🚬 Ashtray Mirror

See how much life, money, and tar is in your ashtray. Drag the sliders and watch the tar jar fill in real time.

What is Ashtray Mirror?

The most visual smoking damage calculator on the internet. Drag cigarettes-per-day and years-smoking sliders and watch a glass tar jar fill with viscous black tar, a life ribbon burn red, and a live money ticker increment second by second. Includes a Future-You 10-year projection, three-scenario diff (keep / cut to 5 / quit today), an organ-recovery clock that simulates your first 5 years post-quit in a 5-second animation (CDC cessation timelines — CO at 12h, taste at 48h, lung function at 9 months, CVD risk halved at 1 year, stroke risk to baseline at 5 years), missed-sunsets counter, and an ex-smoker celebration mode for quitters. Ten locale pack-price presets and custom pricing.

How to Use

  1. Drag the cigarettes-per-day slider (ticks at 20 mark a pack)
  2. Drag the years-smoking slider to your real timeline
  3. Pick your locale to auto-fill pack price, or enter a custom price
  4. Toggle sex — male 17 min/cig, female 22 min/cig (Jackson 2025 Addiction)
  5. Watch the tar jar fill and the life ribbon burn in real time
  6. Compare Keep / Cut to 5 / Quit scenarios side-by-side
  7. Hit "Simulate quit-day forward" for a 5-second organ recovery timelapse
  8. If you already quit, tap "I quit already" to see reclaimed days in green

Frequently Asked Questions

How is life lost calculated?

Jackson et al. (Addiction, 2025) estimate 17 minutes of life lost per cigarette for men, 22 minutes for women. Your total = cigs/day × 365 × years × minutes-per-cig.

How much tar does one cigarette contain?

The UK regulatory maximum is 10 mg tar per cigarette. A pack-a-day smoker inhales ~3.6 kg of tar over 10 years, though most is exhaled or cleared.

Can quitting actually reclaim years?

Yes. CDC data shows lung cancer excess risk drops by ~50% at 10 years post-quit, heart disease risk is halved at 1 year, and stroke risk returns to non-smoker baseline at 5 years. Earlier quits reclaim more.

What is the 22 µg/m³ comparison to air pollution?

Berkeley Earth found that 22 µg/m³·day of PM2.5 pollution has roughly the same cancer risk as smoking 1 cigarette. See our Smog Mirror tool to calculate your involuntary cigarette-equivalent from city air.

Is my data saved?

No. All calculations happen in your browser. Nothing is sent to any server.

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