It’s easy to have bad breath or halitosis and you wouldn’t know except you’re being told. One quick way people tend to check the freshness of their breath is by smelling puffed air from their mouth into their palms. This is a very wrong way to check whether you have bad breath; the human body tends to adapt to your own smell, and only properly smell other beings, so that test wouldn’t really tell if your breath is bad.
However, there are some other ways you can test your breath:
1. SMELL YOUR SALIVA AT THE BACK OF YOUR HAND
While your nose could have become so used to the smell of your palm, same cannot be said of the back of your hand. Scrape saliva from the back of your tongue, leave it to dry on the back of your wrist for a minute and then smell it. If what you smell makes you frown then your breath isn’t fresh.
2. TEST WITH COTTON GAUZE
The cotton gauze test is also another quick way to ascertain if you have bad breath or not. Wipe the back of your tongue with cotton gauze and then sniff it; a bad smell on it means you have bad breath.
3. THE WRIST TEST
Just like the back of the hand, the wrist doesn’t also handle things, so they can ascertain whether you have bad or fresh breath. Lick the inside of your wrist and leave for it to dry, smell it after a minute when it’s dried, the smell you get can point our whether your breath is bad or not. Note that this test shouldn’t be done after you have brushed or used a minty substance.
4. BAD SMELL AFTER FOOD
Strong substances like alcohol or a heavily spiced meal can also show if you have bad or fresh breath. If you perceive a bad odour from your mouth after taking these substances then it means your breath is bad.
5. HALIMETER TEST
The halimeter test is the surest way to ascertain how bad or fresh your breath is. The halimeter measures the level of volatile sulphur compounds in the mouth. Visit your dentist to take the halimeter test.
Bad breath can ruin even your relationship; not being aware of the staleness of your breath is a huge problem because you would do nothing to fight it.
S.O.Z