One of the first questions many smokers who are considering switching to vaping ask is how many puffs are in a cigarette. The question is understandable, given that most smokers finish smoking the cigarettes they light, whereas most vapers take a couple of puffs every now and then. Are those few puffs from a vape enough to provide the same level of satisfaction?
Understanding how many puffs in a vape equals one cigarette is an important part of managing your nicotine intake, especially if you intend to use a vape as a healthier alternative to traditional cigarettes or as a smoking cessation tool.
Find out more about vaping vs smoking, puff counts, and nicotine intake and the factors that affect it so you can make informed decisions.
Nicotine Content Compared
When looking at vaping vs smoking, it’s important to understand the differences in nicotine content. Let’s unpack this.
Nicotine in Vape Juice
The flavour-intense vape juice here at LoV is available in various nicotine strengths ranging from nicotine-free 0 milligrams per millilitre (mg/ml) to 20mg/ml, which is the strongest legally available in the UK. While the rate at which the nicotine in e-liquid is absorbed depends on a variety of factors, it still happens more efficiently than the rate of absorption when you smoke a cigarette. This is why it’s important to choose the right nicotine strength for your vape juice.
Nicotine in Cigarettes
The average regular-strength cigarette contains between 10 and 12mg of nicotine. However, if you smoke a cigarette of this strength, your body will only absorb between 1 and 2mg of nicotine. The amount your body absorbs depends on the brand of cigarette, how effective the filter is, and your individual smoking style.
What Is a Puff?
Now that we’ve looked at nicotine content, the next step is to understand what a puff is. When it comes to vaping vs smoking, the definition of a puff is the same, namely, it’s a single inhalation, whether it’s from a cigarette or a vaping device.
The real difference is in the depth and duration of the inhalation, which varies between people and devices. Puffs from cigarettes tend to be shorter and more consistent, while puffs from vapes may be longer and/or more variable, depending on your preferences and the vaping device you use.
Vaping vs Smoking: Comparing Puff Counts
How Many Puffs In a Cigarette?
As mentioned, the number of puffs in a cigarette depends on various factors which may see some smokers take more puffs and others fewer puffs from cigarettes of the same brand and strength. A typical smoker usually takes ten puffs of a cigarette over approximately five minutes. If you’re a typical smoker and you smoke one pack of 20 cigarettes in a day, you get 200 nicotine hits each day.
Vape Puff Count
As vape tank or pod capacity and the amount of e-liquid vaporised by the coil vary depending on the device, type of e-liquid used, vaping habits, and other factors, it’s best to consider vape puff counts in terms of the number of puffs per millilitre of vape juice. One millilitre of e-liquid provides between 100 and 200 puffs.
If we want to make a direct comparison of vaping vs smoking, we need to consider the nicotine strength as well as the total amount of e-liquid used.
How Many Puffs In a Vape Equal One Cigarette?
The number of puffs in a vape needed to equal the nicotine you would absorb from a cigarette is variable. Let’s look at an example of how to work it out:
A regular cigarette delivers between 1 and 2mg of nicotine over ten puffs taken over five minutes. A 12mg nicotine-strength e-liquid provides 12mg of nicotine per millilitre. If you use 1ml of 12mg/ml vape juice over 150 puffs, each puff delivers 0.08mg of nicotine to your body.
This means that you would need to take between 12 and 25 puffs of your vape to receive the same amount of nicotine that you would get from one cigarette, provided that each vape puff delivers 0.08mg nicotine.
Key Factors Affecting Nicotine Intake
Let’s unpack the key factors that affect nicotine intake from vape and cigarette puffs:
Vaping device efficiency: The nicotine delivery per puff from a vape depends on how quickly or slowly the device vaporises the e-liquid. For example, compact pod-based devices vaporise less e-liquid to produce less vapor, which means less nicotine per puff. Sub-ohm tanks in the mods loved by cloud chasers vaporise more e-liquid and deliver more nicotine per puff. This means you’ll find significant variations depending on device efficiency. Manufactured cigarettes provide more consistent nicotine delivery per puff.
E-liquid composition: Different e-liquids contain different ratios of propylene glycol (PG) and vegetable glycerine (VG), which affects throat hit and vapour production. The amount of vapour a device produces and the strength of the throat hit can influence the duration of your vape puffs, which means your body may absorb more or less nicotine per puff. What’s more, nicotine in PG transfers across membranes faster than the nicotine in traditional tobacco.
User behaviour: The longer and deeper the puffs you take, and the longer you hold the vapour or smoke in your mouth, the more nicotine your body absorbs per puff. If you take long, deep puffs from a vaping device or a cigarette, the faster your body will absorb the nicotine in the vapour or smoke.
Control Your Experience With Vapes
There’s no denying that traditional cigarettes offer consistency in terms of nicotine delivery or that they’re available in different nicotine strengths. The vaping devices here at LoV, on the other hand, offer you far more control and customisation when it comes to how much nicotine you put into your body.
In addition to choosing an e-liquid with a strength that suits you, you can choose a device that outputs more or less power, coils with different resistances, and how many puffs to take at any given time. If you’re looking at vaping vs smoking because you’re thinking of making the switch from cigarettes, start by thinking about how many cigarettes you smoke in a day and how many puffs you take from each cigarette.
Choose an e-liquid that offers comparable nicotine strength, pick a vaping style that’s similar to your smoking habits, and then monitor your vaping to match the nicotine satisfaction you get from cigarettes, making adjustments as necessary. When you’re vaping comfortably, you can consider using vape juice with a lower nicotine strength and taking fewer puffs per session per day, whether you want to reduce your nicotine intake or quit altogether.
Gain more control over your nicotine intake. Find top-quality vaping devices and flavourful e-liquids and nic salts at various strengths at Legion of Vapers.
