Smile and the whole world smiles with you, but I guess, even if nobody likes it, sometimes everybody can get bad breath. Usually it is caused by bacteria, which could be also responsible for carious. Despite a good mouth hygiene, like brushing your teeth three times a day, not all of the bad breath causing bacteria can be removed. Also chewing gums will only help for a short time. In the supermarket you can find loads and loads of expensive products promising to support your oral hygiene. The easier, cheaper and also more sustainable solution is to make your own homemade mouthwash.
First of all, it is important to know the reason why we get bad breath and carious. Mainly responsible for this plight are sugar containing groceries, like juices, sweets or candy. Even bread and pasta although they don’t taste sweet are containing sugar in form of carbohydrates. Microorganisms convert the sugar into acid, which is destroying your teeth and causing the bad breath. Therefore, the homemade mouthwash needs to contain antibacterial and teeth supporting ingredients, but all ingredients for it are easy to buy. For the antibacterial effect, I use essential peppermint oil. Because of its high menthol content, it is antibacterial. Furthermore, sodium bicarbonate is neutralising the sugar caused acid and prevents bad breath. To support the teeth, I use Xylitol, which also gives it a sweet taste. It might sound really fancy but it is nothing else than a natural sweetener very similar to sugar but without its bad side effects and it is in fact good for your teeth.
How to make homemade mouthwash
The quantities of ingredients I use are for a small mason jar. I prefer a smaller amount because I like to take it with me to work. If you want, you can also make more of it.
- 250ml water (not chlorinated)
- 30g Xylitol
- 1 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate (or baking soda)
- 7-10 drops of essential peppermint oil
- A mason jar or glass bottle
To make your homemade mouthwash, you just need to put all ingredients into your mason jar or glass bottle and shake it well – et voila your mouthwash is ready to use.
Besides the easy producing of the homemade mouthwash, it is much cheaper than bought ones. A store bought mouthwash will cost you about 5-6 NZ$, while the homemade one will only be 1,50-2$.