I’ve finally hit my threshold, and I have to speak out. Today’s topic: the dental hygiene of those around me.
Every once in a while you invite someone over to your cube to work side by side on a project, and that’s when you notice it… the air starts feeling thick, heavy, and warm, but worse of all it’s got a sweet sickly smell to it that smells much like bacteria having a field day on a dung pile. What’s worse is that the odor lingers well after the person has left, and fanning the office doesn’t help. It’s like once some of the particles get caught in your own nose and mouth, it won’t leave without a lot of forceful exhales, nose blowings, and water drinking. Part of the problem is that these people don’t even know something’s wrong, as the build up as dulled their perception to it in much the same way as a smoker has no conception how much they wreak after just one cigarette outside, even if puffed outside.
I’ve been trapped in cars on long rides, stuck in elevators, and even lost interest in a number of dates after getting close enough to smell it. Even one case comes to mind where I happened to share a kiss and got a taste of it; I almost wretched. It certainly spoiled the mood, not to mention future romantic interest.
You can’t cover up the smell with gum, sprays, or breath mints. Quick rinses with mouthwash will only work for the short duration. A very short duration. Like maybe half an hour.
This letter is inspired because for the last hour and a half I’ve been breathing this fowl air and I’ve got to let the world know there’s a solution. Don’t let yourself become one of these offensive people, because usually no one will tell you …they’ll just avoid you. It’s different from bad breath, it’s on a whole other spectrum.
Let’s start with the basics, and that is with excluding a particular offence: coffee breath. This is TOTALLY different. That creates a temporary bitter smell that’s detectable only at close ranges, it’s easily disposed of by running a tooth brush over the tongue.
No, I’m talking about the gasp-for-air my-eye-are-watering didn’t-your-mother-teach-you-to-floss type of biological warfare. If your teeth taste sweet to you or your gums bleed, this may be the only danger sign you’ll get. Well, that and the time alone you’ve been acquiring.
Step one: BRUSH AT LEAST TWICE A DAY. Do it right before the dragon breath can set in. That’s when you get up and you could quite possibly offend yourself, and do it before you go to bed so your teeth don’t rot in the middle of the night. Ideally, if you can, do so after each meal.
Step two: FLOSS. In fact, if you’re good at flossing, you can even skip brushing! Ask your dentist, it’s true! The trick is to do it right. See, what causes that sweet sickly smell is rotting food decomposing between your teeth and just under your gum line. Simply take a piece of floss and insert it between the teeth, then U shape it around the left tooth sliding up and down, then do the same for the right tooth. Slide the floss out, remove the crud, and do the next slot. Seriously folks, this doesn’t take that long.
Your gums, incidentally will love you for it. If you stopped flossing because you see blood, you’re going the wrong direction on the corrective scale. Floss more. Your gums will obtain the stimulation they need to get good and strong. They’ll hold your teeth in, and when you go to the dentist for scalings (where they measure the pockets in your gums), you’ll discover you’ve got less places for food to get trapped.
Step three: USE MOUTHWASH. Listerine is pretty darn good, as it actually kills the things in your mouth that are trying to decompose that food you failed to dislodge. You’ll find you get much better liquid coverage when using mouthwash right after a good flossing.
Now, there are several secret weapons.
SECRET WEAPON #1: GET AN ELECTRIC TOOTH BRUSH. However, you need the right kind! Do not brush across the grain of the tooth, side to side. No, no, no. You’ll be back in the dentist chair before you know it. Brush up and down with the grain of the teeth. Stimulate the gums, and try to get the bristles to tickle just under the gum line. Do this and you’ll keep your teeth forever.
SECRET WEAPON #2: USE A WATER PICK. Hate flossing? Guess what, a water pick, while slightly messy in inexperienced hands, can get out more surprises you didn’t know were in your mouth. On occasion, I’ll brush, floss, rinse, and then use the water pick just as a measure of how well I’m doing. I’ve always managed to get debris I thought I had long removed. Proper technique is to shoot a stream perpendicular between the teeth.
SECRET WEAPON #3: USE A WATER PICK, BUT PUT A CAP FULL OF MOUTHWASH IN THE TANK. This not only drives out the bad stuff, but it gets mouthwash into places where it normally doesn’t get to. For the ultra lazy, this is the way to go. You don’t have to rinse with strong quantities. You don’t have to floss. You don’t have to brush. However, for the diligent, it has many rewards.
If you do the above, you’ll save yourself a lot of personal embarrassment, you’ll be far more kissable, and people won’t mind getting really close to you for long periods of time. That sickly sweet smelling fowl air won’t plague you (or your friends) anymore.
As an added treat, here are some other tips.
Sulfur like substances on the tongue give a really nasty smell and taste. Scraping the tongue, or using the special tongue attachment with a water pick helps out a lot. It’s an attachment that fans the water much like sticking your thumb over a water hose; it power washes the tongue’s taste buds like a car wash power flush.
Eating fruits will counter bad breath and those evil nasties that get on your tongue. However, bad breath also comes from what you’ve eaten. It’s the air that’s coming from your stomach that’s causing the problem. The solution is a little bit of parsley see oil — it’s cheap and sometimes marketed as breath assure. It’s a cross somewhere between neutralizing the smells like a box of Arm’n’Hammer in your ice-box and forming a thin layer of healthy oil over the acid bath of digestive juices that are dissolving your last meal. You don’t need very much.
Anyhow, my cube is almost breathable again. With that, I adjourn. Stay tuned next week and see if I need to expound on another topic, “Deodorant, it’s not just for Americans.”