“It’s better to light a candle than curse the dark.” ~Anonymous
I will not wax poetic on the virtues of carrying a lighter daily. I firmly believe that your pocket dump should contain a lighter (I never leave home without one) but that is a topic for another time.
Rather, I will launch fully into the relative advantages of each of three different, immensely popular brands of lighters.
These are the Clipper, the Bic, and the timeless, classic Zippo.
With no further ado, let’s explore the three of them.
The Clipper Lighter: Arguments for and Against
First things first, I already wrote a glowing review of the clipper I carry everyday. For the full breakdown (and to save me some time) please see that clipper lighter review.
Clipper lighters come in a few basic configurations, and to my knowledge, all of them feed off of butane fuel.
There are soft flame lighters, which are either made of plastic or come with a metal casing (as is my EDC Clipper) and in jet-flame configurations. I believe there is also a Clipper candle lighter although I have no experience with it.
Here are the best selling points of the Clipper:
Clipper lighters are impossibly cheap. You can get them for less than a dollar, usually, and you can buy them in bulk. The metal ones are a bit pricier but still fall between $10 and $20 (in most instances).
Clipper lighters are refillable, which means you never need to throw them away and they’re basically good forever.
Not only are they re-flintable, but the whole striker mechanism can be removed from the lighter. If you ever have an issue with the striker, you can replace the whole thing.
Clippers are very comfortable to carry.
The ability to remove the striker also means that it can be used as a striking tool for tinder. If you remove it from the lighter first, you can strike it without wasting any butane.
Plastic clipper lighters float, which makes them good for carrying around water.
The bright colors of some plastic models make them hard to lose.
Because of the round bottom, you can use a Clipper to pack a pipe – just don’t use it to tamp the cherry once you have it lit!
Clipper lighters are available in a wide variety of colors and cool designs that no doubt are more attractive to other users than they are to me; still, it is a selling point to some!
So, is there anything I don’t like about a Clipper? Honestly, not really. They’re not as tough as Zippos and not as good in the cold, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
How About the Zippo?
I won’t mince words. When it comes to sheer cool factor, the Clipper has nothing on the Zippo, but then again nothing does.
There is very little out there as cool as the Zippo. Truthfully, these lighters are so iconic that even the Zippo “clink” is universally recognizable.
Zippo was founded in 1932, and even today, Zippos are still made stateside, in Bradford, Pennsylvania. This brand is about as American as they come, and they’ve been popular for as long as they’ve been around. I’ve even read that in World War II, the Zippo was the most coveted effect of the GI.
So, what’s so great about a Zippo?
If you’re in it for aesthetics, you simply can’t beat a Zippo, so don’t even try. Their are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of designs out there. There are even copper, silver, and gold Zippos.
Zippos are extremely fidget friendly, and I (as well as everyone, ever) loves the auditory feedback of the Zippo clink. They provide excellent tactile feedback and are just very satisfying to hold and play with.
There are lots of Zippo tricks that you can learn, although I certainly am not the authority on that matter. (I do like the little magic trick of putting out the fire and flicking it back to life, though.)
In terms of durability, the Zippo is much tougher than pretty much anything out there. Pretty much the whole thing (except the case) is made of steel, and there is not much you can do to break one.
Zippos are guaranteed to be free of defects for the life of the product. If your Zippo fails, the company will send you a new insert.
Zippos feed off of naphtha fuel, which is a liquid at room temperature. They are far more reliable in the cold than butane lighters. This can make them preferable for outdoorsmen in cold environments.
With that said, Zippo has recently released a whole bunch of different inserts for their lighters, including electric and butane inserts. There are jet lighters for cigar smokers and there’s even a soft-flame version for pipe smokers like myself.
Like Clippers, Zippos can be refilled and reflinted. You can also buy new replacement cotton, felt, and wicks.
Because of its configuration, once lit, the Zippo will stay lit until you actively extinguish the flame. This can allow you to use it hands-free.
The design of the Zippo’s chimney makes it fairly wind resistant once light.
Like the clipper, the Zippo’s striker can be used to light tinder, even if all the fuel has evaporated from the lighter.
It is possible to store several spare Zippo flints under the bottom of the insert. This is a definite advantage over the Clipper because, despite the fact that the Clipper can be re-flinted, there is nowhere in the Clipper to store one. I have tried storing a second flint in line within the striker mechanism, under the flint that’s in service, but it puts the active flint under too much pressure to use the striker wheel.
So, is there anything I don’t like about Zippo lighters? Well…
The price. There are affordable Zippo lighters, but as a general rule they’re pretty expensive. Not a huge deal considering the thing is guaranteed for life, though.
If you use a Zippo with a classic insert that takes Naphtha, they’re not well-sealed, and the fuel will eventually evaporate out of the lighter even if you never use it. Zippos usually don’t stay filled for much more than a week. (Actually, you can fact check me on this, because I’m not sure if the fuel is still naphtha or is paraffin-based. I have read both.)
For smokers, the liquid fuel is not necessarily a bonus, as it will impart a flavor to tobacco. I have heard they have made a lot of positive strides in this department, though. I’ll be honest, I used to smoke a pipe using the old Zippo insert that used liquid fuel, and as long as you’re careful about letting the flame stabilize after lighting, it’s not that bad. Rarely could I taste the fuel.
That’s about it for the cons. So let’s take a look at the last contender here.
Now for the Bic
Flick your Bic is a slogan that’s as verbally iconic as the Zippo ping is auditorily iconic. On that note, Bic has the market for cheap and dependable lighters more or less cornered.
Bics (and other disposables like Scriptos) were the lighters I kept around before I graduated to Zippos and later to Clippers. I no longer carry them because of some of the drawbacks I will mention below, but that does not mean they are entirely irredeemable.
For instance…
Bics are very cheap and dependable lighters.
For what it’s worth, they’re reliable enough.
They’re widely available, even moreso than Zippos and Clippers. You can get a Bic pretty much anywhere that sells anything, including gas stations and convenience stores.
If you prefer the convenience of disposability, this is the lighter. You have little choice but to chuck it when it’s kicked.
With that said, even though you can’t refill them, Bics are supposed to provide a minimum of 3000 lights, making them very long-lasting as far as disposable lighters go.
So, are there any drawbacks? Unfortunately, there are plenty.
Bic lighters are far less durable than Zippos and no more durable than Clippers, and lack the advantage of the Clipper that the insert can be replaced. Also, they cannot be repaired if they malfunction. (Alright, so, technically you could break the thing down and fix it, depending on if what goes wrong, but replacement parts are unheard of so you’d have to source parts from another spent Bic or jury-rig the whole thing. Even for someone like me who fixes pretty much everything, playing mechanic with a Bic is just not worth it.)
Bic lighters do not have an adjustable flame (unlike other cheap lighters like Scriptos) and cannot be refilled or reflinted.
Bics lack the ergonomics of Clippers that enable you to use them as a pipe tamper or a packing tool.
Like other butane-fueled lighters, Bics are no good in the cold.
If you can’t sense my bias, I’m really not a disposable-minded individual. Honestly, I don’t even like to toss things when they break or go end-of-life. I sure could tell some tales about that.
And so, while I still have some Bics laying around (they work, after all) they no longer are my go-to lighters.
Clipper vs. Zippo vs. Bic: The Takeaways
There is a time and a place for any of these lighters in pretty much any inventory, and you know I believe in the old adage that “two is one and one is none.” So you’d best believe I have plenty of all three.
But the drawbacks of the Bic are too many for me, as are the drawbacks of the Zippo. For my taste, the EDC title goes to Clipper simply because they are so modular and the fuel doesn’t evaporate.
Still, good arguments could be made for carrying a Zippo over a Clipper. They certainly are cooler.
Let me know your preferred carry lighter in the comments.