Imagine spending a night partying with friends and waking up the next day with foul alcohol breath! What if this is the day when you’ve to attend a job interview or meet your date or pick up your parents from the airport? Despite taking a shower and removing all outward signs of your last night’s revelry, the stench of your alcohol breath would still make others cringe, especially if they’re in your close vicinity. But what can you do to cover up your alcohol breath and not smell like a brewery when you just have a couple of minutes to address the issue? Take a breath as all’s not lost! We bring three quick, effective, and simple ways that can help you bid adieu to that embarrassing and annoying alcohol breath forever.
1. Brush your teeth or use a mouthwash
Make sure to brush your teeth, preferably with scented toothpaste like the ones with cinnamon or mint scents. Make sure to clean your tongue and the roof of your mouth too. An equally effective alternative is to use a mouthwash for 20-30 seconds. This will not only help you to get rid of your alcohol breath but even flush out the harmful bacteria that would have otherwise thrived in your mouth. Thus, apart from flashing your pearly whites, you would no longer need to worry about setting people off with your alcohol breath. An added advantage would be the pleasurable scent, which would boost your self-confidence for sure.
2. Chew breath mints or gums
Despite being temporary fixes, chewing breath mints or mint-flavored gums can help you mask alcohol breath for a couple of minutes. Perhaps you already know that the root cause of alcohol breath isn’t the residual alcohol, if any, in your mouth. Rather, it originates from your lungs. When you inhale atmospheric oxygen, it reaches your lungs and moves into the circulation via the capillary walls that surround the lung’s alveoli. Once you exhale, both ethanol (which has diffused into the alveoli and vaporized to a gas) and carbon dioxide in your breath will get removed from the blood (not all of it though). Thus, momentary masking of your alcohol breath can be done with chewing gums or mints. If you can get hold of some fresh mint leaves or green cardamom, chewing them would give you much better results when covering up your alcohol breath.
3. Chew something more smelly
If you aren’t allergic to garlic or don’t feel too uncomfortable with the smell of onion, you can mask your alcohol breath by chewing either of these. Since both raw onion and garlic have a strong smell, your strategy of fighting fire with fire can pay off. But don’t try to get too cozy with your sweetheart or stand too close to your friends or family because the awful smell of onion and garlic won’t help you much. Worse, you may end up facing some verbal backlash!
Alcohol breath can linger for long, especially if your alcohol intake has been uncontrolled. So, it’s best to drink alcohol in moderation, stay adequately hydrated, and exercise daily to ensure your liver is capable of metabolizing the alcohol you drink. This way, you can get rid of alcohol breath in the long run.
