It doesn’t matter who you are ― chances are, you’ve had bad breath at one point or another.
It can be caused by everything from dehydration and sleeping with your mouth open to eating smelly food and getting ill. There are plenty of reasons why your breath can stink – but it can be surprisingly hard to work out when it’s started to pong.
If you’ve ever tried the classic cupped-hand exhale test, you’ll know that nobody attempts it just once. I always end up huffing fruitlessly into my hand at least 10 times, thinking, “did that stink? Maybe? I don’t know. Is that my breath, or is it regular air?”.
Luckily, the pros have another, surefire breath smell test; and it’s a lot more subtle than the cup-and-puff. Here’s what you need to know.
It’s all in the wrist
If you want to figure out what your breath smells like, you might be better off smelling your saliva rather than your breath.
That’s because, well, air is hard to catch, whereas spit sticks. Dr Nigel Carter OBE, chief executive of the British Dental Health Foundation, says the best way to run a stinky breath test is by licking your wrist.
“There is a simple test that you can do if you think you may be suffering from bad breath. Just lick the inside of your wrist, wait for it to dry[,] and sniff – if the smell is bad, you can be fairly sure that your breath is too,” he says.
This works for a couple of reasons. Firstly, as we said earlier, it’s easier to “catch” saliva than it is to properly bag your breath.
Secondly, unlike with your hands, “the inner wrist is not constantly handling things so it can give you a true reading of your breath,” according to Ivory Dental.
This means that any smells you pick up will come from your breath rather than your hands, or anything your hands have touched.
“It works because if you have halitosis, sulphur salts will be transferred from your tongue to your skin,” adds Ivory Dental. Nice.
OK. Any other tests?
Yep! And while they can be just as effective as the wrist test, they might not be as convenient, as they require materials like cotton pads and floss.
One option is to wipe your tongue with a cotton pad or swab and smell the material afterwards. As with the wrist test, this will give you a good idea of the sulphur levels in your mouth.
You can also use some floss and smell any, uhh, deposits on it.
On a completely unrelated note, my inner wrist has just started looking very lickable...