# Le French Liquide concentrates in DIY mixing > Le French Liquide concentrates: the ranges, the shares stated by the maker for each base ratio, the steeping times and where UK mixers find them. Some names come round so often in mixing threads that people end up buying them without knowing what sits behind the label. **Le French Liquide** is one of those. Behind the name are several distinct collections, dilution ranges that differ sharply from one to the next, and a dosing logic that retail listings summarise badly. Here is a bench reading of the brand, range by range. ## Le French Liquide, a laboratory before a brand The first thing to understand is that **Le French Liquide** is not a trading name stuck onto bottles produced elsewhere. The brand is published by the Lips France laboratory, based in Loire-Atlantique, near Nantes. That laboratory has developed and produced its e-liquids in France since 2013, which makes it one of the established players in its home market. It puts the Origine France Garantie label forward on its production, and communicates readily about it. The same laboratory publishes other brands, among them SuperVape, well known to mixers for its bases and additives. Knowing that avoids a common confusion, since the two catalogues often sit side by side on the same shelf without being the same thing. For a mixer the practical consequence is simple: the dilution instructions come from a single formulator, with a consistency from one collection to the next that is rarer than it sounds on the concentrate market. ## The ranges to know The DIY catalogue does not read like a list of flavours but like a stack of collections, each with its own identity and register. The Wonderful Tart collection is the most legible of the set. It works through fruit patisserie profiles, built on a sweet shortcrust base with a fruit laid over it, and the Abricot bottle is described by the maker as a shortcrust pastry covered with apricots. The same range extends to 2 Citrons, Pêche, Fraise, Framboise and Poire Amandine. It suits anyone who wants a fruity dessert already assembled rather than built note by note, in the manner of a one shot. Artefact plays a different card. Its references carry names borrowed from various mythologies, and the profiles there are markedly fresher and more fruity than pastry-led, with Oris pairing pineapple and cactus while Pachamak marries red fruits and grape. La Chose is the house signature dessert, long sold as a limited edition. Its profile assembles salted butter caramel, vanilla, coffee, hazelnut and pecan, which makes it a dense bottle at the opposite end of the catalogue from the fresh fruits of Artefact. All of these share one format: a 30 ml bottle, generally PET, with a child-resistant cap and a fine dropper tip. That size explains why they suit mixers producing regular volumes rather than someone who has only just met their first [flavour concentrate](/uk/flavour-concentrate-guide/). ## The shares stated by Le French Liquide This is where **Le French Liquide** departs most clearly from habit. The instructions from this house run high, and a mixer used to lighter fruits will find the figures surprising at first sight. The usual band published by the maker sits around 15 to 20 per cent of the final volume for a base at 50 per cent PG and 50 per cent VG. The classic error is to under-dose a range designed to be poured generously, out of reflex. The table below gathers the instructions carried on the maker's own product pages, for a 50 PG / 50 VG base. | Reference | Range | Stated share in 50/50 | |---|---|---| | Abricot | Wonderful Tart | 20 per cent | | 2 Citrons | Wonderful Tart | 20 per cent | | Pêche | Wonderful Tart | 20 per cent | | Poire Amandine | Wonderful Tart | 15 per cent | | Most Artefact references | Artefact | 20 per cent | | Kohana and Pachamak | Artefact | 15 per cent | | La Chose | La Chose | 15 per cent | The useful reading is not the average but the exception. Two Artefact references drop to 15 per cent, and one Wonderful Tart does the same, which means the instruction is read bottle by bottle and never range by range. Applying 20 per cent to a bottle designed for 15 does not give a tastier liquid, it gives a saturated one that buries the structure of the profile. The general reasoning behind that sits in our guide to [flavour concentrate percentage](/uk/flavour-concentrate-percentage/). These figures belong to this maker alone. Transposing them onto a British concentrate, or the reverse, is exactly the kind of shortcut that wastes a batch, so read the label in front of you every time. ## The point the listings leave out: the base ratio Here is the most concrete contribution this brand makes to a bench, and the one most product pages skip by showing a single percentage. La Chose is the best documented bottle in the catalogue. The maker gives no single figure for it but a full scale, indexed on the propylene glycol to vegetable glycerine ratio of the base you are using. The instruction drops to 12 per cent on a 70 PG / 30 VG base, moves to 15 per cent at 50/50, climbs to 18 per cent at 30 PG / 70 VG and reaches 20 per cent on a fully vegetable glycerine base. The progression is not arbitrary. The richer a base is in vegetable glycerine, the thicker and sweeter it is, and the more it rounds off whatever it carries. You therefore need more concentrate to reach the same perceived intensity, whereas propylene glycol renders flavour more directly and lets the share come down. The rule you can actually use fits in a sentence: a stated percentage is worthless without the base ratio it refers to. If a listing shows 20 per cent without naming a base, the figure almost always describes a 50/50, and it will need adjusting upwards on a heavily vegetable base. ## Steeping times longer than average The resting times published by the brand follow the same logic as its shares, running longer than many mixers practise by default. On Artefact, the product pages point to about a week before judging the result, which is consistent with fresh, fruit-led profiles that settle relatively quickly. On Wonderful Tart the instruction rises to roughly two weeks, away from light and somewhere dry, since the pastry component needs that extra time to bind to the base. On La Chose the times are the longest in the catalogue, of the order of two weeks minimum, with some sellers quoting fifteen to twenty days. The underlying mechanism is explained in our guide to [steeping e-liquid](/uk/steeping-e-liquid/). ## Availability for a UK mixer Honesty matters more than enthusiasm here. **Le French Liquide** has no meaningful presence on British shelves: searching for these concentrates from the UK returns French, Swiss and European sellers rather than the vape shops most British mixers use. That does not make the range unobtainable, since several of those retailers ship across Europe, but it does mean treating it as a cross-border purchase rather than something to pick up locally. Delivery times and the paperwork that comes with importing are part of the decision. It also changes how you plan. A bottle that takes a fortnight to arrive and another fortnight to steep is not a bottle you order the week you run out, which is an argument for the rotation habit rather than for improvising. ## Common questions about these concentrates ### Who makes Le French Liquide concentrates? They are produced by the Lips France laboratory, in Loire-Atlantique near Nantes, which has developed and manufactured in France since 2013. ### What format do they come in? The DIY catalogue is built around a 30 ml bottle with a child-resistant cap and a fine dropper tip, with no small format on the main ranges. ### Why are the stated shares higher than elsewhere? Because these are formulated as complete recipes with several aromatic layers to bring out. A built profile needs more volume than a single note for each element to register. ### Should the share go up on a VG-heavy base? Yes. The maker's own instructions climb with the glycerine content, from 12 per cent at 70 PG / 30 VG up to 20 per cent on a fully vegetable base, on its best documented reference. ### Can two of these bottles be mixed together? Nothing forbids it, but these profiles are already balanced by the formulator. Combining them stacks two finished recipes, with an unpredictable result and a total share that needs revising downwards. ## What to take away The concentrates from **Le French Liquide** are not handled like generic flavourings. They are finished recipes from an identified French laboratory, asking for high shares and longer rests than the DIY average, closer in spirit to a blended bottle than to a building block, as our comparison of [single flavour concentrates and one shots](/uk/single-flavour-vs-one-shot/) sets out. Two reflexes carry you through: read the instruction bottle by bottle rather than range by range, and always relate the stated percentage to the base ratio you are actually using. With those, the range delivers the profile its formulator drew, and the early disappointment usually disappears by itself. Editorial content for adult readers only. Vaping products usually contain nicotine, a substance that causes addiction. Not for sale to under-18s in the United Kingdom. This article is not a buying recommendation.