VELO Nicotine Pouches & Velo Snus

What Are VELO Nicotine Pouches?

VELO nicotine pouches are small, tobacco-free white pouches made by British American Tobacco (BAT). One sits under your top lip and releases nicotine and flavour for around 30 to 45 minutes, with no smoke, no vapour and nothing to spit. By units sold, VELO is the UK's biggest nicotine pouch brand.

You've seen the tins even if you never clocked them: stacked behind the Tesco till, rattling around a cup holder, poking out of a gym bag. The pouch began in Sweden as Epok, an all-white snus, became LYFT once the leaf came out, and took the VELO name in the UK in January 2022. Inside is plant fibre, water, salt, flavouring and pharmaceutical-grade nicotine drawn from the tobacco plant. There is no tobacco leaf at all, and that one absence matters more than it sounds.

This page does more than list tins. The strength finder matches you to a dot count in two taps, the flavour finder filters all 21 flavours by family and strength, and the price calculator shows what a can, a pouch and a month of VELO really cost. Want the whole backstory? Our complete VELO guide has it. 18+ only.

Is VELO Snus?

No. Plenty of people call it Velo snus, but snus contains ground tobacco leaf and VELO does not. In the UK that single ingredient decides everything: tobacco snus has been banned from sale here since 1992, while a tobacco-free pouch like VELO is legal to buy and use. So if "velo snus" is what you typed, you are in exactly the right place, and nobody behind a counter is going to correct you.

You'll also see "white snus", the Scandinavian nickname for exactly this style of pouch. The nicotine in UK VELO comes from the tobacco plant rather than a lab, but it arrives without the leaf, which is the legal basis for the tins being on shelves at all. The long version is in snus vs nicotine pouches and what snus actually is. (VELO is also the tin most often spotted in football dressing rooms, a story told properly in snus and football.)

VELO Strengths: What the Dots Mean

VELO strength runs from 1 to 6 dots: 1 dot is 4mg, 2 dots are 6mg, 3 dots are 8mg or 10mg, 4 dots are 11mg, 5 dots are 14mg and 6 dots are 17mg of nicotine per pouch. More dots, more nicotine. VELO groups them into three ranges, Mellow (1 to 2 dots), Original (3 to 4) and Intense (5 to 6).

The dots replaced the old printed words, Mild through Strong and X-Strong up to Ultra and Max, when VELO redrew its cans in January 2024. Nothing inside changed. Only the label did, which is why an old "Strong" tin and a new three-dot tin can sit side by side on a shelf and be the same pouch. Tap a dot below to decode it, or answer two questions for a starting point.

We stock the two-dot rung upward, 6mg to 17mg. Lighter pouches from every brand live in low-strength nicotine pouches, and the 8mg to 11mg middle ground in medium-strength pouches.

Is 3 dot VELO 8mg or 10mg?

It can be either. VELO prints the same three-dot glyph on both, so the milligrams on the can are the real answer. Bright Spearmint, Purple Grape and Lime Flame come in at 8mg, while Crispy Peppermint, Cherry Ice, Tropical Ice and most of the fruit-and-ice tins sit at 10mg. If one three-dot can has ever felt firmer than another, that's the reason. Four dots carries its own small quirk: older cans print 10.9mg and newer ones round it to 11mg. Same pouch, tidier number.

How much nicotine is in a VELO pouch?

Exactly what the can says, which is rarer than you would think. VELO measures nicotine in milligrams per pouch, so a 10mg can puts 10mg in each pouch. Many of the stronger brands, Killa, Pablo and Iceberg among them, print milligrams per gram of pouch instead. A pouch weighs roughly 0.65g, so their headline number overstates the real dose by about a third: a can marked 20mg/g holds around 13mg a pouch, and a 50mg/g can around 35mg. Switching across? The strength finder converts mg/g for you, and our Pablo strength guide walks through the maths.

What is the strongest VELO?

The strongest VELO is any six-dot, 17mg can, and Freezing Peppermint 17mg is the one most people mean. We also stock 17mg in Peppermint Storm, Icy Berries, Ruby Berry, Purple Grape, Tropical Mango, Wintry Watermelon, Mango Flame and Orange Spark. BAT caps the brand at 17mg on purpose, so a listing promising a 20mg or 40mg VELO is mislabelled or simply not VELO. If 17mg already feels mild to you, VELO has run out of road; the high-strength pouch range is where other brands go further.

One more quirk worth knowing. Mint reads stronger than fruit at the same milligrams, so a 10mg Crispy Peppermint lands colder and sharper than a 10mg Cherry Ice even though the nicotine is identical; menthol simply turns the volume up. Moving from a mint to a fruit, you may want a dot more than the number suggests.

VELO Flavours UK: All 21 Flavours We Stock

Twenty-one flavours, each shown with the strengths we actually hold rather than everything VELO has ever pressed into a tin. They fall into four families: five true mints, four straight fruits, eight fruit-and-ice hybrids that finish cold, and four Flame and Spark tins that swap the chill for warmth or fizz. VELO's house style is clean rather than sugary, and the mints are where the brand earned its name. Filter by family or dots below; the ratings come from real NicotineBuzz customer reviews.

VELO Mint Nicotine Pouches

The mints are Crispy Peppermint (the UK best-seller, once called Ice Cool), Bright Spearmint, Peppermint Storm, Freezing Peppermint and Minty Lemon, a peppermint base that opens into lemon rather than a citrus pouch wearing a mint badge. Mint is also where VELO hits its ceiling: Peppermint Storm and Freezing Peppermint are the only two that climb to 17mg. The gentlest mint here is 6mg, in Bright Spearmint or Crispy Peppermint.

For mint from every brand we carry, head to mint nicotine pouches.

VELO Fruity Nicotine Pouches

The fruity side is the bigger half, at twelve tins, and it splits two ways. The straight fruits carry no cooling at all: Ruby Berry, Purple Grape, Tropical Mango and Tangy Lime. The fruit-and-ice hybrids finish cold: Icy Berries, Wintry Watermelon, Cherry Ice, Strawberry Ice, Peach Ice, Tropical Ice, Orange Ice and Watermelon Ice. Tropical Ice has drawn more customer reviews than any other VELO we sell, and Ruby Berry and Tropical Mango are the only fruits that run the whole ladder from 6mg to 17mg.

Want a VELO fruit bundle? Build your own: the multibuy counts every VELO can in the basket, whatever the flavour. Fruit from other brands lives in fruit nicotine pouches.

Flame and Spark: the Warm and Fizzy VELOs

Lime Flame and Mango Flame finish with a gentle chilli warmth, Orange Spark tingles like sherbet, and Cinnamon Flame is a warm spice with a genuine kick. These are the love-it-or-leave-it tins. Tangy Lime and Lime Flame get muddled constantly; same fruit, but only Lime Flame brings the heat. It's also our second most-reviewed VELO, and one buyer summed up the whole group better than we could:

Best VELO Flavours: Where to Start

• Safest first tin: Crispy Peppermint 6mg. Almost nobody regrets it.
• Best fruit: Ruby Berry, tart rather than sweet, at every strength we sell.
• The easy-going one: Purple Grape, which one customer called “Smooth, fruity and easy to enjoy.”
• Strongest: Freezing Peppermint 17mg, six dots.
• Something different: Lime Flame.

The podium is argued properly in our top five VELO flavours ranked.

Old VELO Names: Ice Cool, Freeze, Polar Mint and the Rest

In January 2024 VELO renamed most of its flavours and kept every recipe exactly as it was. Supermarkets still sell old-name stock, so the same pouch can wear two names in two shops on the same street. Hunting for a name you remember? Here's what it is called now.

Two names in that table now belong to another brand as well. ELF, the Elf Bar pouch brand, sells a Max Polar Mint and a Cool Storm that have nothing to do with the old VELO cans, so check the brand on the lid; both are on our ELF Bar pouches page.

Go back one more step and you reach LYFT. From late 2018 until January 2022 these pouches sold in the UK as LYFT with the same flavour names, so LYFT Ice Cool became VELO Ice Cool, which is now Crispy Peppermint. Three names for one pouch; somewhere, a branding agency did very nicely out of it. BAT has since reused the LYFT badge for an unrelated premium line abroad, so don't let an overseas listing throw you.

VELO Mini vs Slim

VELO Mini is the smaller pouch, 15 to a can at around 0.4g each, and it all but vanishes under the lip. VELO Slim is the standard pouch, 20 to a can at around 0.7g each, and it covers the full ladder up to 17mg. Format and strength are separate choices, although the gentlest 4mg and 6mg tins are where Minis live.

Here is the part nobody explains. The dots count total milligrams, not concentration. A 6mg Mini packs its nicotine into a smaller pouch, so it is denser; a 6mg Slim spreads the same amount across more gum. Neither is objectively stronger. Most people find the Mini quicker and the Slim steadier, and if you want a pouch nobody will ever spot, the Mini wins outright.

VELO Price UK: What a Can Really Costs

VELO's UK RRP is £6.50 for a 20-pouch Slim can and £5.00 for a 15-pouch Mini, roughly 33p a pouch either way. Here a single VELO can is £4.19, any 5 mixed flavours are £19.95, and the price keeps falling to £2.85 a can at 40. Every VELO can in the basket counts toward the rate, whatever the flavour.

So why is VELO so expensive in shops? It isn't, not really. The corner shop is just the dearest place to buy it. That's also the honest answer to "velo near me": the shop round the corner wins on immediacy and loses on price and choice, since most stock two or three of these 21 flavours by the till.

VELO's own website sells subscriptions from £3.25 a Slim can, which is a fair deal if you like being on a subscription; our 20-can rate beats it without signing up to anything. Every current offer across brands sits on the pouch deals page.

Which VELO Should You Choose?

Rather than sell you the strongest can on the shelf, here's roughly where people land. It's about matching a habit you already have, not a health claim, and if you don't use nicotine at all, VELO isn't for you.

• New to pouches, or a light smoker: 2 dots, 6mg. Bright Spearmint, 6mg Crispy Peppermint or Tangy Lime.
• Regular smoker or vaper: 3 to 4 dots, 8mg to 11mg. Crispy Peppermint 10mg, Ruby Berry 10mg, Tropical Mango 10mg or Peppermint Storm 11mg.
• Heavy smoker or seasoned pouch user: 5 dots, 14mg, and 6 dots only once pouches feel familiar. Freezing Peppermint and Icy Berries go all the way.

Still torn? The strength finder settles it in two taps. And a first can you barely notice beats a strong one that flattens you for twenty minutes, every single time.

The honest downsides

VELO isn't perfect, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. The moist pouch wakes up fast, which also means the flavour peaks early and fades sooner than drier brands such as ZYN. A few flavours develop a faintly salty drip late on. The 6mg tins feel gentler than the number suggests while 17mg over-delivers, so the milligrams don't behave in a straight line. And if you want candy-sweet flavours or anything past 17mg, you will find more of that with Killa or Pablo. For everyone else, it is the most dependable and most widely stocked pouch in Britain.

VELO Reviews: What UK Customers Say

Every VELO flavour we sell has been reviewed by NicotineBuzz customers, and the figures below update as new reviews arrive. Mint buyers talk about how clean and cold the finish is. Fruit buyers keep saying the same thing in different words, usually that it makes “a nice change from mint”. So far every VELO review we've had is four or five stars, which we will happily take.

How to Use VELO (and How to Open the Can)

To open a VELO can, press down on the lid and twist at the same time. It's child-resistant, so pressing and then twisting won't work; the two have to happen together. The top of the lid also unscrews into a small compartment for used pouches.

1. Take one pouch and tuck it under your top lip, a little to one side.
2. Leave it alone. A tingle in the first minute is normal, and there's no chewing or sucking involved.
3. After 30 to 45 minutes, when the flavour fades, pop it in the lid compartment and bin it later in general waste.

Do you spit with VELO? No. There is no tobacco juice, so you swallow your saliva as normal; just don't swallow the pouch. How long does a VELO pouch last? Most people keep one in for 30 to 45 minutes, and the mints last longest. How many pouches are in a VELO can? Twenty in a Slim and fifteen in a Mini, so a can lasts a moderate user two or three days. The price calculator above turns your daily use into cans a month, pacing advice lives in how many nicotine pouches per day, and the full walkthrough is in how to use nicotine pouches.

New to pouches? Start at two dots and never go back to back on an empty stomach, because too much nicotine through the gum too quickly means hiccups and a swimmy head. Sealed cans keep their punch for around a year (the best-before date is on the base); once opened, use them within a couple of months and keep them out of a hot car. Flying with a can? The rules that matter are at the destination end, covered in taking pouches on a plane.

VELO vs ZYN vs Nordic Spirit

These are the three brands most UK buyers end up choosing between. The short version: VELO is the fast, flavour-forward one with the widest spread of flavours.

VELO's edge is speed and choice: the moist pouch gets going within a minute or two, and the flavour list runs deeper than either rival's. It loses on duration, since that same moisture means the taste fades sooner than ZYN's drier pouch. Against Nordic Spirit, VELO brings more adventurous flavours, while Nordic Spirit stays gentler on the gums over a long day. Compare the ranges directly on our ZYN nicotine pouches and Nordic Spirit pages, or read the full VELO vs Nordic Spirit head-to-head.

Who Makes VELO?

VELO is made by British American Tobacco (BAT), the group behind Vuse vapes, and it is BAT's flagship nicotine pouch worldwide.

BAT has backed VELO with a McLaren Formula 1 partnership since 2019, so the humble tin under your lip has a grand-prix marketing budget behind it, which is more than most of us can say for our morning coffee. The newest arrival, VELO Shift, comes in a hexagonal, mostly plant-based can with a softer oval pouch and flavours built on warming or cooling sensations, along the lines of Hot Dragon Fruit and Cool Peppermint. We don't stock Shift yet, and this page will say so the day that changes.

Is VELO Legal in the UK? The 2026 Rules

Yes. VELO is legal to buy and use in the UK because it contains no tobacco leaf. The rules are tightening, though, and a few dates are worth knowing.

• Age: from 29 October 2026, the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 makes selling nicotine pouches to anyone under 18 a criminal offence. We already sell to adults only, with an age check at checkout.
• Free samples: free nicotine pouch samples are banned from the same date, so nobody legitimate will be posting you a free tin.
• Duty: the Vaping Products Duty from 1 October 2026 covers e-liquid only. Pouches carry standard 20% VAT and nothing on top.
• Advertising: a ban on nicotine pouch advertising and sponsorship is confirmed for 1 June 2027.
• Strength: a proposed 20mg cap was rejected and no limit is set. VELO's own 17mg ceiling already sits below any figure that has been floated.
• Europe: France banned nicotine pouches in 2025. Nothing similar is proposed for the UK.

Nicotine is addictive, and VELO is meant for adults who already use nicotine, not for non-smokers and never for under-18s. It is not a licensed stop-smoking product; if quitting nicotine altogether is the goal, the free NHS stop-smoking service or your pharmacist will do more for you than anything in a round tin. The wider legal picture, snus included, is in is snus legal in the UK.

Buy VELO Nicotine Pouches Online UK

We ship VELO from UK stock. Order before 3pm Monday to Friday and it leaves the same day; choose Next Day Delivery at checkout (£4.99) and it arrives the next working day. Standard delivery takes 2 to 3 working days and is free over £20.00, which any six VELO cans clear. Because the multibuy counts every VELO can together, a basket of Crispy Peppermint, Ruby Berry and Lime Flame earns exactly the same rate as five of one flavour. The small print is in our shipping policy.

Comparing brands first? These are the pages VELO buyers move between most:

• All nicotine pouches
• Snus UK
• Nordic Spirit pouches
• ZYN pouches
• Killa snus
• Pablo snus
• Mint pouches
• Fruit pouches
• Medium strength
• Best snus brands UK
• Is ZYN snus?
• All customer reviews

Reviewed by Sam Carter, content writer at NicotineBuzz. Updated September 2026.