tends to dissipate quickly and have only a mild scent, vaping can leave a lingering smell, especially in large amounts or in enclosed spaces.
Since the smell of vapor isn’t pleasant to everyone, there are many situations where it is more convenient or polite to minimize the smell when you vape.
Using the tips and tricks in this article, you should be able to significantly reduce the smell your e-cigarette creates and quickly disperse any lasting odor.
Even if you don’t use them often, you’ll be glad to have these tricks up your sleeve when the need for discreet vaping arises.
Knowing how to reduce the odor and the impact your vaping has on others is a valuable skill to have as a vaper. It helps others be more comfortable and allow you to adapt to a variety of different situations and constraints when you vape.