With colorful packaging, wide choices of flavors and the effect of improving your skin condition, ‘beauty e-cigarettes’ has become popular as a substitute of e-cigarette or vaping. Claimed as no nicotine and tar and provide collagen and vitamin C, many teenagers and young women get hooked on these e-cigarettes in order to quit smoking and vitalize their skin conditions. Out of curiosity and misperception of beauty and fashion, many are lured into taking up smoking as a result of the tobacco industry’s tactful promotions, targeting young females.
What is beauty e-cigarette?
So as to capture the women’s market, the tobacco industry has launched beauty e-cigarettes with similar principles to vaping, using heat to create smoke, and has emphasized its beauty effect with the addition of collagen and vitamin C extract.
Apart from the functions of beauty, their marketing tactics are numerous and as shown below.
- Use feminine colors and designs on the packaging
- Include deceptive terms such as “light,” “slim,” and “mild” on cigarette packs.
- Use appealing slogans such as “be the one with style”, “a woman’s place is any place her feet will take her”, etc., to attract women
- Offer fancy cigarette packs imitating cosmetics and perfumes were designed for users to hide the smoking products and shape smoking as glamorous and fashionable behavior
- Lower the market price for easier purchase, especially for teenagers
- Invite celebrities as endorsers on social media to seduce teenagers into imitating
Marketing beauty e-cigarettes as “good,” “trendy,” “harmless,” and even “healthy” products misleads non-smokers, especially youngsters and women, and lures them a try on smoking. Therefore, you should stay alert and understand that all forms of smoking products are undoubtedly detrimental to health and addictive.
Can beauty e-cigarettes help snuff out smoking?
If you are misled into smoking beauty cigarettes due to curiosity and promotions, you are more likely to try other smoking products and fall into the trap of harming your health. Both foreign and local research point out that alternative cigarettes do not help quit smoking but bring opposite effects - increase the smoking frequency and consumption.
- Undermine smokers’ intention to quit
- Extend the nicotine dependence
- Serve as a gateway for youngsters to smoke
- 70% of alternative smoking product (ASP) users consume alongside conventional cigarettes
- Use ASPs on occasions where cigarette smoking is prohibited
Harmful Substances and Health Risks of Beauty E-Cigarettes
In fact, there is no medical evidence proving the claim that inhaling substances like collagen and vitamins into the lung is safe or effective. Some chemical substances that are safe for use and eating are not necessarily safe for inhaling into the lung and body. Toxic and harmful substances can be generated when some common chemical substances are heated and vaporized in high temperatures, and it poses a severe risk to health and leads to addiction.
Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health (COSH) states that ASPs contain the harmful substances below.
- Carcinogen
- Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs), Formaldehyde, Acetaldehyde
- Common harmful substances in traditional cigarettes: Nicotine, tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs), propylene glycol, glycerin, and acrolein
- Heavy metals and other chemicals
- Cadmium, mercury, lead, nickel, copper, zinc, silver, volatile organic compounds, ultrafine particles, additives, and odorants
These harmful substances can raise your risk of the following diseases (at least).
Cancers
Contain a variety of carcinogens that damage DNA and cell repair functions and may lead to lung cancer and bladder cancer.
Cardiovascular Diseases
Smoking increases oxidative stress, raising the risk of chest pain, palpitations, coronary artery disease, and arrhythmia.
Respiratory Diseases
Immediate effect of smoking includes lowering exhaled nitric oxide and increasing respiratory resistance and flow respiratory resistance. It raises the risk of bronchiolitis obliterans, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma and lipid pneumonia, and vaping product use-related lung injury (EVALI).
Reproductive System Diseases
Interfere with thyroid secretion, affecting reproductive capacity and fetal development.
Other Diseases
Heavy metals can damage the lungs and immune system and cause seizures.
The tobacco industry’s promotion tactics are endlessly inventive. The so-called “beauty e-cigarette” is a marketing gimmick to attract people with beautiful packaging. There is no safe and harmless tobacco product in the world, and so does ‘the beauty e-cigarette’, which still deteriorates your lung and other organs. Don’t be misled by tobacco advertisements and promotions and fall into their tricks. Understand more about alternative smoking products and quit smoking in the right ways. If you have any doubt, you should seek professional advice instead.
Furthermore, the Government enacts a new law, Smoking (Public Health) (Amendment) Ordinance 2021, to strengthen the control of ASPs. From 30 April 2022, no person may import, promote, manufacture, sell or possess for commercial purposes alternative smoking products (ASPs), including electronic cigarette products, heated tobacco products and herbal cigarettes. Offenders are subject to a maximum fine of $50,000 and imprisonment for six months. ‘Starting from the effective date, Tobacco and Alcohol Control Inspectors will conduct inspections, investigate complaints and carry out enforcement actions accordingly,’ a spokesman for the Department of Health said.
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