What is the best wicks?  Cotton wick? cotton balls? stainless steel mash?

First, There is something you should know about the cotton balls
Many people use cotton wicks for e-cigs because it's such a great wicking material but you shouldn't use just any type of cotton. Make sure to avoid buying just any cotton balls as they are often bleached and can destroy the flavor of your juice. You want to buy organic untreated cotton balls or another form of untreated cotton.
With cotton you don’t wrap your wire around it, instead you wrap a coil with a coil jig. If you don’t have a coil jig you can always use a drill bit or something similar.
The best thing about cotton is that it wick’s up e-liquid very fast and can hold a huge amount. Because of these features it’s a very popular wick material. However it does have a “cotton” taste when vaping that some people don’t like. You can also get “dry hits” that taste horrible if the cotton isn’t fully saturated in e-liquid. I also find that to get good flavor I have to replace the cotton every couple of days.

Second, Let’s talk about Stainless Steel Mesh
 Used primarily for genesis style atomizers. Because it's conductive it's not recommended for Rebuildable Dripping Atomizers.
This wick lasts a very long time. It requires you to oxidize it with a torch (heat it up!) but it really brings out crisp flavors. Does very well with thicker tobacco/ heavy cream juice, but it’s really good for fruit flavored e-juices (in my opinion).
This wick also doesn’t combust if too dry, however the taste of dry stainless steel mesh is terrible. Stainless steel mesh comes in different thread counts (generally 300,400,500) and the higher PG ratio juice (70PG/30VG) works best with higher thread counts. Higher VG ratios work best with lower thread counts.
People often also wrap stainless steel mesh wicks around cotton, or thread ekowool around it. Mixing the wicks in this way allows it to quickly wick juice for high amperage vaping. Stainless steel mesh also needs to be wrapped onto, but has lasted longer than some coil builds in my experience.

Top 3 best wicks made of cotton
Although there are countless wicking materials out on the market, vapers will often disagree on which is the best to use.  Most of the time they do agree on one thing, cotton is the best.  We all started out using cotton balls bought from the local store – unraveling and unrolling, snipping and clipping, then hoping the wick works just right.  After some deliberation with approximately 100 vapors over the weekend, we came up with a list of the top 3 best wicks made of cotton.

Japanese Cotton

Japanese MUJI Organic  Cotton
100% Organic Japanese cotton pads are on everybody’s go to list.  Simple to use, a small sliver is all you need, as it comes in perfect square pads, and each one approximately a quarter-inch thick.  All you have to do is snip off enough, following the path of the fibers to fit snugly through the coils.  Although this is great, cotton flavor wise, it is easy to char, after which it is instant wick-change-time.  For chasing clouds and low ohm builds it is the only draw back; a little too much heat and it’s toast.

Japanese muji Organic  Cotton: GET IT HERE

Japanese Organic Cotton pads (Koh Gen Do)
This is another form of cotton that you can use for e-cig wicks. The most popular brand is Koh Gen Do but there are some copycat brands. There made from cotton that has not been chemically treated, bleached, or pigmented.
The pads measure about 2.5’’ by 3’’ and can either be cut into small chunks or pulled apart and rolled up. Koh Gen Do is usually sold in packs of 60 pads but since it’s become popular in the e-cig community you can find vape shops selling it in smaller quantities.

Japanese Organic Cotton pads (Koh Gen Do) : GET IT HERE

Cotton Bacon V2
Grown by “Wick n’ Vape,” the Cotton Bacon V2 is one of the best vape cotton on the market at the moment. Made from vaping specific cotton, this product has been tested and certified; it has been labeled peroxide free, tasteless, and medical grade. All these characteristics make it compete with the best vape cotton in the market. It’s one of the few vape cotton that have managed to walk their talks.
You don’t need to boil them as they come ready for use. They are also packed in bags that can be resealed to preserve their freshness for a long time. This ensures that the taste isn’t compromised. The Cotton Bacon V2 has made a name by having a great taste once you drip your favorite e-juice on it.Overall, this is a great product and one of the best vape cotton. It wicks outstandingly even with higher VG than PG juices. You can get between 45-50 wicks from one bag.
Although the original cotton bacon line was impressive, the version 2 is amazing!  The original was reputed to be nothing more than unrolled dental cotton wadding, however, it did the trick.  Non existent priming time and almost instantaneous good flavor from the minute you put juice on the wicks.  They improved the heat resistance on version 2, which gives us longer lasting wicks from this company.  In addition, the wick is much more forgiving when it comes to dry hits.   The rashers are easy to work with, perfectly proportioned for fitting into 3mm coils when you cut it in half. Cotton Bacon comes in a handy pack that contains individual strips of cotton, each 4 inches in length and designed to be easily torn apart and installed in your Coil of Choice.Carefully packed in clean rooms, Cotton Bacon is there to get out of the way of your liquid so you’re only tasting your vapour, and not your wicks.

Cotton Bacon V2:GET IT HERE

Vapeyaya Premium organic Cotton wick
Here is a kind of Premium 3m(10ft),5m(16ft),10m(33ft) optional ORGANIC PREMIUM COTTON WICK 180PCS FOR RBA RDA RDTA from vapeyaya.com on line shop, it is organic cotton wick made by japanese organic cotton, it is very impressive and easy to use.Get ready to enjoy flavour like you have never experienced before.It is also very convinent to use: cut it to the length you want, then use it.

Vapeyaya Premium organic Cotton wick : GET IT HERE

Silica wick
And Silica wick is the most common e-cigarette wick and it is used in most “un-modified” electronic cigarettes. If you didn’t build your own coil you most likely have silica wick in your atomizer right now.
Silika wick is also pretty easy to use. You can either build a coil and thread the silica threw it or you can wrap a coil around the silica. Pushing a pin threw the silica will make it easy to wrap with a coil.
When you first try wrapping wrap wire around silica wick you may find it a bit tricky but I still think it’s a great way to start. Another huge benefit of silica is that wick can’t be over heated, so no need to worry about under dripping.

Silica wick: GET IT HERE


Final Thoughts
As I said at the beginning, most experienced vapors will choose natural cotton all day – every day, because it has little natural taste and produces great flavor.  Try out all of the wicks mentioned above and see which one works best for you. As always, enjoy your vaporizer and vape safe!


Tips on RDA wicking method w/ Japanese Cotton

1. Cut a strip of japanese cotton ALONG it's natural "grain". I generally cut about 3 times wider than whatever tool i wrapped the coil around. If i need to i'll trim it a little later on. It's of utmost importance to cut along the grain, or it will fall apart when inserting through the coil. And even if you managed to get it through the coil-the juice wouldn't really go anywhere.

2. Roll the end between your fingers tightly, make a section a little longer than the coil. You may have to do it a few times as the cotton will probably puff back out after you let it go. It doesn't hate you-I promise.

3. Gently slide the rolled out end through the coil. It should have a tiny bit of friction, but you shouldn't have to fight this too hard.

4. Pull your wick through straight. By that i mean do NOT twist the wick as you're pulling it through, take care to leave the grain of the cotton as parallel to the coil as possible. Just pretend that the wick is a bundle of drinking straws, if you want the juice to travel through it, you're gonna want them as straight as possible. Trim the ends. Generally i trim at a slight angle, so the part that lays against the post is a little shorter than the part that touches the front of the juice well.

5. I find this step to make a HUGE difference in wick performance. Juice the coil and the adjacent wick BEFORE tucking the tails under. This keeps the cotton fibers from kinking and collapsing-thus allowing them to cheerfully pull your juice from the deck to the coil. It's much harder to kink a garden hose while the water is running, same principle. It will keep the tiny channels in the cotton open during the next step.

6. The biggest reason (IMO) that a wick fails to perform is because of an obstruction in it's path from deck to coil. Hold a tiny tool of your choice under the cotton next to the coil and support it while you tuck the tails under. If your cotton is kinked where it touches the coil, the juice will come to a dead stop right before it reaches the finish line. This has been associated with dry/burnt hits, anxiety, depression, loss of enthusiasm etc. Your significant other/dog/cat/therapist will appreciate the care taken during this crucial step. Leave a nice smooth path for the juice to travel, and let physics handle the rest. If your tails touch one another then you need to trim them. Leave enough cotton for it to sit on the deck, but not so much that they are touching. You want the juice to creep as evenly up the wick as possible, this cannot happen if the tails are laying on top/under/in front/behind one another.

7. Fire that sucker up and admire the ease with which your device will perform!

When this is all done properly you should be able to drip ANYWHERE through the top and wick will instantly soak up all the juice and bring it straight to the coil by the time you set your juice down. I am well aware of the various schools of thought on the subject of wicking, and this is what happens to work best for me, so i thought it would be nice to share it with the community. Cheers!