Vape Cotton

About Vape Cotton and Wicks

Vape Cotton is often referred to as cotton wick. Wick is the part of your build that soaks up e-liquid and delivers it to the coil, ready to be heated. It works through something known as a capillary action, where e-liquid naturally pulls itself into tiny gaps in the material. In simple terms, the cotton inside your coil holds onto the e-liquid until it’s time to turn it into vapour, so it's very important that it's saturated correctly for best performance, so quality cotton is always a must!

These days, organic cotton is almost always the material of choice. Prebuilt Vape coils or stock coils come with cotton already fitted inside, but if you're using an RDA, RTA or RDTA, you will need to choose your own cotton for wicks and fit it through the premade vape coil by hand, which is where the term DIY vaper comes from.

Here’s how it works: the cotton absorbs the e-liquid, whether that’s from a rebuildable tank or from dripping straight onto an RDA coil. When you press the fire button, the battery heats the coil, and the soaked cotton releases vapour as the liquid turns into mist. As you inhale, more liquid pulls through the cotton, keeping it ready for your next draw.

Back in the early days, silica was used as a wick instead of cotton. Most vapers avoid it now because silica is glass-based and can break into tiny particles. Today, organic cotton for wicks is the standard. What started with cotton balls and basic medical cotton has now evolved to cleaner, purpose-made cotton specifically designed for vaping.

Types of Vape Cotton

Cotton threads

Threaded cotton, also known as shoelace cotton, comes pre-cut in the right size, sometimes with plastic tips (like shoelaces) to make threading quick and simple. If you prefer ready-made pieces, options like Steam Crave Shoe Lace Cotton or Recoil Wicking Cotton By ThunderCloud are designed for rebuildable atomisers such as the Recoil V3 RDA and Aromamiser V4 RDTA.

Loose cotton

Loose RDA cotton comes in strips or pads that you tear and shape yourself before threading through a coil. Popular choices include Vapefly Firebolt Cotton and The Yorkshire Vaper Fuzz Cotton, both known for clean flavour and easy use.