From Traditional and Filtered Cigarette Holders to Personal Vaporizers and E-cigarettes

Audrey Hepburn's whimsical and poignant portrayal of a free-spirited New York socialite named Holly Golightly in the 1961 romantic comedy film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" was the stuff of legends. In the movie, Hepburn was always seen holding a stylish cigarette holder between her long, slim fingers. That cigarette holder wasn't just a fashion accessory, however.

Audrey often used a cigarette holder whenever she smoked in real life. Reportedly, she could finish off two to three packs of non-filtered cigarettes each day, which meant Audrey Hepburn smoked 40 to 60 cigarettes daily.

Traditional Formal Cigarette Holders

Traditional cigarette holders have three formal lengths: Opera, Theater and Dinner. Convertible holders make use of extensions to turn a 6-inch Dinner-length holder into a 10-inch Opera type. Meanwhile, telescopic cigarette holders don't use additional parts to increase their length. Instead, each holder has three parts that can be twisted and pulled like a classic telescope. It elongates from the shortest Dinner to medium-length Theater to Opera, which was the longest.

Long Holders for Slim and Ultra Slim Cigarettes

There are four main diameter sizes for cigarettes:

1. Standard - most U.S. brands like Dunhill or Marlboro fit the standard diameter
2. Slim - Virginia Slim and Nat Sherman's Black and Gold are good examples
3. Super Slim or Ultra Slim (interchangeable terms) - The Capri, Sobranie Pink or Blue, and Virginia Slim or SuperSlim are excellent examples
4. Hand Rolled - which, depending upon how they are rolled, may fit any of the above categories.

Some holders are specially equipped with small-diameter tips to accommodate those really thin cigarettes made for ladies. Cocktail length holders normally have 3.5-inch diameter tips, which can be used with Ultra or Super Slim smokes. If you'd rather have a really long holder in your hand, you might like a 10-inch or 14-inch Theater length or a 20-inch Opera length holder.

Filtered Cigarette Holders

Cigarettes didn't used to have filters. Smokers had to use a long tube with a mouthpiece at one end and a small vessel to hold the cigarette at another end. Smoke from unfiltered tobacco carried bits of ash and glowing embers, intense heat, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and other unwanted elements down the long empty tube of the holder. By the time smoke has reached the mouthpiece, it's already cooled down and some of the gases have dissipated.

Modern cigarette holders now have filters in their mouthpieces. If you're smoking filter-tip cigs, then filtered holders offer an additional level of filtration. There's no proof that these filtered holders are effective in smoke. Yet, that didn't stop one of the companies that sell these items to proudly claim that using filtered holders to smoke filtered cigarettes can reduce the amount of TAR and other tobacco-specific carcinogenic compounds in the smoke by more than fifty percent.

While most people who smoke don't need a cigarette holder, many cigarette users - especially women - prefer to use one whenever they smoke. A long holder positions the glowing tip of a cigarette away from your face and body, and prevents accidental burns or blisters. Second-hand or third-hand smoke from the cigarette streams away from your eyes and nose, hair and clothes.

Electronic Cigarettes and Personal Vaporizers

The entry of e-cigarettes into the tobacco industry has upset the status quo. In addition to their universal appeal to young people, e-cigs are also widely perceived as less harmful alternatives to cigarettes. People used e-cigs for vaping. Instead of inhaling the smoke from burning tobacco, vapers enjoy chasing clouds of vapor. They put a small amount of e-juice into the atomizer and heat it up until it's vaporized.

Thousands of ex-smokers have already switched to vaping their favorite flavors of e-liquid or e-juice, which has a nicotine level that fits their personal needs. However, the amount of steamy vapor produced by ordinary electronic cigarettes isn't as prodigious as the thick clouds produced by personal vaporizers or variable-voltage mods.

A cigarette holder looks very chic and elegant, which is the reason why it's popular among women who smoke. However, they don't offer any benefit to women who vape. They already have their glammed-up mods and rhinestone-studded vape sticks to satisfy their nicotine cravings and to match their sense of style.

So, how do personal vaporizers and other nicotine-delivery devices measure up to filtered cigarette holders? Evidently, the e-liquid that contains a pure extract of nicotine in liquid form has completely eliminated TAR and other cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco. That's the main reason why PVs and electronic cigarettes are infinitely less harmful when compared to mechanical filters or filtered cigarette holders.

13 Infographics About Vaping and E-cigarettes That You Need to See

Most infographics on vaping show a detailed comparison between electronic and traditional cigarettes. They usually present the dangers of cigarette smoking and the many benefits of using e-cigarettes. But, these types of information aren't the only things you need to know about vaping. Explore other aspects of what proponents call "a safer alternative to smoking tobacco" with these beautiful infographics.

Click on each image to view the infographic on a larger scale.

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The 9 Laws of E-Cigarettiquette: A Handy Infographics for E-Cigarette Users

Don't wait for a federal agency to tell you what you can or cannot do when using your personal vaporizer. Start moderating your e-cigarette use, especially when you're out in public. Follow these rules when you want to chase some clouds, and you'll avoid facing down non-vapers or non-smokers in nasty confrontations.

Source: Business Insider

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E-cigarettes and Nicotine Poisoning in Children

Children's Safety Network (CSN) created this infographics based on data provided by the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPC). CSN said: "Poison control centers reported a 145 percent increase in calls involving e-cigs and liquid nicotine between 2013 and 2014."

Source: Children's Safety Network

AAPC advises adult vapers to "use care to protect their skin when handling the products," and to keep them "out of sight and out of the reach of children." In addition, vapers are told to dispose of old cartridges and bottles properly to "prevent exposure to pets and children from the residue or liquid left in the container."

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The War on E-cigarettes in the U.K.

This is what's been happening in the United Kingdom. KFC and Starbucks have banned the use of e-cigs in their stores. Vapers are also banned from using their personal vaporizers in almost all buses and bus stations in the U.K. and in almost all hospital grounds in Scotland. Some pubs allow their patrons to vape, but so few of these places exist all over Great Britain.

Source: Matchless Ecig UK

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Seven Huge Consequences of an E-cigarette Ban

E-cigarette Direct UK - through its blog, social media accounts, and newsletters - surveyed over 1,600 adult vapers in the United Kingdom about their reactions to an e-cigarette ban. The results are presented in this beautiful infographics.

Source: E-cigarette Direct UK

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Which Tobacco Company Owns Your E-cigarette?

Purplebox looked into the major players of the vaping industry and found out which big tobacco companies are the actual owners of some of the well-known brands of e-cigarettes in the U.S. and U.K markets.

Source: Purplebox

Lorillard is the third largest cigarette manufacturer in the United States. The company bought BluCigs for $135 million on April 2012. This was the first e-cigarette acquisition of the tobacco industry in America. Meanwhile, British American Tobacco (BAT), which owns the popular cigarette brand Lucky Strike, has acquired e-cigarette brand Vype. It was launched in the U.K. market on August 2013. BAT was the first tobacco company to acquire an e-cigarette brand in the United Kingdom.

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E-cigarettes Versus Big Tobacco: An Industry Overview

This infographics from Purplebox compared and contrasted the newly emerging e-cigarette industry with the long-standing tobacco industry. The infographics tracked the progression of both industries from their invention to evolution.

Source: Purplebox

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Electronic Cigarette 101

Joyetech UK has created a very detailed infographics that presents different aspects of e-cigarette use. You'll learn about the history, science, mathematics, business and ecology of electronic cigarettes.

Source: Joyetech UK

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Battery Safety for Vapers

Zamplebox created this infographics to serve as a PSA poster for vape shops. It outlines the things that a vaper has to do to prevent burning out the coils and keeping their e-cigarettes in good condition.

Source: Zamplebox

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Simple Amp Guide for Vapers

A second infographics from Zamplebox tackled the problem of computing the equivalent AMPs for specific OHMs of wires. The poster provides a short list of AMPs and OHMs for vapers to use as a guide.

Source: Zamplebox

Based on the information provided by this infographics, we learn that coils with a total resistance of less than 0.2 ohms are considered high-risk components. They require too much power from batteries that they will likely cause the coils to burn out sooner and damage your vaporizer.

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How Much Money Do You Save with Electronic Cigarettes?

This infographics by TECC presents a breakdown of the costs of smoking traditional cigarettes in comparison to using electronic cigarettes in the U.K. market.

Source: The Electronic Cigarette Company UK

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A Simple Technical Guide to E-cigarettes for Beginners

A Reddit user by the name of fergie232 created this simple (but very useful) guide for vapers. It has images of different types of personal vaporizers, ranging from disposable or non-refillable cig-a-likes to high-end rebuildable mods. There's also a section reserved for the types and brands of e-cigarette batteries to get and what kind of chargers to use for them.

Source: Reddit 

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A Breakdown of E-cigs (and Cigarettes)

This infographics presents a very detailed look into the world of vapers and electronic cigarettes, and how everything compares with smokers and their analog cigarettes. This is, perhaps, one of the best infographics I've seen that compared and contrasted the e-cigarette with a tobacco product.

Source: Electronic Cigarettes Reviews

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A Look at Electronic Cigarettes

This infographics compares the advantages and disadvantages of using the following traditional designs of electronic cigarettes. The side-by-side comparison includes brief explanations on how both models work, technically and practically.

Source: Electronic Cigarettes Reviews

Trace Amounts of Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines Found in E-Liquid But None in Aerosol

The researchers used a second-generation e-cig that probably looks like this.

It's great to see the Greeks are winning the battle in electronic cigarette research. Doctor Farsalinos and his formidable team are once again kicking pro-tobacco propagandists' butts with their latest findings.

Here's how they did it...

First, the team selected three brands of e-juices from the market. They prepared testing samples in their liquid and aerosol forms and checked them for levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs).

Three 100-puff sets from each liquid were trapped in filter pads and were subsequently analyzed for the presence of TSNAs. The expected levels of TSNAs (calculated based on the liquid consumption) were compared with the measured levels in the aerosol.

Next, the researchers prepared a control sample of flavored e-juice and deliberately added a cocktail solution of known nitrosamines to it.

Farsalinos and his team measured the levels of N-nitrosonornicotine (NNN), N-nitrosoanatabine (NAT), N-nitrosoanabasine (NAB), and 4-(methylnitrosamino)1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) (if found) in each e-juice, including the spiked sample. Thousands of carcinogens are found in tobacco smoke, but these four were likely chosen because they have clearly identifiable markers that make them particularly easy to find and measure.

Here's a quick rundown of the levels of nitrosamines found by the FDA in nicotine gum, nicotine patch, e-cigarette liquids, and analog cigarettes. Image via The Ashtray Blog.

And, this is what the researchers found out...

Only NAB was found at trace levels in two commercial liquids (1.2 and 2.3 ng/g), while the third contained 1.5 ng/g NAB and 7.7 ng/g NNN. The 100-puff sets resulted in 336–515 mg liquid consumption, with no TSNAs being detected in the aerosol.

Tests done on the three e-liquid samples revealed that they're not completely free from the taint of TSNAs. The nicotine juice was likely contaminated during the extraction process. The researchers acknowledge that these "trace amounts" don't present an immediate danger to vapers and the people around them.

Here's the reason why the TSNAs were totally absent in aerosol samples:

Due to the very low levels of TSNAs in the commercial liquids, the respective aerosol samples contained, as expected, no TSNAs above the LOD [limit of detection].

When someone vapes e-juice that's been tainted with TSNAs, what happens to the nitrosamines? Well, they'll likely be absorbed into the bloodstream and end up in your lungs, brain, liver and kidneys. These carcinogenic compounds remain in your body for a little while before they're expelled through the excretory system.

Trace Amounts of Nitrosamines Found in Electronic Cigarette Liquids

Read The Research Team's Concluding Statements

In their conclusion, the researchers stated that "exposure of EC users to TSNAs can be accurately assessed based on the levels present in the liquid, without the need to analyze the aerosol." The following text from the research paper of Farsalinos, et al expounds on this statement:

The levels of TSNAs in the EC liquids are minimal and by far lower compared to tobacco. This is probably attributed to the use of pharmaceutical grade nicotine that most manufacturers claim to use. This grade of nicotine is highly purified to remove the majority of impurities, including TSNAs.

However, there were no published reports evaluating if additional TSNAs can be formed during EC aerosol production. This is important since ECs are used in aerosol and not in liquid form, and heating is involved in the evaporation process.

The study herein verifies that the levels present in the aerosol are similar to those present in the liquid. Therefore, the analysis of TSNAs levels in the liquid would be enough to estimate the exposure of consumers to these substances, without the need to perform more complex and expensive analyses in the aerosol.

Who's the Real Inventor of E-cigarettes?

Herbert A. Gilbert's patented design of the "smokeless non-tobacco cigarette" that he invented forty years before Hon Lik created his version in Beijing in 2003. Image Credit: Google Patents

Who do you think was first inspired to create the now popular electronic cigarettes? Was it Hon Lik, a pharmacist in Beijing, or Herbert A. Gilbert, the scrapyard worker from Pennsylvania? Although these men grew up in different circumstances and countries, both were cigarette smokers looking for a way to effectively quit their nicotine dependence.

While many news reports and feature articles declare Hon Lik as the brilliant inventor who designed the more streamlined look and functions of the electronic cigarette, it was H.A. Gilbert who thought about a smokeless alternative to tobacco. He outlined his ideas for this new invention in the proposal he submitted to the U.S. patent office. He was awarded the patent in 1965, but unfortunately, people at that time weren't ready yet to accept such a forward-thinking device.


Before Gilbert had his design patented, there were others before him who thought of creating a device that looked like a cigarette, but those objects simply simulated the look and feel of a lit cigar or cigarette and not its functions. They neither burned tobacco nor delivered nicotine in some other form.

In his 2013 interview with James Dunworth of the Ashtray Blog, Gilbert recalled that he thought of his aunt's baking when he was brainstorming for a tobacco replacement device. He noted that anything we burned - whether it's tobacco leaves or ground cinnamon - produced noxious chemicals that we wouldn't want to take into our lungs. He then realized that "cooking" the flavored liquid in the cartridge would effectively eliminate many problems associated with burning tobacco.

Unlike previous designs for tubular inhalers that looked like cigarettes, Gilbert's invention made use of a "harmless flavored chemical compound."

As suggested, such compounds may be solutions ranging from slightly mentholated water to a solution which would simulate artificially the flavor of Scotch whisky [sic]. Many other solutions and flavors may be employed.

In 2003, a man from Beijing dreamed a strange dream while undergoing nicotine replacement therapy using nicotine patches.

And to think it all began in a dream. In the early 2000s, Hon Lik, a 47-year-old pharmacist from northwest China, was living with a 30-year nicotine habit. When his father died of lung cancer, Hon tried hard to quit. Occasionally, he’d forget to remove his nicotine patch before bed and would lie for hours suffering a train of nightmares. One night he dreamed he was drowning in the sea. The water sucking him down turned into a strange, misty vapour. He woke, suddenly, with an extraordinary idea: what if there were some sort of device that could generate harmless vapour instead of smoke? Surely that would be a more pleasurable nicotine delivery system than these awful patches?

Hon Lik's invention was the precursor to the present incarnation of the e-cigarette. It worked the same way as Gilbert described it, but makes use of a piezoelectric heating element to create vapor. Hon Lik wanted a nicotine delivery system as a replacement to nicotine patches, gums and injectables. It's interesting to note that he worked for Golden Dragon Holdings, which later changed its name to Ruyan (it means "like smoke"), that developed the e-cigarette and began exporting it to the United States in 2007.

In comparison, Herbert A. Gilbert envisioned a tool that made use of "heated, moist, flavored air" to help people stop smoking. In his statement, published on the history page of Emperor Brands, he said:

As the inventor and patent holder of the very first Electronic Cigarette, I am proud to be a part of the Emperor Brand team and the launch of their first brand 1963™ the Original.

Yes, me, an American, living in the good old USA – invented in 1963 and patented in 1965. Not someone in China, as many seem to think. In 1963 in my patent I described my invention as "a smokeless non-tobacco cigarette" that involved "replacing burning tobacco and paper with heated, moist, flavored air." My device produces a smoke-like vapor that can be inhaled and provides a vehicle for nicotine delivery into the bloodstream via the lungs.

Until Emperor Brands reached out and asked me to join forces with his team of inventors and scientists, my work went virtually unrecognized.

In 1963 my wish was then and still is now to have an alternative to the scourge of tobacco cigarettes. With the ecig market starting to explode, more than ever my dream is rekindled with Emperor Brands common goal to help save millions of lives every year from cancer caused by tobacco.

Who do you think should be recognized as the inventor of electronic cigarettes: Herbert A. Gilbert or Hon Lik? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.