Ripple+ is a nicotine-free, tobacco-free device that heats a blend of vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, plant extracts, and essential oils into an inhalable vapor. Because it contains no nicotine, it avoids some of the most well-known risks of traditional vaping. But “nicotine-free” does not automatically mean “safe,” and the honest answer is that no one has enough long-term data to guarantee these products are harmless to your lungs.
What’s Actually Inside a Ripple+ Device
Ripple+ describes its blends as having an organic vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol base combined with natural plant extracts and organic essential oils. Different versions are marketed around specific effects like calm, energy, or focus, with ingredients varying by flavor. Some versions also claim to deliver vitamins like B12 through inhalation.
Vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol are the same carrier liquids used in nicotine-based e-cigarettes. Both are “generally recognized as safe” by the FDA for oral consumption, meaning they’re fine to eat. That designation does not extend to inhaling them as heated aerosol. When these liquids are vaporized, they can produce fine particles that reach deep into the lungs, and the long-term consequences of repeated exposure through that route remain unclear.
The Problem With Inhaling Essential Oils
Essential oils are the ingredient that sets products like Ripple+ apart from standard vapes, and they’re also the ingredient that raises the most questions. The composition of essential oils is not standardized. A single oil can contain dozens of chemical compounds at varying concentrations, and those compounds change depending on the plant source, extraction method, and supplier.
Research published in the journal CHEST highlights that inhaling small particles is a known trigger for hypersensitivity and lung disease, and a similar mechanism is likely at play with aerosolized essential oils. In at least one documented case, a patient developed hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a type of lung inflammation caused by an immune reaction to inhaled particles, after regular use of an essential oil diffuser. The condition resolved when the person stopped using the product, but the researchers noted it was unknown whether persistent use could lead to more permanent lung damage.
That case involved a room diffuser, not a vape pen. With a vape, the aerosol goes directly into your airways at a much higher concentration than what you’d breathe from a diffuser sitting across the room. No published studies have specifically tracked what happens to lung tissue after months or years of daily Ripple+ use.
Do Inhaled Vitamins Actually Work?
Some Ripple+ products are marketed as delivering vitamins like B12 through inhalation. There is older clinical research showing that inhaled B12 aerosol can raise blood levels of the vitamin and even maintain patients in remission from B12 deficiency for up to 12 months. But the researchers behind that work concluded the method was not superior to injections and flagged the possibility of inducing pulmonary damage. No major medical body recommends inhaling vitamins as a preferred delivery method.
For most people, oral B12 supplements or dietary sources are effective, inexpensive, and carry no lung-related risk. Inhaling vitamins through a vape pen is a novelty, not a medical upgrade.
How Ripple+ Compares to Nicotine Vapes
Ripple+ does avoid the biggest hazard of conventional e-cigarettes: nicotine addiction. Nicotine is highly addictive, raises blood pressure, and can harm brain development in people under 25. By removing nicotine entirely, Ripple+ eliminates that set of risks.
It also doesn’t contain vitamin E acetate, the additive strongly linked to the 2019 wave of severe lung injuries (known as EVALI) that hospitalized thousands of people across the United States. That outbreak was traced primarily to black-market THC cartridges, not commercial nicotine or nicotine-free products. Large-scale testing of commercially sold vaping liquids has found no detectable vitamin E acetate in any of the products analyzed.
Still, sharing a carrier liquid base with nicotine vapes means Ripple+ shares some of the same unknowns. Heated propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin produce ultrafine particles and, depending on temperature, can generate trace amounts of irritating byproducts. The essential oils add another layer of complexity that standard nicotine e-liquids don’t have.
Regulatory Gaps You Should Know About
No vaping products of any kind are approved by the FDA to prevent or treat health conditions. The FDA has issued warning letters to several companies selling “wellness” vaping products containing vitamins or essential oils, citing unproven health claims and the potential for harm. The companies that received letters include brands like VitaCig, Vitamin Vape, and VitaStik. Ripple+ was not named in those specific letters, but the regulatory environment makes the broader point clear: marketing a vape as a health or wellness tool does not mean any government agency has verified that claim.
Because Ripple+ contains no nicotine or tobacco, it falls into a gray area. It isn’t regulated the same way as nicotine e-cigarettes in most jurisdictions, which means it doesn’t undergo the same pre-market safety reviews. The company does enforce age restrictions (21+ in the U.S., 18+ in the UK and EU, 19+ in Canada), but age-gating is a sales policy, not evidence of safety testing.
The Bottom Line on Safety
Ripple+ is almost certainly less harmful than smoking cigarettes or vaping nicotine. It contains no nicotine, no tobacco, and none of the additives linked to the 2019 EVALI crisis. For someone trying to quit nicotine vaping, it could serve as a behavioral bridge, giving your hands and mouth something to do while you break the chemical dependency.
But less harmful is not the same as safe. You are still inhaling heated aerosol containing glycerin, propylene glycol, and a cocktail of essential oil compounds directly into your lungs, an organ designed for air. The long-term effects of doing this daily have simply not been studied. The essential oils in these products are not standardized, and the pulmonary research that does exist on aerosolized oils raises legitimate concerns about inflammation and immune reactions over time. If you’ve never vaped or smoked, there is no health reason to start with Ripple+ or any similar product.