Updated: April 2024 by James Dunworth
One of the key reasons some smokers fail to switch to vaping is not using the right inhale technique.
While both cigarettes and vapes (usually) deliver nicotine, the inhale style is quite different. It’s important to learn these differences, as well as the correct ways to inhale, as failing to inhale a vape correctly can cause you to cough and/or get insufficient nicotine.
In this post, we’ll cover the differences between inhaling on a cigarette and a vape, as well as the two most popular ways to inhale. (Don’t worry - neither is difficult!) We’ll also cover some more advanced styles and tricks for the more adventurous vaper!
Contents
- What’s the difference between inhaling on a cigarette and a vape?
- How do you inhale when you vape?
- How long do you hold vapour in for?
- Inhaling and coughing
- Do you need "priming puffs" when you vape?
- The cigar inhale
- Inhaling and flavour
- Vaping inhale tricks
- The French inhale
- The ghost inhale
- Vape inhale technique and health
- Finding your inhale style
- Related posts
With a cigarette, you typically take short, sharp puffs. However, when you inhale from a vape device, you take longer, slower puffs.
The reason for this is simple. If you puff harder on a cigarette, it burns down more quickly and you get more smoke. With a vape device, puffing harder accomplishes very little. The only way to get more vapour is to keep the button held down for longer and/or inhale for longer.
This takes some getting used to when you first start. Research has shown that more experienced vapers puff for longer than smokers using e-cigarettes, and they end up getting nicotine more efficiently as a result.
Most vapers nowadays use a Mouth-to-Lung (MTL) inhale. This is ideal for the low-powered vape devices used by most vapers (more on that below!) It’s also more similar to smoking than other vape styles.
How to Mouth-to-Lung vape:
1. Close your mouth tightly around the mouthpiece and take a long, slow, steady drag, inhaling the vapour into your mouth.
2. Hold the vapour in your mouth for as long as feels comfortable.
3. Inhale the vapour into your lungs.
4. Exhale. Most people exhale through their mouth, but you can also choose to exhale through your nose.
You can also choose to Direct-Lung (DL) vape. This is suitable for more powerful devices with plenty of airflow, and with e-liquids with a higher VG ratio. Here’s how to do it:
How to Direct-Lung (DL) vape:
1. Take a long slow drag straight into your lungs.
2. Hold the vapour in for as long as you want.
3. Exhale.
The diagram below shows the difference between the two techniques:
Mouth-to-lung (or MTL) inhale is a three-stage process.
- First, you take the vapour into your mouth.
- Hold it there for as long as you want.
- Inhale into your lungs.
In contrast, when you Direct-Lung (or DL) inhale, you take the vapour straight down into your lungs in one continuous inhale.
MTL is usually the inhale of choice for new vapers, but many experienced vapers prefer MTL vaping too.
You’ll find more in-depth information in our guide to MTL v. DL vaping.
Learn more: MTL v. DL Explained
Different inhaling styles for different devices
Another factor that might influence your vape inhale style is the device you are using.
For vape devices with restricted airflow, such as the Vaporesso Xros 3 Mini, the draw resembles that of a cigarette and you can perform Mouth-to-Lung inhales.
Mouth-to-Lung devices tend to use higher-resistance coils and work best with lower power settings, so if you have a basic pod device, Mouth-to-Lung inhales are more common.
For devices with more open or adjustable airflow, vapers typically use a Direct-Lung inhale - this is more common when you’ve gotten more used to vaping.
Sub-ohm vape tanks tend to have much more open airflow (although they do let you control it too), and they’re usually paired with higher-power devices rather than simple vape pens. If you have this type of advanced setup, you’ll get better performance with the Direct-Lung inhale style.
You might also see the term RDL used with tanks or pods. This means Restricted Direct-Lung, and basically refers to a device that is half way between a restricted and very open airflow.
After the inhale part of the puff, there isn’t much difference in how long vapers and smokers hold the vapour or smoke in before exhaling.
The longer inhale time from vapers means that they’ll probably hold some vapour in their mouths for longer than smokers do. Overall, this isn’t a crucial factor and you’re unlikely to have to think about it when you switch to vaping.
The whole process with vaping is slower, but after you finish your inhale, there isn’t much difference in the exhaling process – apart from the size of the clouds, that is!
If you inhale in the wrong way for your device setup, it can make you cough. For example, trying to DL inhale from a device with restricted airflow will likely irritate your throat and cause coughing.
Conversely, inhaling MTL with a big device that produces billowing clouds can make you cough from the sheer volume of vapour going down your throat at once. From experience, it seems to be the airy nature of the draw that makes me cough when I try to MTL vape on a DL device, and usually on the exhale.
We surveyed vapers for our vaping and coughing post, and one of the questions was about the impact of inhale style. While 40 per cent of the respondents weren’t sure whether it made a difference, about one third of the remaining vapers (30 per cent of the total) felt that it did prevent them from coughing.
Another factor that causes coughing is inhaling air when you vape. This is often done by new vapers who may be nervous, and could explain why experienced vapers cough less.
Clearly, this isn’t a factor for everybody, but if you cough when you vape, it’s worth changing your inhale style and seeing whether this helps.
Learn more: How to Stop Coughing When You Vape
Back when vaping was first getting started, many devices were "automatic," meaning the coil activated as you inhaled rather than as you pressed a button, as on "manual" devices. With these devices, "priming puffs" were often recommended.
Priming puffs were basically little draws (like you would just before taking a draw on a cigar) that gave the coil time to heat up before your proper puff.
Vape devices have since improved, and the majority do not need priming puffs. However, it may still be worth doing this with higher-powered mods using low-resistance coils.
You can still replicate the same effect as a priming puff by pressing the fire button for a second before you start inhaling. The coil takes a second to reach vaping temperature, so even though it isn’t strictly necessary, this still helps you get a harder hit when you start your puff.
The only issue is that this can lead to condensation around the drip tip. This can either end up getting sucked into your mouth when you take a puff or potentially drip back down to the coil and risk flooding. If you do this, make sure you continue your draw for a second after releasing the fire button to protect against these risk
There is a whole different approach to inhaling that’s worth considering. We’ll call this the "cigar inhale," because, as with a cigar, you can inhale the vapour into your mouth without pulling it into your lungs.
This isn’t done by many vapers. Still, some early research suggested that most of the nicotine from vapour is absorbed in the upper throat (Farsalinos, 2014), although this is not likely to be the case with nicotine salts (O’Connell et al, 2019).
When I tested this myself (with freebase e-liquid) it seemed to work, although if you’re interested I would recommend moving up a nicotine level. With 12 mg/ml and regular vaping, I did feel satisfied. However, I’m only one person and I have been vaping for a while, so I’m probably not as dependent on nicotine as a smoker.
Some vapers think MTL inhales lead to "improved flavour." This might seem a little strange (why should the flavour of your vape juice be influenced by how you inhale it?) but there is an indirect link.
When you MTL vape, you generally have less airflow than in DL vaping. With less air mixed with your vapour, the flavour from the juice isn’t "diluted" by the air. This is why vapour production is generally less with MTL vaping (because the air helps the cloud billow out).
That’s the theory anyway. However, when you Direct-Lung inhale, you typically use a device and e-liquid that produces a lot more vapour - which helps concentrate the flavour.
Also see: 11 Tips for Flavour Chasing Vapers
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Inhaling is a big factor in the bizarrely entertaining world of vape tricks. For most vape tricks, the volume of vapour is key, because you need thick clouds to do cool stuff with your vapour. (OK, maybe "cool" is a bit of a stretch but you know what I mean). Most trick vapers tend to DL inhale on low-resistance, high-power setups for this reason.
Some tricks specifically revolve around your inhale style, though, particularly the French inhale and the ghost inhale. These are really both fancier ways to MTL inhale, so you can perform these tricks even with more basic hardware.
The French inhale is when you take a draw on your device, open your mouth and suck the vapour from it up into your nose. The effect looks like a waterfall in reverse, as the vapour is pulled from your mouth up into your nostrils. This is quite an easy one to perform, too: keep the vapour in your mouth when you inhale, and then open your lips and inhale slowly through your nose.
It might take a bit of practice, but it looks pretty awesome when you get it right. You can make it even better by widening your lips when you release the vapour and pushing your lower jaw out. This video from VapeChilla goes into more detail…
The ghost inhale is a little harder to perform, but basically, it involves pushing out a "ball" of vapour and then quickly sucking it back into your mouth.
To do this, take some vapour into your mouth (not your lungs), form your lips into an "O" shape like you’re about to blow a ring, and then push (not blow) some vapour out of your mouth while relaxing your lip shape.
The best advice is to push it out with your tongue as you release your mouth position from the "O." The aim is to get a thick ball of vapour to just come out of your mouth. When you’ve got this down, you inhale the ball of vapour again to complete the trick. This is explained in more detail in this YouTube video from vAustinL.
Could your inhaling technique affect your health?
Possibly.
Public Health England (now the UK Health Security Agency) estimates that vaping is at least 95% safer than smoking. That’s great, but it also shows that the danger is not entirely eliminated.
So where does this danger come from? We already know that with smoking, most of the harm comes from the smoke, not the nicotine. Scientists like Professor Polosa have told me that the residual danger of vaping comes from flavours, and what happens to them when they are heated. (See Vaping and Your Respiratory Health: An Interview with Professor Polosa.)
Fortunately, now that reputable UK suppliers are testing the vapour produced by vape devices, we’re getting better and better at eliminating any flavour compounds that could cause harm. But the possibility of harm can never be entirely eliminated, and the best way to minimise the harm from vaping is to inhale less vapour.
So, from that perspective, inhaling more via the DL technique could be worse for your health than inhaling via MTL. In short, it’s better to inhale less vapour with more nicotine to satisfy your cravings rather than more vapour with less nicotine.
The most intriguing possibility is using the cigar inhale introduced earlier. By completely removing your lungs from the equation, you could potentially make vaping safer than with other inhale styles.
It’s worth stressing, though, that this is highly speculative. In theory, you could still get nicotine that way, and it should drastically reduce any impact of vaping on the lungs. In reality, we could really do with more research using modern devices and e-liquids to confirm this.
Finally, remember that there is no "right" way to inhale.
If MTL is what you enjoy, then that’s what you should do, and the same goes for DL or cigar-style inhales. The best thing about vaping is that you can make it work for you. Vape your way and forget about the trends.
