In the 1950s, the cigarette company Brown & Williamson had a revolutionary idea. Since it was considered inelegant for women to blow smoke out of their mouths, why not create a product where smoke could seep neatly out of one’s skin? After a series of experiments, a company chemist found a blend of light Indonesian tobacco that did the trick. All customers needed to do was breathe in and hold the smoke in their lungs, and it would waft out the back of their heads “like a summer breeze.”
Did Brown & Williamson’s Polite Extra Slims ever exist? No. While the idea of smoke blowing out of women’s skulls sounds wildly implausible, the tale is so elaborate it almost seems that it could have happened.
