Emily Chan
Disposable Bic lighters come in a rainbow of hues, but there’s one color that smokers will avoid purchasing. White lighters are believed to be bad luck. Many people refuse to use a white lighter to light things, and some are uneasy just being in the same vicinity as one.
But where did this fear of white lighters come from? The superstition’s origins are tied to an urban legend called the “27 Club.” It is a phenomenon in which several young musicians died at the age of 27, including Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain.
The rumor is that they all were in possession of white lighters when they died. This has translated into a curse in which all those who carry a white lighter will come into harm’s way. However, the legend doesn’t really add up.
According to Snopes, a fact-checking website, white disposable lighters did not exist at the time of Morrison, Hendrix, and Joplin’s deaths. In fact, white Bic lighters were not even produced until 1973. Morrison passed in 1971, and Hendrix and Joplin even earlier in 1970.
As for Cobain, the many photographs depicting the scene of his death showed that there were a few lighters lying around, but none of them were white.
So, naturally, this led some to presume that the musicians may have been carrying a different brand of lighter.
But besides Bic, the only other major brand during the 1970s was Cricket, and that type of lighter was not widely available in the United States until 1972.
The belief that white lighters are bad luck most likely stems from the 27 Club rumors, but the myth also has another possible origin. There is a widespread belief that in the early days of Bic lighters, they only came in two colors, which were white and black.
For marijuana smokers, the white ones would get stained with ash when used to pack down their bowls, signaling to the police that they were engaging in illicit activity.
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