I asked him if he thought anyone would get afraid by how it felt holding it and he said no. I can confirm this, as my test subject told me this after he used it. She said that the hottest part of the grenade would be the top, where the smoke rose out from, but that they are definitely cool enough to hold comfortably.
While she said that they don’t usually recommend people holding them (gasp!), people still use them this way, and it would be fine. Since I was going to shoot it with a dancer, a moving subject who is actually moving with it in hand rather than throwing it like a paintballer (most commonly used), I wanted to hear straight from the rep’s mouth that it was safe. Since everyone uses them for different reasons and in diff spaces, your answer on what precautions to take will also be different. I highly recommend calling the distributor if you have specific questions, instead of trying to find your answers on the internet, where there can be a lot of variety. The customer service rep at Enola Gay immediately put me at ease. I researched this product heavily before reaching out to my subject to use it, because I wanted to feel comfortable shooting with it before doing bigger shoots with it later on. Here is another useful link with a closeup/slow motion of it being pulled, from the EG Facebook. A note, you MUST pull at a 90-degree angle (not upwards). If you watched the video linked above, I include footage of Lee pulling the trigger. The EG website says that 5lbs of force is required to pull the wired ring to trigger the smoke release. Each product that EG sells give you a “Cloud Size” so you know comparatively how powerful a grenade you’re getting. I used the ones with smoke coming out of just one end instead of both, which are cheaper at $11. Each grenade lasts on average 60-80 seconds. There is a small cap on each grenade which, annoyingly, comes off very easily, exposing the ring that triggers the smoke release. They are delivered to you with a very clear label outside the box, “WARNING: EXPLOSIVES”. Smoke grenades are considered explosives. I bought the most widely used smoke grenades “ Enola Gaye WP40”.