TarGard Permanent Filter

I've been using this for a few years now. Here are some tips I've found that are helpful: 1) Hold the fully assembled TarGard, and blow into it. Blow hard. This will dislodge tar through the tiny hole, and you can then clean it out with a Q-tip. Keep repeating this until air is flowing easily in and out of the TarGard. Eventually you'll be able to blow hard through it and no tar will be visible in the metal base. If you really want to keep it up to par, do this after every cigarette. It'll prevent hardened tar from clogging your TarGard, which then requires more intensive care to fix. Yes, it's a pain, but the way I think of it, the time I spend cleaning out the TarGard is less time that I might have to spend in a hospital having tar surgically removed from my nose. I've heard of this having to happen and that put the fear of god into me. Apparently not enough to stop smoking but the TarGard is better than nothing. Keeping the TarGard in top shape also encourages you to smoke much less, which is a good thing. It's inconvenient to keep clean but much better than smoking without it and piling up tar in your airways. 2) If it's completely jammed, soak it in grain alcohol. You can use a baggy, or simply stand the TarGard up against anything you have handy, metal side up, and pour the tiniest amount of grain or rubbing alcohol into the metal base. It'll pool up and likely sit there, seemingly doing nothing, but it's working. Slowly. You only have to do this if you neglect to care for your TarGard regularly between smoking. Eventually the alcohol should visibly start seeping into the plastic tip and dissolving some of the tar. You can pour it out, blow through the TarGard as I described earlier, and repeat. I had two that were completely jammed and this did the trick, though it took a couple soaks. 3) Clean, ideally, after every cigarette. A quick wipe down of the metal tip with a paper towel, then reassembling and using the blow method in tip 1, will keep it in top shape and a pleasure to use. Though this is ideal, I've found that doing this once a day, when I'm done smoking, is enough to keep it very clean and functioning properly. If you go out to a party and smoke a half or full pack it's gonna be loaded with tar, and I recommend cleaning it thoroughly as soon as you get home. Leaving it alone will just allow the tar to harden and make cleaning it much more of a pain. 4) The o-ring can be removed with a wooden toothpick. Stick the tip through one of the ends until you get part of the o-ring around the toothpick, and then you can use the toothpick like a lever to slowly work the o-ring off the metal tip. If you ever have to replace the o-ring, this is the simplest method I've found. A little tricky but effective and quick once you get the hang of it. Grain alcohol, paper towels, Q-tips, and wooden toothpicks for the o-ring. That's all. The blowing method is the real gem here and solves the most frustrating problem of the TarGard getting jammed and being unable to drag. Every time I thoroughly clean it with the methods I've outlined here I've gone back to having a perfectly functioning TarGard, every single time, and I still have the original ones I bought several years ago, and they work fine. Permanent indeed. If I smoke even one cig without the TarGard, I will be coughing the whole day and usually well into the following day as well. Nobody here is claiming that it makes it safe to smoke, but I think it's appropriate to say it makes it *safer* to smoke. It's hard to gauge how much safer, as I'd wager 99.9% of people who smoke cigarettes never use a TarGard, and only a small percentage of the people who use TarGards use them 100% of the time. If you're reading this you're gonna be smoking anyway, so my advice is: use your TarGard 100% of the time, and keep it in top shape by cleaning it regularly.