no. 3: Holy.Smokes + Eden's Herbal Smokes

Herbal Smokes from Holy.Smokes + Eden's Herbal Smokes found via Otherwild

Confession: I used to be a smoker.

That's hard to read as I always told myself I'm not a smoker. I found myself living in a state of excuses to help avoid the reality of being that unhealthy, annoying person who smokes. You know the excuses...and in case you're fortunate not to, here they are: I just smoke when I drink. Or another favorite: I just smoke when I'm stressed. Or how about this one: I'd rather smoke one than smell everyone elses cigarettes. All excuses not worthy of any applause. Now that I'm in my mid-thirties, I can't hide behind those lame excuses anymore PLUS I'm also trying to be a better example for my husband in hopes he'll change his bad habit.

But to be honest, I still find it challenging. Those nights meeting up with friends, going to happy hours after a long day at work and just plain crisis mode dropping in like a grenade sometimes have resulted in me running to the corner store to buy a pack of Capris – my preferred brand to justify my weakness due to their lighter, thinner cigarette. { ugh, if I'm looking for accountability for my lameness, I just found it. }

So when I recently saw Otherwild's instagram post the other day and saw what looked to be cigarettes, I thought WTF. When did Otherwild start selling smokes? Update: they aren't big tobacco cigarettes. Nope. They are herbal cigarettes and we're not talking the medicinal kind. On quick google search of to find out more, I realized it would be best to do a quick trip to Otherwild in Los Feliz for a face-to-face with their sales rep. I had to know if these herbal cigarettes would help in my time of weakness as they looked to be just dried herbs in rolled cigs form.

Luckily the man I spoke to gave me the low down but also reminded me that just like other vices we have and the nasty air we are breathing in (talking about LA here) things we smoke most likely aren't too good for us in the long run. Props for him for being the voice of reason. He did share though that these herbal cigs were a useful in helping him kick the nicotine cigs to the curb and for me that's worth the purchase. I had to test them out for myself. 

Otherwild offers a couple of brands to choose from. There's Holy.Smokes and Eden's Herbal Smoke. Since this is really a test for me, I purchased 2 different packs from Holy.Smokes and 1 from Eden's. With curiosity, I skipped out of the store with excitement and hope to see if these herbal/hand rolled cigs will help me battle my old ugly habit until all cravings dissipated. I know some are thinking that I'm just trading one bad habit for another but these rare circumstances that come up once a month are worth it.

So let the early test results be shared: on first smoke of these three different herbal cigs, I felt teenage memories of cloves popping up. I love the packaging of both products as they are have a beautiful clean design. As for the flavor? Holy.Smokes blend in Dream Time is perfect before bed thanks to it's catnip ingredient but it's their Focus Pocus blend that won me over with it's peppermint taste. Plus that particular blend of herbs helped my focus (hence the name) and I noticed I didn't need my caffeine for the day – added bonus! Lastly I found that Eden's Herbal Smoke fits more for a social scene thanks to it's cigarette look. No one question my hipster smoke at a recent outing when I joined in for a quick smoke break.

While I will say this isn't a habit I want to get into (it's pricey..about $16-$20 a pack), at least it seems to be helping me stop smoking. I haven't had a desire to smoke a tobacco cigarette since purchasing these. Quite frankly, I haven't been wanting to smoke at all. It's still pretty early to tell but my hopes are that those smoking days and excuses are finally over and for me, that's a tiny victory.

Dream.Time from Holy.Smokes

Focus.Pocus from Holy.Smokes

Eden's Herbal Smoke

Eden's Herbal Smoke: White Sage, Red Clover, Damiana, Mugwort, Mullein, Red Raspberry Leaf, Catnip & Lavender.

All weeds but no weed from Eden's Herbal Smoke