Many people don’t realize that eLiquid is actually a consumable product: it’s made with natural ingredients that we eventually put into our bodies in the form of vapor. What’s also often overlooked is the fact that because it’s made with natural ingredients, eLiquid also has the ability to expire! So how long is eLiquid good for and how can we tell if it’s expired?

First of all, we’d like to take a moment and point out that no one is really sure how long it takes for eLiquid to expire. What we do know, however, is that it’s somewhere in the area of years before old eLiquid goes bad. So, if you’ve just ordered yourself a sale priced 60mL bottle of eLiquid from AmericaneLiquidStore.com and don’t plan on finishing it for a few months, trust us, it’ll be as fresh as the first day you opened it. In fact, if stored properly, eLiquid could last you quite a long time before ever showing signs of age (we’re talking several years here).

Think of it this way: a bottle of eLiquid is like a can of green beans (don’t worry, we won’t be introducing a vegetable flavor anytime soon). If you buy a can of green beans and store it properly, the USDA says those green beans are edible for up to two years! If you buy a bottle of American made eLiquid and keep it properly contained, it’s also going to be good for somewhere in the neighborhood of 18-24 months.

So how can you tell if an eLiquid is bad or getting old? First of all, because eLiquid is made with different ingredients and flavorings, you’ll be able to see separation of these ingredients. This is natural, as less dense ingredients will rise above more dense ingredients: it’s simple science. Typically when we use eLiquid, it’s good to give it a nice shake to mix together all of these different parts. But, if you shake your eLiquid and the sections don’t mix… you might want to consider how old the bottle is.

When sections of eLiquid don’t mix properly, it could be a sign that they’re getting old and possibly stale. However there are exceptions to this as well. Take our Clove flavored American eLiquid for example. Because the flavoring we use in clove is extremely oily, it tends to have problems mixing with the VG base that we use. It doesn’t affect the flavor at all, it’s just one of the different consistencies that we see from time to time flavors.

So, like we said earlier, it’s not very likely at all that you’ll have to worry about expired eLiquid, as it takes years to break down. We’re currently doing tests to determine the exact range of expiration, but lets put it this way: we started this test in late 2009… and our flavors are still going strong!