Vape indoors beside people who do not vape and sooner or later somebody will object to the cloud drifting their way. The reaction makes sense. Everyone has heard the warnings about secondhand smoke, and vaping products are filed under “electronic cigarettes”, so the word “cigarette” alone is enough to put people on guard. This article explains what secondhand vapor is, how it is produced, what it carries and how to behave around people who would prefer not to breathe it. It is not a promise that the cloud is harmless. Vaping is still being studied, and what is known today may change.
What people mean by secondhand vapor
Every puff ends with the vaper breathing out an aerosol, the thing most of us simply call a cloud. How long it hangs around depends partly on the humidity that day. Sometimes it stays long enough for someone walking by to pass through it or breathe some of it in. A big cloud can look alarming, yet it thins out fast and does not leave a smell behind in the room.
Heat on one side, fire on the other
Smoke only exists where something burns. Tobacco, leaves, wood or any other combustible material has to be set alight, and cigarettes and cigars are products of that combustion. Years of public warnings have taught people that regular exposure to secondhand smoke can lead to serious health problems for someone who has never smoked, even though breathing it is not the same as drawing on the cigarette yourself. With that in mind, nobody should be surprised when a non-vaper gets angry at a cloud heading toward them without their say.
A vape does not burn anything. Inside the atomizer or tank sits a small coil, tightly wound wire wrapped around cotton. E-liquid soaks through the cotton, the coil heats it, and the liquid becomes the light, sweet-smelling aerosol you see. That liquid is made from VG, PG, flavoring and nicotine. We have separate posts on nicotine content in vape and tobacco products and on what goes into common vape juices. One more physical difference: the particles in vapor are liquid droplets, while the particles in smoke are solid.
What is in the cloud
We would be foolish to pretend the cloud is empty, and anyone who tells you so is not being straight with you. Vapor contains toxic metals and chemicals in small amounts, and it contains nicotine, which is addictive. What reaches a bystander is a smaller share than what the vaper takes in, because the person using the device absorbs most of it first. Smaller is not the same as none, and we are not going to put a figure on it or tell you what it means for anyone’s health.
No side stream
Picture a busy vape shop. If the staff are keen vapers the room is usually full of clouds, which is also why they can answer “what’s a good flavor?” without stopping to think. I have found several favorites that way.
All of that haze came out of people, not out of their devices. A lit cigarette keeps smoking between drags, and that constant trail has a name: side stream. A vape has no equivalent. The moment you let go of the power button, or stop drawing on an inhalation-activated device, it stops making vapor. Everything it produced has gone into the user’s throat and lungs and comes back out through the mouth or nose. Once exhaled, it spreads through the room and breaks up quickly, at a speed that depends on the room temperature.
Third-hand nicotine
There is also a third-hand version of the question. Watch someone vape in a room with no moving air and you will see the cloud sink toward the floor and settle before it evaporates. Nicotine that settles this way ends up on floors, on furniture and on whatever is lying on the ground. Small children and pets are the ones who spend their time down there, touching the floor, the toys on it and the furniture legs. Keep that in mind, do not vape where they play, and store devices and e-liquid out of reach of children and pets.
Manners matter more than arguments
None of this hands a vaper the right to vape anywhere, at any time, without thinking about who is nearby. There are rules as well; see our list of outdoor places where vaping is not allowed.
A personal example. I used to vape outside my house when my sister and her two kids were around. Her son was fascinated by the clouds and wanted to play with them. The vapor was well above his head, but when my sister saw it she was furious that I was vaping anywhere near him. She was entitled to be, and I stopped.
Most people link vaping with smoking, and explaining the differences is slow work. Plenty of them will hear you out and still tell you plainly not to vape around them. Take that at face value and put the device away.
The short version
Vaping is new to a lot of people, and it will be a long time before the differences from cigarette smoke are widely understood. The ones covered here are how the liquid is made, liquid particles as opposed to solid ones, heating as opposed to burning, and the absence of side stream. Secondhand vapor is therefore a different thing from secondhand tobacco smoke. Different does not mean risk-free, and the cloud still carries nicotine, so the considerate choice is to keep it away from people who have not asked for it.
If anything here raises a question, leave a comment below or get in touch with us by email or phone.