Marlboro vs. Virginia Slims | Cigarette Brand Comparison

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Marlboro and Virginia Slims are both Philip Morris USA brands, made at the same Richmond, Virginia plant and owned by Altria, and they are the company’s two most famous pieces of marketing history: the Marlboro cowboy from 1955 and “You’ve come a long way, baby” from 1968. As products they differ in format. Marlboro is a standard-diameter cigarette with 50 styles in 72 mm, king and 100 mm lengths; Virginia Slims is a slim-format cigarette with 12 styles in 100s, 120s and superslims. Marlboro is the largest cigarette brand in the country; Virginia Slims is small enough that Altria reports it only inside an “other premium” group. This page sets the two side by side on the public record.

Last verified September 11, 2026 against the Oregon (July 2026) and New Jersey (June 2025) state tobacco directories, Altria’s financial reports, Surgeon General and Stanford archival sources, and the sources listed at the end. Style counts are directory listings, which certify a style for sale in that state; they do not mean every store carries it.

Side by side

Fact	Marlboro	Virginia Slims
US manufacturer	Philip Morris USA, Richmond, Virginia	Philip Morris USA, Richmond, Virginia
Parent	Altria Group	Altria Group
Launched	1924 as an unfiltered cigarette; relaunched nationally in 1955 with a filter and the flip-top box	1968; test-marketed in San Francisco, national in September 1968
Ownership path	Philip Morris throughout	Philip Morris throughout
Price tier	Premium; 59.4% of the premium segment in 2025	Premium; Altria’s “other premium” group with Parliament
US market share	40.5% of retail sales in 2025, 39.5% in Q2 2026 (Altria, Circana/MSAi)	Not reported by brand; the “other premium” group was 2.1% of the category in the first half of 2026
Rank	No. 1 since December 1975	Not in the published top ten
Styles in the Oregon directory	50	12
Formats	Standard diameter: 72 mm shorts, king (83 mm), 100s	Slim: 100s and 120s, plus two Superslims styles
Circumference	Standard, about 25 mm (about 8 mm across)	Slim, about 23 mm (about 7.3 mm across); Superslims narrower, dimension not published
Packs	Box only in Oregon; soft packs no longer listed	Box only
Menthol styles	21 of 50	6 of 12
Master Settlement Agreement	Philip Morris USA, original participant (1998)	Same
Pack	20 cigarettes	20 cigarettes

The lineups

Marlboro (50 styles)

Family	Styles	Menthol
Marlboro (red), 100’s, Eighty-Threes	3	No
Gold Pack, Silver Pack, Black Gold Pack (king and 100’s)	6	No
72’s shorts (Marlboro, Gold, Silver, Green Menthol, Black Menthol)	5	2 of 5
Blend No. 27, Red Label, Smooth, Southern Cut (king and 100’s)	7	No
Cowboy Cut (Marlboro, Gold, Menthol; king and 100’s)	6	2 of 6
Special Blend black pack (Marlboro and Menthol; king and 100’s)	4	2 of 4
Special Select red and gold packs (king and 100’s)	4	No
Menthol, Menthol Gold, Menthol Silver, Menthol Blue, Menthol Slate (king and 100’s)	10	Yes
Menthol Ice, Bold Ice, Smooth Ice, Midnight Menthol, NXT Menthol (king)	5	Yes

New Jersey lists 47, adding Gold Label and Gold Label 100’s and omitting the Cowboy Cut styles. The FDA’s 2018 substantial-equivalence review still listed five Marlboro soft packs; none appears in the July 2026 Oregon directory.

Virginia Slims (12 styles)

Style as listed (Oregon)	Format	Menthol
Virginia Slims Box	100s slim	No
Virginia Slims Gold Pack Box	100s slim	No
Virginia Slims Silver Pack Box	100s slim	No
Virginia Slims Menthol Box	100s slim	Yes
Virginia Slims Menthol Gold Pack Box	100s slim	Yes
Virginia Slims Menthol Silver Pack Box	100s slim	Yes
Virginia Slims 120’s Gold Pack Box	120s	No
Virginia Slims 120’s Silver Pack Box	120s	No
Virginia Slims 120’s Menthol Gold Pack Box	120s	Yes
Virginia Slims 120’s Menthol Silver Pack Box	120s	Yes
Virginia Slims Superslims Box	Superslim	No
Virginia Slims Superslims Menthol Box	Superslim	Yes

Both brands use the same naming scheme: Gold Pack and Silver Pack are the names Philip Morris gave its former “Lights” and “Ultra Lights” styles after the June 22, 2010 federal ban on those words. Full pack listings: Marlboro and Virginia Slims.

The format difference

“Slim” describes circumference. Stanford’s tobacco-advertising archive gives the industry figures: about 25 mm around for a standard cigarette such as Marlboro, 23 mm for slims, and 17 mm for the superslim Capri. In diameter that is roughly 8 mm against 7.3 mm. Virginia Slims launched in 1968 as a 100 mm cigarette “slimmer than the usual,” in the Surgeon General’s description, and the two Superslims styles are narrower still, though Philip Morris does not publish the dimension. Marlboro’s lengths run the other way: it is the only major brand with a 72 mm short, alongside the 83 mm king and 100s. A narrower cigarette holds less tobacco per millimeter of length, and a 120 offsets some of that with length. None of this says anything about what the cigarette delivers to the person smoking it, and the format carries no health meaning. The slim-format brands are compared with each other in Virginia Slims vs Misty and Capri vs Virginia Slims.

History

Marlboro. Philip Morris introduced Marlboro in 1924 as an unfiltered cigarette and, by 1926, was advertising it with “a feminine hand” in the pictures; for thirty years it was a small brand. In 1954 and 1955 the company repositioned it “as a cigarette brand for men,” with a cork-tipped filter in a flip-top box with the red roof design, and went national in 1955; “Marlboro Country” advertising ran nationally from 1963. Altria’s timeline records it as the world’s best-selling cigarette from 1972 and the top US brand from the end of 1975. It has held that position for fifty years and is made at the Richmond Manufacturing Center opened in 1973.

Virginia Slims. Thirteen years after turning Marlboro into a men’s brand, Philip Morris built a women’s brand from scratch. Virginia Slims was test-marketed in San Francisco in 1968 and went national that September with “You’ve come a long way, baby.” The Surgeon General’s 2001 report Women and Smoking records the positioning, “the first cigarette for women only,” “designed slimmer for a woman’s slimmer hands and lips,” and $8.3 million in advertising across magazines and newspapers by 1974. “It’s a woman thing” followed in the 1990s and “Find Your Voice” in the 2000s; Stanford’s archive holds 356 of the ads. The 12 current styles were all listed in Oregon in 2003 and 2004. Marketing cigarettes by gender was legal when both campaigns ran and is a documented part of why both brands look the way they do; it is recorded here as history, not endorsed.

Regulation

Philip Morris USA signed the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with 46 states, which restricts cartoon use, outdoor advertising and brand sponsorship of events with significant youth audiences, and is listed as a participating manufacturer in every state directory checked. The 21 menthol Marlboro styles and 6 menthol Virginia Slims styles are subject to the sales bans in Massachusetts (June 1, 2020) and California (December 21, 2022); the federal menthol proposal was withdrawn January 21, 2025. Marlboro received FDA substantial-equivalence orders in the 2018 and 2019 review rounds. No FDA warning letter or FTC order specific to either brand was found. Texas, where Saucey delivers tobacco, has no menthol restriction.

FAQs

Are Marlboro and Virginia Slims made by the same company? Yes. Philip Morris USA makes both in Richmond, Virginia, along with Parliament, L&M and Basic.

What is the difference? Format. Marlboro is a standard-diameter cigarette in 72 mm, king and 100 mm lengths; Virginia Slims is a slim in 100s, 120s and superslims. Both are premium brands.

Which sells more? Marlboro, by a very wide margin: about four in ten US cigarettes. Altria does not publish Virginia Slims’ share; the whole “other premium” group it belongs to is about 2%.

Does Marlboro make a slim? No. Its narrowest format is length, not width: the 72 mm short.

What happened to Marlboro Lights and Virginia Slims Lights? Both became “Gold Pack” after the FDA barred “light” from packaging on June 22, 2010; “Ultra Lights” became “Silver Pack.”

What do they cost? Both are premium brands from the same maker, so the gap between them is small; tax, most of the price, is the same on both. See How Much Does a Pack of Cigarettes Cost?

Sources

• Oregon Department of Justice, Tobacco Brand Directory, July 21, 2026; New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, Tobacco Directory, June 30, 2025
• Altria, 2025 full-year results, January 29, 2026, and second-quarter 2026 results, July 30, 2026 (SEC EDGAR); Altria, Our Heritage; Philip Morris, company history (internal document, Stanford SRITA); Philip Morris USA, Our Offices and Facilities
• US Surgeon General, Women and Smoking (2001), Virginia Slims case history; Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising, You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby and Capri (circumference figures)
• FDA Center for Tobacco Products, substantial-equivalence review documents, 2018 and 2019 (fda.gov/media/117667 and 129432); FDA, Light, Low, Mild or Similar Descriptors
• National Association of Attorneys General, Master Settlement Agreement; Public Health Law Center, Proposed Menthol Rules Withdrawn, February 7, 2025; Mass.gov, 2019 Tobacco Control Law; California Department of Public Health, SB 793 fact sheet

Saucey delivers tobacco where it’s legal to do so. Where that is, and what’s in stock, depends entirely on your address.