The e-cigarette industry has evolved (pardon the pun) in so many ways since I started this humble website over 7 years ago. A lot of the innovation has been in hardware. But, that’s not always the case. E-liquid based on nicotine salts (salt nic) is a relatively new thing. I feel like I missed the bus on this one, so when Apollo Vapes offered the chance to review their salt nic line, I jumped at the chance.
Apollo Vapes Salt Nic: The Experience
Disclosure: this article contains affiliate links and the products mentioned have been provided for review purposes.
As you may have guessed, this is more of an experience piece than a review. I’ll talk about the hardware as well, but I was mostly interested in trying something new.
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I’m not much for science, I’m afraid so I’ll try and keep this fairly low-level. Typically, nicotine found in most e-liquid is called freebase nicotine. It’s extracted in its purest form and then diluted until it ends up in your favorite juice. These days that’s typically under 12mg per ml, though in the ancient days, that was usually much higher.
Nicotine salts are more or less the state nicotine can be found on tobacco leaves. I’m not exactly sure of the process used. The end result is an e-liquid that is higher in nicotine content than ordinary e-liquid while not causing the burning sensation that freebase liquids are known to cause
Apollo’s salt nic offerings come in 20, 30 and 50mg/ml options. These are concentrations that would be unheard of in traditional eliquids. Salt nic isn’t absorbed as readily, so the overall sensation makes it feel much more like a traditional cigarette without the massive burning sensation that would happen with high-powered e-liquid.
That is not to say salt nic is without sensation. Indeed, there is a very strong throat hit. It’s really hard to explain the difference. Traditional eliquid at higher levels gives one the sensation of mass being inhaled along with a burning sensation. Salt keeps the feeling of “smoking something” but eliminates a lot of the burning sensation.
The hardware used with salt nic is also typically a bit different. Forget about high wattage cloud machines here. Salt Nic lives in the world of e-cigarettes and “pod” systems.
Apollo designed the Evolve especially for salt nic. The Evolve is distinctly in the traditional e-cigarette kit.
Apollo’s Evolve kit comes in a compact box and features just the essentials: a battery, a tank, an extra coil and an old-school style USB e-cigarette charger.
Not old-school is the design of the device itself. Much like the Njoy kit I reviewed recently, the battery has been updated. Gone is the tacky plastic, and in its place a sleek and shiny battery with a chromed ring and light up LED circle.
The tank, however is the unique part of the Evolve kit. It’s a bottom coil clear plastic tank. It’s very reminiscent of the old CE3 cartomizers (you old timers remember). But the good news is that it doesn’t leak and actually works well.
I do have one complaint about the tank system. The air tube that runs up the center of the tank sits pretty far below the overall end of the tank. This results in it being difficult to fill without getting eliquid into the center air tube. If it happens to you, blowing through the end of the tank will clear the extra gunk out.
Even with that one flaw, the Apollo kit is pretty well fidget free. Fill it up, then puff on the device (no fire button needed) and you get your salt nic delivered.
Because I am so far separated from my smoking days, this sort of setup is not my cup of tea. It’s slightly unpleasant to me because it does so closely mimic the sensation you get when smoking.
Those of you who are new to vaping or trying to switch away from traditional cigarettes on the other hand…
All I have to say is it’s a pretty good time to join the vaping world.
Check out Apollo Vapes’ salt nic offerings for yourself.
