How To Quit Smoking The Beautiful Way

I like to consider myself a non-smoker simply because I smoke outside. In fact, that’s partly why I moved to Toronto: I heard that you have a city-wide philosophy that if you smoke it outdoors, or in a different neighbourhood, or from a crack pipe and you’re the mayor, it doesn’t really count. But the truth is, it does count, especially now that there’s a smoking ban that will get you kicked off any Toronto restaurant or bar patio. Sure, you could stick it out until summer and then transform Trinity Bellwoods into a smokers’ haven. You could start a smokers’ rights group to protest discriminatory laws, but why kick up a stink when you could also use this opportunity to put the butt out once and for all?

I love smoking — I’ll be the first to admit that. Even though it’s killing me, it fulfils my oral fixation issues and gives me a chance to talk to hot strangers in a perfect 7-minute hourglass of time I’ve grown to love. But I want to quit smoking so I won’t wrinkle prematurely and become the smoking lady who terrifies people outside of a Coffee Time establishment. Instead of using the patch, I’ve rounded up a handful of beauty products to help ease off the nicotine in style.

Crest 3D White Strips
There are many reasons to quit smoking – cancer, gross mucus coughs, and wrinkles being three of them – and yellowing teeth is high on my list… right after potentially setting my apartment on fire and only being able to seriously date, like, 32% of the population. If you throw a couple of these bad boys on your teeth every morning and let them do their magic, you’ll feel totally disgusting lighting a cigarette right after. It’s like going to the dentist and immediately gnawing into a Toblerone after, or calling your ex right after a “breakthrough” therapy session; why purposely mess with something you just polished up?

GlamGlow Tingling and Exfoliating Mud Mask
I will profess my love for GlamGlow until another face mask proves to live up to its magic pore-evacuating abilities. This week, every time I have an undying urge to light up, I’m throwing on a quick face mask. Not only will it make my skin feel so impossibly clean that I’ll feel terrible polluting the air around my reborn visage, a hardened face mask makes like a dog muzzle when it comes to preventing me from actually puffing back on a ciggie.

Tom’s of Maine Fennel Toothpaste
Some friends of mine suggested chewing packs and packs of mint gum to ward of the urge to smoke, but the problem is that mint flavour makes me want to chain smoke super slim menthol cigarettes while dancing to Melissa Manchester’s Don’t Cry Out Loud on repeat in my apartment. The two just go together. I’m opting for a toothpaste with a unique flavour this week to throw my tastebuds off a little bit. There’s also an awesome Dora the Explorer bubblegum-flavoured Colgate toothpaste that rocks my world. Buy it with a pack of condoms and terrify the sh*t out of the Shopper’s Drug Mart clerk.

Tom Ford Lip Color in Scarlet Rouge
If I had to pick my favourite red lipstick of the moment, it’s by Tom Ford in this sexy shade of red. This is the kind of red lipstick you can slap on in the elevator without looking like your first shift as a birthday clown went terribly wrong and you had to resort to another way to make your rent this month. Sure, it’s expensive, but so are cigarettes. Buy this baby at the start of the week, and every time you feel like a cigarette, re-apply because there’s nothing grosser than sucking back on a red lipstick-saturated smoke that immediately starts turning into pink slime between your fingers. Your hand should only look like a pink blood bath if you earned it the right way: by eating a family-sized bag of Old Dutch Ketchup Chips.

Image repurposed from Design You Trust.

What are some beautiful ways you Quit Smoking? Let Vv Magazine know in the comments below or tweet us @ViewTheVibe.