You may have heard of all the horrifying things smoking does to your health — you’re already aware that it causes lung cancer, heart disease, and sundry other awful diseases. But are you aware of its effect on your skin?
That’s right, your skin ⎯ that you work so hard to keep clear and healthy-looking — takes a beating each time poisonous toxins are sucked from a cigarette or vape like shisha, hookah, e-cigarettes, and the likes. In fact, smoking does so many bad things to your skin, it’s hard to know where to start.
Premature aging, discoloration, bags under the eyes, slowed healing, and sallow skin tone are only some of the consequences.
1. Smoking one cigarette restricts blood flow, depriving the skin of oxygen and nutrients (like Vitamin A) that it needs to thrive and heal. The more you smoke, the harder it is for your skin to recover from a pimple, a cut, or a bruise.
2. A single puff disperses about a million free radicals throughout your body. These trigger the destruction of the fibres that give skin its elasticity and strength. When these fibres, called collagen and elastin are compromised, the skin wrinkles and sags. Only prolonged sun exposure causes more premature aging than smoking.
3. Repetitive pursing of the lips – to drag in the smoke from a cigarette or vape – and the constant heat can cause permanent creases and lines around the mouth — lines that become ever more permanent as the exhaled smoke touches the skin.
4. It doesn’t stop with these. Smoking also results in a sickly complexion that’s common among smokers. This results from skin being continually deprived of oxygen and from nicotine restricting blood vessels, and diminishing nutrient and blood flow which results in a spotty look, instead of a healthy glow.
5. Another frightening component of how smoking affects the skin is the fact that smoking increases the risk of coming down with skin carcinoma ( a type of skin cancer), and makes one more likely to get cataracts in one’s eyes (which can lead to serious vision problems).
It appears there are more ills attached to smoking than any any cool social creds. Smoking ain’t cool peeps.
