88 Vape £1 Vape Juice: Is It Worth It?

If you've walked past a UK supermarket vape shelf, you've seen 88 Vape: the bright bottles, the £1 price tag, the slight air of "surely not". A pound is what a coffee shop biscuit costs. Can vape juice that cheap actually be any good — or safe? I've vaped a lot of it, so here's the honest review.

Why it's so cheap (and why that's mostly fine)

88 Vape is made in Britain by one of the UK's larger e-liquid manufacturers, and the £1 price is a volume play: simple recipes, huge batches, distribution through supermarkets, Poundland and corner shops rather than boutique vape stores. The savings come out of marketing and flavour complexity — not out of compliance. The liquid meets the same TPD rules as everything legal on the shelf: notified to the MHRA, tested ingredients, child-resistant 10ml bottles, 20mg/ml ceiling.

That distribution is quietly its killer feature. When you're out of juice at 9pm, the corner shop has 88 Vape. It does not have your favourite £4 craft liquid.

How it actually vapes

Flavour: simple, slightly muted, consistent. The range covers the classics — Blueberry, Menthol, Tobacco, various fruits — and each one tastes like exactly one thing. There's no layered "strawberry cheesecake with graham base" ambition here; Blueberry tastes of blueberry squash, Menthol is a clean cold hit, Tobacco is inoffensively dry. After a week of all-day vaping I appreciated the simplicity more than I expected — bold complex juices can wear out their welcome fast.

Throat and vapour: standard 50/50 behaviour. The 50/50 VG/PG mix suits pod kits and pens, wicks easily, and produces modest vapour. The freebase liquid at 11mg and 16mg has a noticeable throat hit — smokers switching over should honestly skip straight to the nic salt line (10mg and 20mg), which is smoother and satisfies far better; I've explained why in my nic salts guide.

Consistency: better than it has any right to be. Across many bottles I've had no duds, no burnt-sugar batches, no mystery colour changes. At this price that's the thing that impresses me most.

Where it falls short

Complex-flavour lovers will be bored, cloud chasers are in the wrong aisle entirely (50/50 doesn't suit sub-ohm gear), and a few flavours — the sweeter dessert ones especially — taste unmistakably budget. It's also worth saying that gunky sweeteners are mercifully absent: your coils will thank you, as sweetened premium juices are the fastest coil-killers there are.

The £1 era is ending — buy accordingly

From 1 October 2026, the UK's Vaping Products Duty adds £2.20 per 10ml bottle, flat, regardless of the liquid's price. Premium £4 bottles become £6ish and shrug it off; a £1 bottle tripling to £3+ changes its entire proposition. 88 Vape will likely remain near the bottom of the legal market, but the pocket-change era has a published end date. If it's your everyday liquid, stocking up before October is the obvious move — sealed bottles keep well in a cool, dark cupboard.

Verdict

For a pound, 88 Vape is easy to recommend: honest, consistent, safe, everywhere. It's the right liquid for budget all-day vaping, for new switchers testing flavours without commitment, and for the glovebox/emergency tier of your supply. It's the wrong liquid if flavour depth is why you vape — the £3–5 shelf genuinely does taste better.

But "is it worth it?" — at £1, emphatically yes. That's the cheapest legitimate nicotine per pound the UK market has ever offered, and it makes the cost gap with smoking almost comically wide. Enjoy it while the price lasts.