Smoking makes you ugly: Smoking is the surest way to look older. Besides health aspects, long-term cigarette smoking changes the appearance of skin, teeth and hair in a way that makes you look years older.
Inhaling smoke reduces the skin's absorption of oxygen and nutrients. therefore, smokers' skin either looks paler or develops uneven patches of colour.
The more than 4000 chemicals contained in tobacco smoke destroy the skin's elastin and collagen. Both give the skin its natural elasticity and resilience. If the strength of the skin is damaged, the skin starts to sag and forms wrinkles. This is not only true for the face, but also the skin on the arms and chest loses its elasticity significantly.
Smoking makes you ugly, but how exactly?
When you pull on a cigarette, certain muscles in the mouth are used, causing wrinkles to form around the mouth. Deep lines form, giving the mouth a bitter appearance.
While everyone develops age spots as they age and through sun exposure, long-time smokers are much more susceptible and develop dark spots on the skin of the face and hands more quickly.
Tobacco smoke discolours fingertips and teeth yellowish, but the damage to teeth and gums does not stop there. Smokers are more prone to gum disease and bad breath and lose their teeth earlier than non-smokers.
Hair becomes thinner with age. Smoking greatly accelerates the process of hair loss. Men who smoke are more likely to go bald.
Even the eyes are affected by tobacco smoke. The smoke clouds the eyes and makes them more susceptible to senile cataracts.
Psoriasis is a chronic skin disease that causes thick, scaly patches of skin to form on the elbows, knees, hands, feet, back or scalp. Smokers are significantly more prone to developing this skin disease.
Normal ageing processes are multiplied
While getting wrinkles around the eyes is part of the normal ageing process, smokers show deep crow's feet and bags under the eyes much earlier. This comes from blinking to keep the hot smoke out of the eyes as well as from the inhaled chemicals that damage the structure of the fine skin and blood vessels around the eyes.
The hair, like the skin, receives less nutrients and oxygen and becomes thin and brittle.
In addition to outward appearance, a smoker is also always enveloped by a cloud of cold tobacco smell that hangs in clothes and hair and cannot be combated even with strong and sweet perfumes.
Smoking is unattractive
Most women find smokers unattractive, a new survey has found. Among more than 1,000 singles surveyed, researchers found that 70 per cent of women found smokers repulsive. Fifty-six per cent said they would not date a smoker.
The figures for the men surveyed in the target group were slightly lower. 46 percent of them said they would not date someone who smokes and 65 percent said they found smoking unattractive.
The survey looked at the preferences of people aged between 18 and 76. When asked why participants would not date a smoker, 91 per cent blamed the smell of cigarette smoke while 75 per cent cited health concerns related to second-hand smoke. Other reasons included bad breath, fear that a partner would "taste bad" when kissing and yellow teeth. Interestingly, although they are an electronic alternative to regular cigarettes, 55 per cent of women and 44 per cent of men surveyed said they also found vape smokers unattractive.
Smoking makes you ugly: what happens when you smoke 300 cigarettes?
