WS-23 cooling agent vape, why menthol and ice pods actually feel cold

WS-23 is a synthetic cooling agent used in vape eliquid that has almost no taste or smell of its own, yet it makes a flavour feel icy cold by binding to TRPM8, the same cold sensing receptor in your mouth and throat that responds to real cold temperature. Nothing has actually got colder, your brain is simply being told that it has. That single mechanism explains most of what people find confusing about menthol and ice flavoured prefilled pods.

 

What real menthol is and how it triggers a cooling feeling

Menthol is a naturally occurring compound found in mint plants, most commonly extracted from Mentha arvensis or Mentha piperita, and it has been used in confectionery, medicine and tobacco products for well over a century. It has its own distinct minty smell and a slightly bitter, sharp taste that most vapers immediately recognise from menthol cigarettes, chewing gum or throat sweets.

The cooling feeling menthol produces is a genuine, measurable receptor response, not an illusion in the loose sense, but it is also not a real drop in temperature. Menthol activates the same cold sensing pathway your body uses to detect an actual cold breeze or a cold drink, so your brain reads the signal as coldness even though the liquid on your tongue is at room temperature or slightly warm from the coil.

At low concentrations menthol gives a mild, rounded coolness that sits alongside its own minty flavour. Pushed higher, it starts to taste sharper and can irritate the eyes and the inside of the mouth, which is one reason flavour chemists have spent decades looking for an alternative that cools without the baggage that comes with menthol itself.

 

WS-23 and WS-3, the Wilkinson Sword cooling agents behind most modern ice vapes

WS-23 and WS-3 both come from a research programme run by Wilkinson Sword, the British company most people associate with swords and, later, safety razors. Around 1969 and 1970 the company’s management decided to diversify into toiletries and cosmetics, and that decision led its chemists, most notably Hugh Watson, to look seriously at menthol’s biggest practical problem, its tendency to irritate eyes and mucous membranes in shaving creams and aftershave.

The Wilkinson Sword team set out to find compounds that gave a cooling effect similar to menthol, but with no strong smell, low volatility and, ideally, no irritation. Working through the 1970s they screened more than 1,200 candidate cooling compounds using structure activity methods, essentially mapping how differently shaped molecules interacted with the same cold sensing pathway that menthol uses. That is genuinely where the “WS” prefix comes from, it stands for Wilkinson Sword, and the number after it simply tracks each compound’s position in that research programme.

WS-3, chemically known as N ethyl p menthane 3 carboxamide, was the standout early success from that programme. Its patent protection has long since expired, and it is now manufactured by several major flavour and fragrance houses rather than a single company. WS-23 is a later, chemically distinct compound from the same broader cooling agent family, and it has become the more widely used option across the modern vape flavour industry, for reasons that come down almost entirely to taste and how long the cooling sensation lasts.

Its full chemical name is N,2,3 trimethyl 2 propan 2 ylbutanamide, also described in supplier literature as methyl diisopropyl propionamide or 2 isopropyl N,2,3 trimethylbutanamide. None of that needs remembering for everyday vaping, the practical point is simpler, WS-23 is a specific, well characterised molecule with a known origin, not a vague catch all marketing term.

 

WS-23 versus menthol, taste, smell and how long the cooling sensation lasts

The single biggest practical difference between WS-23 and menthol is that WS-23 is generally considered to have little to no taste or smell of its own, while menthol tastes distinctly minty and carries its own recognisable aroma. That is precisely why WS-23 has become the workhorse cooling agent for fruit, drink and dessert flavoured eliquid, a flavour house can add it to a mango or a blue raspberry mix and get an icy finish without introducing any mint flavour at all.

Menthol’s cooling sensation also fades relatively quickly on the exhale, according to flavour industry research going back to the earliest Wilkinson Sword work, which found that menthol’s cooling effect “does not last very long” compared with the compounds it developed to replace it. WS-23 is widely regarded within the flavour industry as giving a cleaner and longer lasting cooling sensation on the exhale than either menthol or WS-3, which is a large part of why it has spread so quickly across UK and international vape flavour formulation over the past several years.

None of this makes WS-23 a superior product in some objective sense, it makes it a different tool. Someone who specifically wants that classic minty, slightly medicinal menthol character, the kind associated with old style menthol cigarettes or mint imperial sweets, will usually find a straight menthol formulation more satisfying than a fruit flavour carrying a WS-23 ice finish, because the two are built to do different jobs. Our own guide to the best menthol prefilled pods in the UK goes into that classic minty style in more depth if that is specifically what you are after.

 

TRPM8, the cold sensing receptor that makes WS-23 feel like cold without any actual drop in temperature

TRPM8 is a protein channel found in nerve endings across the mouth, throat, skin and airway, and its job under completely normal circumstances is to detect genuine cold, a cold drink, a chilly morning, an ice cube against your lip. When the temperature around a TRPM8 channel drops, the channel opens, and that opening sends an electrical signal up the nerve to the brain that gets interpreted as “this is cold.”

Menthol, WS-23 and WS-3 all work by binding directly to TRPM8 and forcing that same channel open, even when the actual physical temperature has not changed at all. From the nerve’s point of view, and therefore from your brain’s point of view, the signal looks exactly the same whether it was triggered by a genuine drop in temperature or by one of these compounds locking onto the receptor chemically. That is the entire mechanism in a nutshell, a chemical key that happens to fit the same lock your body uses for real cold.

This is a genuinely well studied piece of sensory biology rather than vape industry marketing language, TRPM8 was identified and characterised in mainstream physiology and pharmacology research as the primary cold and menthol receptor, and it remains an active area of academic study for reasons that go well beyond vaping, including topical pain relief products, food science and even some early stage pharmaceutical research into pain and itch. WS-23 and WS-3 are simply two of the more effective TRPM8 activators that were characterised along the way, and the vape flavour industry adopted them because they solved a real formulation problem, not because anyone invented a new mechanism specifically for eliquid.

It is worth being precise about what this mechanism does and does not tell you. Activating TRPM8 tells your nervous system a temperature sensing story, it does not tell you anything about nicotine strength, throat harshness from PG or VG ratio, or overall flavour intensity, those are separate variables controlled by completely different parts of a prefilled pod’s formulation. Treating the cooling sensation as a proxy for anything else is one of the most common mistakes people make with ice flavoured vapes, which we come back to later in this guide.

 

Why flavour houses layer WS-23 into fruit and drink flavours to build an ice version

Once you understand that WS-23 carries almost no flavour of its own, the logic behind “ice” variants of fruit and drink flavours becomes straightforward. A flavour chemist working on, say, a watermelon or a cola flavour wants to add a cold, refreshing finish without changing the actual watermelon or cola taste underneath it. Straight menthol would fight with that base flavour, its own minty character would blur into the fruit or drink notes and produce something that tastes more like mouthwash than iced watermelon.

WS-23 sidesteps that problem entirely. Because it does not compete with the base flavour on taste, a formulator can dial in exactly as much cooling sensation as they want, from a faint background chill to a strong, almost menthol like intensity, purely by adjusting the concentration, while the fruit or drink flavour underneath stays recognisably itself. That is why the UK market now has ice versions of flavours that have nothing to do with mint at all, ice mango, ice cola, ice blue raspberry, and why a genuinely mint free “ice” pod is a completely normal, expected product rather than a contradiction in terms.

This is also why two products both labelled “ice” from two different brands can feel wildly different in your mouth. There is no single fixed concentration of WS-23 that every manufacturer agrees to use, one brand’s idea of a subtle icy finish might sit at a concentration another brand would consider barely noticeable, while a third brand’s “extra ice” line might use several times the concentration for a much sharper hit. The word “ice” on packaging describes an effect, not a standardised dose, and that gap between labelling and actual concentration is the root cause of most consumer confusion in this category. If you are exploring flavour categories more broadly, our guide to fruit flavour prefilled pods for 2026 covers how ice variants sit alongside standard fruit options, and our autumn and winter sensory buying guide looks at how cooling agents interact with seasonal flavour preferences more generally.

 

Which cooling style suits you, menthol, WS-23 or a milder ice blend

The table below maps common preferences and sensitivities against the cooling approach that tends to suit them best, based on how these compounds actually behave rather than marketing claims about any specific product.

If you are someone who	You will probably prefer	Because
Wants the classic minty, slightly medicinal taste of old style menthol cigarettes or mint sweets	A straight menthol flavoured pod, no fruit or drink base	Menthol’s own taste is the point, not a side effect to avoid
Dislikes minty taste but wants a genuinely cold finish	A fruit or drink flavour with a WS-23 based ice variant	WS-23 gives cold without carrying menthol’s minty character
Finds standard ice flavours only mildly refreshing and wants more	A brand’s “extra ice” or “double ice” labelled variant, checked in small quantity first	Higher WS-23 concentration gives a sharper, longer lasting cold hit
Has previously found a strong ice flavour caused a harsh, catching sensation at the back of the throat	A standard fruit flavour with no ice descriptor, or the mildest ice option a range offers	Very high cooling agent concentration can read as harsh rather than refreshing to some people
Wants a cooling sensation that fades quickly rather than lingering after the vape is put down	A menthol led flavour rather than a WS-23 led one	Menthol’s cooling effect is generally shorter lived than WS-23’s
Is simply undecided and wants to compare properly	A smaller pack or a lower puff count device first, tried across a few days	Personal sensitivity to TRPM8 activation genuinely varies between individuals

Nicotine strength selection sits completely separately from any of this, and our nic salts versus freebase nicotine guide is the right place to work that decision through rather than trying to infer it from flavour choice.

 

Who this WS-23 cooling agent explainer is not written for

This article explains flavour chemistry and sensory perception, it is not a safety assessment and it is not written for anyone trying to diagnose a specific physical reaction they have had to a particular product. If you believe you have had an unusual reaction, sensitivity or irritation that you suspect is linked to a cooling agent, a specific eliquid, or any ingredient in a vape product, that is a matter for your own judgement, your GP or an appropriate healthcare professional, and it is sensible to check the ingredient information on the product itself rather than relying on general flavour preference guidance like this to make that call.

This piece also is not aimed at anyone looking for a comparison of health outcomes between menthol and synthetic cooling agents. That is a genuinely active area of academic research, but it sits outside what a retailer’s flavour guide can responsibly claim one way or the other, and we have deliberately avoided drawing any conclusion of that kind anywhere in this article.

 

Four real UK vaping scenarios where WS-23 and menthol confusion actually comes up

• Scenario one, the ex smoker who misses menthol cigarettes and finds prefilled menthol pods taste different
  Someone who smoked menthol cigarettes for twenty years and switches to a prefilled pod system often expects “menthol” on a pod to taste identical to what they remember from tobacco. In practice it rarely does, tobacco menthol cigarettes combine menthol with combustion flavour compounds that simply do not exist in an eliquid, and many prefilled “menthol” pods actually lean on WS-23 or a WS-23 and menthol blend rather than menthol alone, which changes the character again. The fix is expectation setting rather than product fault, trying two or three different menthol style pods from different ranges usually finds something closer to what that person remembers, and checking whether a specific flavour is described as classic menthol versus an ice or cool mint blend is a useful filter before buying.
  
  
• Scenario two, wanting a fruit flavour with an icy WS-23 finish rather than a minty one
  A vaper who enjoys a specific fruit flavour, say a mixed berry or a mango, but wants an extra cold hit on the exhale without the flavour turning minty is exactly the customer WS-23 based ice variants were built for. The mistake to avoid here is assuming that any product with “menthol” anywhere in its description will do this job, it will not, menthol variants of a fruit flavour genuinely do taste different from a fruit flavour’s own WS-23 based ice version. Looking specifically for products labelled “ice” rather than “menthol” alongside the fruit name is the more reliable route to the actual result being looked for.
  
  
• Scenario three, a WS-23 heavy ice flavour that caused a harsh throat catch
  Some vapers try a strongly labelled “extra ice” or “arctic” style flavour and experience a sharp, almost stinging catch at the back of the throat rather than a pleasant cold sensation. This is a genuinely known effect of high concentration cooling agent use, at higher concentrations WS-23 can read as harsh rather than refreshing, and for some people it can even carry a faint medicinal or slightly soapy edge rather than a clean cold one. The practical response is simply to step down to a milder ice descriptor, or to a standard fruit flavour with no ice element at all, rather than assuming a harsh throat catch means something is wrong with the device or the nicotine strength.
  
  
• Scenario four, two prefilled pods both labelled ice that use WS-23 at clearly different strengths
  A vaper compares two different brands’ pods, both labelled with an ice descriptor and similar fruit names, and finds one barely registers as cold while the other feels intensely icy within a couple of puffs. This is not a manufacturing fault on either side, it reflects the point made earlier, there is no shared industry standard concentration behind the word “ice,” each brand sets its own level. The sensible approach is to treat “ice” as a rough directional label rather than a precise promise, and to expect some genuine variation between brands until a preferred one is found through direct comparison.

 

Four mistakes vapers make about WS-23, menthol and ice flavour labelling

• Mistake one, assuming every ice or menthol label means the same WS-23 concentration
  As covered above, “ice” and “menthol” are descriptive terms, not standardised measurements. Two products carrying the same label from different manufacturers, or even two flavours within the same brand’s own range, can use noticeably different concentrations of cooling agent. Reading a flavour description carefully, and being willing to try a smaller quantity first when trying an unfamiliar brand’s ice range, avoids most disappointment here.
  
  
• Mistake two, assuming a stronger cooling hit from WS-23 means a stronger nicotine hit
  TRPM8 activation and nicotine delivery are entirely separate systems inside a prefilled pod. A very cold feeling flavour tells you nothing reliable about how much nicotine is in that pod or how it will feel in terms of throat hit from nicotine itself, those characteristics come from the nicotine strength, the nicotine salt formulation and the PG VG ratio, not from the cooling agent. Choosing nicotine strength on its own merits, separately from flavour intensity, is the more reliable approach, and it is exactly what our own nic salts versus freebase nicotine guide is designed to help with.
  
  
• Mistake three, treating natural menthol and synthetic WS-23 as interchangeable in taste
  They produce a broadly similar cooling sensation through the same TRPM8 mechanism, but they are chemically distinct compounds with genuinely different taste profiles, menthol carries its own minty flavour and WS-23 largely does not. Assuming a product will taste the same regardless of which one it uses is a common and easily avoided source of disappointment, particularly for anyone specifically chasing a classic minty menthol character.
  
  
• Mistake four, assuming WS-23 is flavourless at every concentration
  WS-23 is widely described as having little to no taste of its own at typical use levels, but that description applies at typical use levels, not at every possible concentration. Pushed high enough, some vapers report a faint medicinal, bitter or slightly soapy note from strong cooling agent formulations, which is worth knowing before assuming an unpleasant aftertaste in an “extra ice” product must be coming from the fruit or drink flavour itself rather than the cooling agent.

 

Named alternatives to WS-23, including WS-3, WS5, Koolada blends and menthol only formulations

Anyone who specifically wants the classic minty character rather than a mint free cold sensation has a straightforward alternative, a menthol only formulation with no synthetic cooling agent added at all, and our best menthol prefilled pods guide is the right starting point for exploring that specific style within our own range.

Beyond WS-23 itself, the wider flavour and fragrance industry uses several other named cooling compounds. WS-3 is the earlier Wilkinson Sword compound described earlier in this guide, generally regarded as milder and shorter lasting than WS-23, and still used by some formulators either on its own or blended with WS-23 for a rounder effect. WS5 is another compound from the same broad research lineage, used by some flavour houses for particular effects in specific formulations. “Koolada” is a widely used trade name that generally refers to WS-23 based cooling liquid blends produced by various suppliers, rather than being a separate chemical compound in its own right.

We describe these honestly rather than claiming precision about every single product in our own catalogue, different suppliers and different flavour batches within the same broad category can use different specific cooling agents or blends, and the reliable way to know exactly what any single product contains is to check that product’s own ingredient information rather than assuming from its category or its name alone.

 

MHRA notification, TRPR and how WS-23 gets disclosed before a vape is legally sold in the UK

In the UK, every eliquid, including any product containing a cooling agent such as WS-23 or WS-3, must be notified to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency before it can legally be sold, under the framework set out in the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016. This is a transparency and compliance requirement, not a health endorsement of any particular ingredient, and it is worth being precise about that distinction.

As part of that notification, manufacturers must submit a full list of the product’s ingredients along with toxicological data covering ingredients and emissions, and they must formally declare that they bear full responsibility for the safety and quality of that product. Flavouring ingredients present below a very small concentration threshold can be described collectively using an umbrella term rather than named individually, but the manufacturer must still hold proper safety assurance from its own suppliers and be able to disclose full composition confidentially if a safety question is ever raised by the regulator. That is the genuine legal mechanism behind ingredient disclosure for something like a cooling agent, it is a notification and record keeping requirement, not a compound by compound pre approval process the way a food additive might work.

You can check whether a specific eliquid brand and product has actually been through this process using the MHRA’s own ECIG notification database, which holds a live, searchable record of tens of thousands of notified vaping products across the UK market. There is no separate UK ban specifically targeting WS-23 or other synthetic cooling agents in vaping, the same TRPR notification framework that applies to every other eliquid ingredient applies to cooling agents too.

The core gov.uk guidance on electronic cigarette regulation for consumer products confirms the wider limits that sit alongside this, tank and pod capacity capped at 2ml, nicotine strength capped at 20mg/ml, and refill container volume capped at 10ml. Every product across our own range at Prefilled Vapes Outlet is MHRA notified under TRPR, no pod in our range exceeds 2ml capacity, and no eliquid we sell exceeds 20mg/ml nicotine strength. This product contains nicotine which is a highly addictive substance, and everything discussed in this article is written for adult smokers and vapers aged 18 and over only.

There is also a small, genuinely active academic literature specifically comparing WS-23 and menthol as flavour and sensory ingredients rather than as safety questions, including at least one peer reviewed study that measured how vapers rated the appeal and sensory character of ice flavoured eliquid using WS-23 against menthol flavoured eliquid. We mention that this kind of research exists purely as background evidence that flavour perception in this category is a genuine, ongoing area of scientific interest, not as a basis for any comparative safety claim, which this article deliberately does not make.

 

The honest verdict on WS-23 cooling agent vapes

WS-23 is not a mystery ingredient and it is not a marketing gimmick, it is a specific, well characterised molecule with a traceable industrial history, adopted across the vape flavour industry because it solves a genuine formulation problem that menthol alone could not solve, delivering a clean, long lasting cold sensation without forcing every flavour to taste minty. Its effect comes down to one clear piece of sensory biology, it activates TRPM8, the same receptor real cold activates, which is why the sensation feels completely convincing even though nothing has physically got colder.

Whether WS-23, menthol, or a blend of the two suits you personally is genuinely a matter of taste and sensitivity, not a question with one correct answer. Vapers who specifically want that classic minty menthol character should look for menthol led flavours, vapers who want a cold finish on a fruit or drink flavour without any mint character should look for WS-23 based ice variants, and anyone who has found strong ice flavours harsh in the past has every reason to step down to a milder option rather than assuming something is wrong with the product. The label “ice” is a rough guide to intended effect, not a fixed dose, so treating your own first few puffs of an unfamiliar flavour as useful information, rather than assuming it will match a previous experience with a differently branded ice flavour, is the most reliable way to actually find what suits you.

 

Frequently asked questions about WS-23 cooling agent vapes

1. What is WS-23 in a vape?
   WS-23 is a synthetic cooling agent added to some eliquids, developed originally from Wilkinson Sword’s cooling compound research. It has little to no taste of its own and works by activating TRPM8, a cold sensing receptor, which is why flavours containing it feel cold even though nothing has actually dropped in temperature.
   
   
2. Is WS-23 the same as menthol?
   No. Menthol is a naturally occurring compound found in mint plants with its own distinct minty taste and smell, while WS-23 is a synthetic compound that activates the same TRPM8 receptor but carries little to no flavour of its own, which is why it is used to add an icy finish to non minty flavours.
   
   
3. Why do some ice flavoured vapes feel much colder than others?
   Manufacturers use different concentrations of cooling agent under the same “ice” label, there is no fixed industry standard amount. One brand’s ice flavour may use a low concentration for a subtle chill, while another’s “extra ice” range may use a much higher concentration for a sharp, longer lasting cold hit.
   
   
4. Does a strong cooling sensation mean a vape has more nicotine?
   No, cooling sensation and nicotine strength are entirely separate. The cold feeling comes from TRPM8 receptor activation by the cooling agent, while nicotine strength and throat hit depend on the nicotine salt formulation and PG VG ratio, so a very cold tasting flavour tells you nothing reliable about its nicotine content.
   
   
5. Where does the name WS-23 actually come from?
   WS stands for Wilkinson Sword, the British company whose chemists, working through the 1970s after the company diversified into toiletries research, screened over a thousand candidate cooling compounds looking for alternatives to menthol. WS-23 and the earlier WS-3 both take their names from that research programme.
   
   
6. Is WS-23 legal in UK vapes?
   There is no separate UK ban on WS-23 specifically. Like any other eliquid ingredient, it falls within the standard Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 notification framework, meaning it must be disclosed to the MHRA as part of a product’s TRPR notification before that product can be legally sold in the UK.
   
   
7. Why does an ice flavour sometimes taste slightly medicinal or soapy?
   At typical concentrations, cooling agents like WS-23 are generally considered close to flavourless, but at high concentrations some vapers report a faint medicinal or soapy note. If a particular ice flavour tastes unpleasant in that way, trying a milder ice descriptor or a standard, non ice version of the same flavour usually resolves it.
   
   
8. Can I find out exactly which cooling agent a specific product uses?
   The most reliable way is to check that specific product’s own listed ingredients, since formulations vary between brands and even between flavours in the same range. You can also confirm a product has been properly notified for UK sale using the MHRA’s own ECIG notification database.