Menthol Vs Ice Vape Flavours: What's The Difference?
One of the most common causes for confusion amongst UK vapers is understanding the difference between menthol vape flavours and ice vape flavours.
The key difference, in simple terms, is that menthol offers cooling with a minty taste, while Ice offers pure cooling with no minty element. While simple in essence, this has a big impact on how these flavourings are used in different products to achieve different vaping experiences.
In this guide, we will explain the similarities and key differences between the two flavour types, so you can make an informed purchase that delivers the vaping experience you are looking for.
What Are Ice & Menthol Vape Flavours?
Menthol or ice vapes are very popular e-liquid flavour types that focus on delivering a cooling, refreshing blast with every puff, either alone or alongside other flavour elements like mint or fruit.
Why Are They So Popular?
- Menthol vape flavours are particularly popular amongst new vapers for their familiarity to menthol cigarettes, helping vapers ease their transition from smoking. Vapers of all kinds, however, enjoy menthol vapes simply because they offer a crisp, clean, often minty all-day vaping experience.
- Ice vape flavours are more popular than ever, largely because of their use in the nic salt e-liquids found in disposable vapes (now banned in the UK). Most often paired with elaborate fruit flavour combinations, more and more vapers are gravitating towards them for the like-for-like disposable vaping experience they recreate, as well as those who simply enjoy the non-minty cooling sensation they deliver.
What's The Confusion?
As both ice and menthol vape flavours deliver a similar cooling experience and appear in many similar flavour combinations, plenty of vapers assume they are two different names for the same thing - this is not the case.
As a result, plenty of our customers (especially those who have moved to refillable vape kits from disposables) have reported their surprise, and sometimes disappointment, that a fruit menthol vape flavour tastes very different to a fruit ice.
What's the Solution?
To avoid experiencing this disappointment yourself, knowledge is your best tool.
Learning the differences between these two flavour elements, and what each can offer, is vital in matching the right product to your needs/preferences, ensuring you get the vaping experience you are looking for.
Menthol & Ice Vape Flavours Compared
You can use this table to get a side-by-side comparison of menthol and ice vape flavours, highlighting their key similarities and differences at a glance.
*Featured products represent overall flavour types, Double Menthol = menthol, Mango Ice = ice.
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Cooling Hit
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Yes |
Yes |
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Minty Taste
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Yes |
No |
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Can Be A Standalone Flavour
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Yes |
No |
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Smooth Vaping Experience
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Yes |
Yes |
Menthol Vs Ice Vape Juice: Similarities & Differences Explained
Let's compare Ice & Menthol vape juice flavours in more detail - below you can see the key features of both flavour types, including what they are made from and how they work, so you can make an informed purchase when deciding which is best for your vaping journey.
Ice Vape Flavours Explained
- Vape Flavours with an ice element deliver a cooling sensation when vaped.
- Ice effects can help to make vapes feel smoother, more noticeably so in freebase nicotine e-liquids like our £1 range.
- Ice vape flavours are considered good options for all-day vaping as they are refreshing and 'cleaner' tasting over longer periods of use.
- The ice element in vape flavours is derived from synthetic cooling agents, the most common of which is called "WS-23".
- Ice vape flavours deliver a pure cooling sensation without any flavour, unlike menthol, which is often slightly minty.
- Ice never appears as a standalone flavour; it is only ever used to enhance other flavours, such as making Cola vapes taste chilled, or to make fruit flavours more refreshing.
- While ice flavours are available in both freebase nicotine and nic salt e-liquids, they are more commonly associated with bar salt style nic salts, replicating the flavours made popular by disposable vapes. Most of these flavours feature a subtle or prominent ice element.
Menthol Vape Flavours Explained
- Menthol vape flavours deliver a cooling sensation when vaped.
- Menthol flavours can help vapes to feel smoother, especially when using higher freebase strengths like 12mg or 18mg.
- Menthol vape flavours are popular options for all-day vaping thanks to their clean and refreshing taste.
- Menthol vape flavourings are made using menthol crystals, which are commonly extracted from mint plants.
- Menthol vapes deliver cooling alongside varying degrees of mintiness, unlike the flavourless cooling offered by ice.
- Menthol works just as well as a flavour by itself, like our best-selling Double Menthol, as it does alongside other elements like mint, fruit or tobacco.
- Menthol vape flavours can be found across freebase and nic salt e-liquid ranges, but are most commonly associated with 'normal' freebase vape juice, favoured by recent ex-smokers who enjoy the familiar taste and throat-hit when switching to vaping.
Should You Buy Ice Or Menthol E-Liquid Flavours?
This decision ultimately comes down to your personal taste/preferences. It is likely, however, that if you enjoy cooling or refreshing vapes in general, you will enjoy examples of both ice and menthol e-liquids equally.
With that said, use the following advice to guide your final decision:
- If you want a more natural mentholated vaping experience with a hint of minty flavour in the mix - choose vape flavours with menthol in their name.
- If you want a cooling effect that supports other flavour elements and doesn't add any mintiness - choose flavours with ice in their name.
