Smoking may look cool, but a new study has found it makes you look less attractive to the opposite sex, the Daily Mail reported.
This theory was put to the test by researchers at Bristol University. A group of 500 people were asked to pick the most attractive of twins from 23 sets of them.
"People hypothesise that smoking causes damage to the skin and appearance, but this is a really neat way at looking at it because these twins are genetically identical so we can control for genetic factors involved in ageing," co-author of the study Professor Ian Penton-Voak from Bristol University told the Daily Mail.
The results showed women found on-smoking men more attractive 69% of the time, while men chose female non-smokers in two-thirds of cases.
Here is how smoking can impact your skin:
* Smoking can speed up the ageing process.
* Nicotine causes the blood vessels in the outermost layers of the skin to narrow.
* Tobacco smoke chemicals can damage the skin's elasticity.
* Facial expressions made when smoking can cause wrinkles.
The notion that smoking can cause one to look less appealing can motivate people to quit the habit. "Appearance seems to be important to people, especially young people, so we could use these sort of findings as a basis for future interventions to stop people smoking," Professor Penton-Voak explained.
"One type of smoking behaviour change intervention targeted at young people is the use of applications illustrating the changes in facial appearance likely if they age as a smoker and a non-smoker," he added.
A 2014 survey revealed vanity took precedence over impact on health for smokers.
The study's findings were originally published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
