Elf Bar have become one of the most instantly recognised brands in modern vaping. This is owed largely to their immensely popular disposable vapes, which quickly dominated the market following their initial launch and continued to command a massive share of the total disposable vape sales in the UK. That is, up until disposable vapes were banned in the UK on the 1st June 2025.

The aforementioned ban denotes the controversy that has surrounded brands like Elf Bar, with their products being at the heart of both a youth vaping and environmental crisis. With the sale of single-use vapes now illegal here in Britain, brands like Elf have been forced to shift their R&D towards refillable, rechargeable vape kits, more akin to the majority of long-standing brands like VooPoo & Vaporesso, in order to remain relevant and protect their market position.

Elf Bar's initial attempts at this saw the introduction of pre-filled pod kits like the ELFA series, which bridged the gap between their now-relegated 600 puff disposables and what we see today in the ELFX Pro. The latter is the larger cousin of the device we are reviewing today: The ELFX Mini.

While initially sceptical, owing to controversy and issues of quality that plagued Elf Bar in the past, we were pleasantly surprised to see the ELFX Mini deliver a huge amount for its incredibly low price of £9.99, boasting amazing flavour depth and quality, despite having a stripped-back no frills design, lacking the advanced features and modes of the Pro vairant.

Right out of the box, you will have the 0.6ohm refillable ELFX vape pod. Elf Bar note that the built-in coils are dual mesh which should translate to more efficient heating and flavour delivery, with a long lifespan depending on your chosen vape juice - I personally found this kit works best with nic salt e-liquids, which is in-keeping with the brand's disposable vape legacy.

ELFX Pods are top-filling and follow a timeless design adopted by the majority of competing refillable pod vapes out there.

1. Remove the pod from your ELFX Mini battery (if installed)
2. Pull back the silicone bung
3. Pop the top of your e-liquid bottle into the filling port
4. Gently squeeze the bottle to fill the ELFX pod, taking care not to overfill
5. Put the bung back in place to seal the port
6. Put the pod back into your battery, allow it to absorb for a minute or two, and away you go.

The ELFX Mini has a high-density 1000mAh battery, which is pretty decent for such a small device.

Sadly though, as a heavy vaper I did tend to find that I needed to charge the device at least once each day, often twice. Less intense vapers may not find this as much of a challenge, but for me it became a drawback quite quickly.

Even the Pro variants 1200mAh battery struggled to keep up with my vaping habits, but featured a battery-preserving ECO mode to account for this, something the Mini doesn't offer.

The bonus, however, is that the ELFX Mini's rapid 2A charging via USB-C takes the battery from flat to full in about 20 minutes, which is seriously fast and took the edge off my more frequent need to recharge.

Our resident vaping expert with over 10 years of industry experience. Ollie has worked in a wide range of roles over the years; from bottling on the shop floor to mixing e-liquid in the cleanroom, heading up Tech Ops and Flavour Development in the lab and beyond; Ollie has been with EDGE since the brand launched in 2017, and now heads up our content marketing team, making sure our customers get the best quality information to make informed choices on their vaping journeys. He is a one-stop shop of vaping knowledge from scientific technical info to current vaping trends, vape juice to vape kits and all points in between - he's keen to share it all with you, from one vaper to another!

To prepare for this review, Ollie spent a month using the ELFX Mini as his daily vape kit, putting it through its paces to give you an honest reflection of its performance, so you can make an informed decision about whether it is the right vape kit for you.