eli5, why do hand rolled cigarettes put out themselves, but a cigarette from a pack keeps burning?

Question

I had some really hard time phrasing that right but I hope y’all get my point.

If I light up a cigarette from a pack and leave it, it’ll keep burning, but the hand rolled won’t do the same, why?

In: 0

Answer 1

Machine rolled cigarettes have been designed to burn as smoothly as possible, and the machines packing them are precisely (relatively) calibrated.

When you hand-roll, you are *probably* not packing as consistently throughout the cigarette as a machine. There may be spots with restricted airflow, there may be spots that are a touch too loose to keep the cherry lit across shreds of tobacco.

But to answer the question, the cause is mechanical, not chemical. There aren’t (to my knowledge) any additional accelerants in machine rolled cigarettes that are not in hand-rolls