Walk into any supermarket in Britain and take a slow walk down the alcohol aisle.

You’ll see electric blues, neon pinks, lime greens. Bottles that look like fizzy drinks. Sweet-shop flavours. Names that wouldn’t look out of place in a pick ‘n’ mix display.

WKD
Hooch
VK

Blue Raspberry. Tropical Burst. Cherry Ice.

Bright. Sugary. Loud.

They sit at child eye-level in open supermarkets across the country. No shutters. No opaque cabinets. No restrictions on colour palettes. The only barrier is age verification at the till.

Now compare that to vaping.

For years, critics have argued that colourful vape packaging and sweet flavours are “clearly designed for children.” That bright colours equal youth appeal. That fruit flavours equal targeting minors.

It sounds simple. But the reality isn’t.

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Colour Is Not a Target Market

Colour is branding. Always has been.

Energy drinks are bright. Sports drinks are bright. Soft drinks are bright. Cosmetics are bright. Even zero-alcohol alternatives are vibrant because shelf visibility matters.

We don’t assume Haribo is secretly targeting pensioners because it’s colourful. And we don’t assume gin brands are marketing to toddlers because the bottle has pastel florals.

Design is about standing out in a crowded market. Not about age coding.

If bright packaging automatically equals “for children”, then half the drinks aisle needs explaining.

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The Flavour Argument

This is where it gets interesting.

Sweet flavours are often positioned as proof of intent. “Adults don’t want candy flavours,” critics say.

But the data doesn’t support that.

According to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the most recent surveys of adult vapers in Great Britain consistently show fruit flavours are the most popular choice among adults who have switched from smoking. Tobacco flavours are not the dominant long-term preference.

Adults choose fruit. Adults choose sweet. Not because they’re children, but because they don’t want to be reminded of cigarettes.

And that matters.

Meanwhile, the alcopop category was built on sweet, accessible flavours that mask the harshness of alcohol — a substance responsible for around 10,000 deaths per year in the UK and over a million hospital admissions annually linked to alcohol-related harm.

Yet those products are normalised. Marketed openly. Positioned alongside weekly groceries.

The difference is not colour. It’s cultural comfort.

Alcohol has decades of social acceptance behind it. Vaping doesn’t.

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Youth Use: What Do the Numbers Actually Say?

Here’s where the conversation needs balance.

Yes, youth experimentation with vaping has risen in recent years. ASH data from 2023 reported that around 20% of 11–17 year olds had tried vaping at least once.

But “ever tried” is not the same as regular use.

Regular use among non-smoking young people remains significantly lower, and the vast majority of regular adult vapers are current or former smokers. In fact, NHS and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities estimates consistently place the number of adult vapers in Britain at around 4.5 million — most of whom are using vaping as an alternative to smoking.

At the same time, smoking still kills approximately 74,000 people per year in the UK.

That context matters.

Because when we talk about packaging, we need to weigh potential youth appeal against the very real, measurable public health benefit of adults switching away from combustible tobacco.

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Access vs Accountability

Vape products in the UK are already age-restricted. Retailers must verify age. Responsible shops operate Challenge 25. Enforcement exists.

The real issue isn’t whether something is colourful.

It’s whether retailers enforce the law.

No one seriously argues that banning bright labels on WKD would solve underage drinking. Because we know the issue is access, not aesthetics.

The same logic applies here.

If underage sales occur, that is a retail compliance issue. Not a colour palette issue.

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A Balanced Perspective

Protecting young people matters. Of course it does.

No responsible vape retailer wants minors using nicotine. Full stop.

But reducing the conversation to “colour equals children” oversimplifies a far more complex issue. It ignores adult consumer behaviour. It ignores harm reduction. It ignores scale.

When alcohol — a product with far greater documented harm — can sit in neon bottles in open supermarket aisles without the same scrutiny, it’s reasonable to ask for consistency in how we frame the debate.

If we’re going to have a serious conversation about youth access, let’s have it properly.

Focus on enforcement.
Focus on illegal imports.
Focus on rogue sellers.

Not on whether a label uses pink instead of beige.

Because design alone has never been proof of intent.