‘We’ve unsmoked’

Researcher Mbali Toyana, 35, right, and her wife, Mpati, tell us about their experiences of trying heated tobacco

Mbali says: I smoked for 13 years in total. I tried to quit before but went back to it after a couple of years. I had so many reasons to quit smoking cigarettes, and the more I went into jobs that were client-facing, the more conscious I became of the smell.

Then Mpati came home with this new device and these little boxes of heated tobacco. She was serious about quitting cigarettes, and I’d got to that point too, so I tried it. Now there’s no more smell on my clothes and hands and I’m glad I’m no longer reliant on cigarettes. We realised that the habit no longer served us.

Mpati says: I was introduced to heated tobacco by a friend’s boyfriend and that’s when I introduced it to my wife too. I’d never even seen nor heard of it, but he showed me the device and at first I couldn’t understand it. But he showed me exactly what to do and I decided to try it. I was smoking anyway, so I might as well try to change to something better.

At first, I thought it was way too finicky, but now it’s like second nature. I’ve realised that the number of times we use heated tobacco is way less than we used cigarettes. It doesn’t smell like cigarettes do, and it doesn’t linger.

Switching to heated tobacco just seemed like a natural choice for me. Now I’m glad we’re free of cigarettes. We’ve unsmoked.

For more information on heated tobacco, visit iqos.com