Smoking makes us feel cool. And secure. It makes you look like you are doing something when really you are waiting for your friend to show up who is habitually 15 minutes late. It calms you down. It gives you something to put in your mouth that won’t give you calories or an STD. Heck, maybe it even keeps you skinny. But here’s something else it does.
It gives you wrinkles. The toxins and free radicals in cigarette smoke oxidize your tissues and destroy collagen. So you are screwing up if you are smoking to look cool because it’s giving you wrinkles. Smoking also causes vasoconstriction of blood vessels, which compromises blood flow. After an injury or following surgery, this seriously impairs the body to heal. An incision or laceration which heals more slowly is more likely to cause an unattractive scar (often referred to as a keloid). Smoking even was found to make hair turn gray faster. E-cigarettes may have fewer aging-free radicals and toxins associated with them. Since electronic cigarettes contain a high quantity of nicotine, electronic cigarettes also cause premature aging. More studies need to be done to identify just how harmful electronic cigarettes are to health and aging, but it seems like many of the dangerous properties still remain. Electronic cigarettes might be less detrimental to personal appearance in the sense that stains on teeth, skin and nails are not as prominent, and smoke in hair and clothing is not an issue. However, even the simple act of smoking can accelerate wrinkling, with the continual pursing and sucking of the lips causing wrinkles in smokers of regular or electronic cigarettes.
So if you can’t stop smoking for your health, at least stop smoking to improve your appearance unless you want to spend more money at your plastic surgeon’s office.
