Virginia Slims vs. Misty | Cigarette Brand Comparison

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Virginia Slims and Misty are the two slim-format cigarette brands with national distribution in the US, and they exist because of each other. Philip Morris created Virginia Slims in 1968 as the first cigarette marketed only to women; the American Tobacco Company created Misty in 1990 as a lower-priced answer to it. Today they are made by the two largest US tobacco companies, Virginia Slims by Philip Morris USA (Altria) and Misty by R.J. Reynolds (BAT), and the difference between them is mostly price tier and range: 12 styles against 6, and 100s, 120s and superslims against 100s and 120s. This page puts the two on the record side by side.

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	Virginia Slims	Misty
US manufacturer	Philip Morris USA, Richmond, Virginia	R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Tobaccoville, North Carolina
Parent	Altria Group	British American Tobacco, through Reynolds American
Launched	1968; test-marketed in San Francisco, national in September 1968	1990, by the American Tobacco Company
Ownership path	Philip Morris throughout	American Tobacco to 1995; Brown & Williamson (BAT) 1995 to 2004; Reynolds since the 2004 merger
Price tier	Premium (Altria’s “other premium” group with Parliament)	Value; launched as a value-priced alternative to Virginia Slims
US market share	Not reported by brand; Altria’s “other premium” group was 2.1% of the category in the first half of 2026	Not reported; peaked at about 1.4% in 1996
Styles in the Oregon directory	12	6
Formats	Slim 100s, 120s, and Superslims	Slim 100s and 120s
Packs	Box only	Box only
Menthol styles	6 of 12	3 of 6
Diameter	Slim: about 23 mm circumference (about 7.3 mm across) against 25 mm for a standard cigarette; Superslims narrower (dimension not published)	Slim
Master Settlement Agreement	Philip Morris USA, original participant (1998)	Reynolds, original participant (1998)
Pack	20 cigarettes	20 cigarettes

The lineups

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

New Jersey lists the same 12. There is no plain (non-Gold, non-Silver) 120 and no Superslims Gold or Silver. Gold Pack and Silver Pack are the names that replaced “Lights” and “Ultra Lights” after the June 2010 federal descriptor ban.

Misty (6 styles)

Style as printed	Format	Menthol
Misty Blue Slim	100s, 120s	No
Misty Rose Slim	100s	No
Misty Menthol Green Slim	100s, 120s	Yes
Misty Menthol Silver Slim	100s	Yes

Misty Blue is the former Misty Lights and Menthol Silver the former Menthol Lights; Reynolds filed the four color trademarks in January 2010. Full pack listings: Virginia Slims and Misty.

The slim format

“Slim” and “superslim” describe circumference. Stanford’s tobacco-advertising archive gives the industry figures: about 25 mm around for a standard cigarette, 23 mm for slims, and 17 mm for Capri, the superslim Brown & Williamson launched in 1987. Virginia Slims was introduced in 1968 as a 100 mm cigarette “slimmer than the usual,” in the Surgeon General’s description, and Misty copied the format in 1990. A narrower cigarette holds less tobacco per millimeter of length; the extra length of a 120 offsets some of that. None of this says anything about what the cigarette delivers to the person smoking it, and the format carries no health meaning. The other national superslim is Capri, compared with each of these brands in Capri vs Virginia Slims and Capri vs Misty.

History

Virginia Slims. Philip Morris test-marketed Virginia Slims in San Francisco in 1968 and took it national that September with the slogan “You’ve come a long way, baby.” The Surgeon General’s 2001 report Women and Smoking describes it as positioned as “the first cigarette for women only,” “designed slimmer for a woman’s slimmer hands and lips,” with $8.3 million in advertising across magazines and newspapers by 1974. Later campaigns were “It’s a woman thing” in the 1990s and “Find Your Voice” in the 2000s; Stanford’s archive holds 356 of the ads. The brand has never changed hands. Altria groups it with Parliament as an “other premium” brand and does not report its share separately. The 12 current styles were all listed in Oregon in 2003 and 2004.

Misty. The American Tobacco Company launched Misty in 1990 as a value-priced slim aimed squarely at Virginia Slims’ market, with advertising lines like “Slim ‘N Sassy” and “Light ‘N Sassy with a Light price, too.” Its internal planning documents describe the target as women and the brand’s attributes as “contemporary femininity, attractiveness, style and value.” It grew from a tenth of a percent of the US market in 1990 to about 1.4% in 1996. BAT bought American Tobacco in 1994 and folded it into Brown & Williamson; the FTC required nine brands to be sold off, and Misty was not one of them. Brown & Williamson merged with R.J. Reynolds in July 2004, and Misty has been a Reynolds brand since; it was not part of the 2015 sale of Winston, Kool, Salem and Maverick to ITG, despite many online listings that say otherwise. The 2010 descriptor ban turned Misty Lights into Misty Blue and Menthol Lights into Menthol Silver.

Marketing cigarettes by gender was legal in 1968 and in 1990 and is a documented part of why both brands exist. It is recorded here as history, not endorsed.

Regulation

Both makers are original signatories of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, which restricts cartoon use, outdoor advertising and brand sponsorship of events with significant youth audiences, and both are listed as participating manufacturers in every state directory checked. The 6 menthol Virginia Slims styles and the 3 menthol Misty styles are subject to the sales bans in Massachusetts (June 1, 2020) and California (December 21, 2022); California’s Unflavored Tobacco List carries Misty Blue and Misty Rose. The federal menthol proposal was withdrawn January 21, 2025. No FDA warning letter or FTC order specific to either brand was found. Texas, where Saucey delivers tobacco, has no menthol restriction.

FAQs

Are Virginia Slims and Misty made by the same company? No. Virginia Slims is Philip Morris USA (Altria); Misty is R.J. Reynolds (BAT). Misty was created by a third company, American Tobacco, specifically to compete with Virginia Slims.

Which is the cheaper brand? Misty is a value-tier brand and Virginia Slims is premium; that is how their makers position them. What a pack actually costs is mostly tax, which is the same on both. See How Much Does a Pack of Cigarettes Cost?

Which has more styles? Virginia Slims, 12 to 6, and it is the only one of the two with a superslim.

Are all of them slims? Yes. Neither brand sells a standard-diameter cigarette, a king size or a soft pack.

What happened to Virginia Slims Lights and Misty Lights? Both were renamed after June 22, 2010, when the FDA barred “light,” “low” and “mild” from cigarette packaging: Virginia Slims Gold Pack and Misty Blue.

Sources

• Oregon Department of Justice, Tobacco Brand Directory, July 21, 2026; New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, Tobacco Directory, June 30, 2025
• 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)
• Altria second-quarter 2026 results, July 30, 2026 (SEC EDGAR); Altria, Our Heritage; Philip Morris internal company history (Stanford SRITA)
• Brown & Williamson, Misty brand review, 1996 (Truth Tobacco Industry Documents, UCSF); USPTO trademark records, Reynolds Innovations Inc., January 2010; Federal Trade Commission, B.A.T Industries consent order, April 21, 1995; Reynolds American Form 10-K filings (SEC EDGAR)
• 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 Attorney General, Unflavored Tobacco List