Homemade Mouthwash

There are many reasons to try your own homemade mouthwash: it’s much cheaper, you can select natural ingredients, you know exactly what’s in it, and you can adjust the ingredients until you have a taste you like and a product that doesn’t irritate your mouth. For some halitosis sufferers, a natural product like this can be part of an improved oral hygiene routine that may well help eliminate breath odors. At the least, an attempt to make your own rinse will cost you very little.

Recipes for natural mouth rinses typically call for aromatic herbs and plant extracts: strong-flavored plants such as mint, rosemary, anise, and fennel. Citrus is popular as well, and more exotic things are sometimes used such as tincture of myrrh, tea tree oil, and aloe vera gel. Homemade mouthwash based on these substances generally uses either water, or soda water as a liquid carrier. Simpler mixtures simply use baking soda or table salt dissolved in water. Glycerin may be used for its antibacterial properties.

It’s not really necessary to have a recipe for homemade mouthwash: you can easily devise your own using ingredients that are available to you. It’s generally advisable to avoid alcohol—as it is in commercial mouthwashes—because of the tendency of alcohol to dry oral tissues; however, alcohol is sometimes used to dissolve ingredients such as glycerin before they’re added to water. When natural mouth rinses are heated during preparation, no alcohol remains in the finished product.

The general rule for making homemade mouthwash with oils and essences is to use small amounts—a few drops in eight ounces of water usually suffices. Adjust mixtures and amounts to taste. If ingredients don’t readily mix, try alcohol and / or heat to hasten the process. Rinsing with natural mouth rinses is the same as with commercial products: swish the solution around in the mouth for about thirty seconds, making sure that the liquid contacts the surfaces between the teeth and all the corners and crevices in the mouth. Since your solution contains minimal amounts of substances that might be harmful, it’s okay to swallow – but use your best judgment based on what you have added. (It may not be a good idea to ingest too much of things like tea tree oil).

For a quick and versatile homemade mouthwash that you can take with you and use anywhere, mix eight ounces of water with a teaspoon of baking soda and add a drop or two of peppermint oil. Alternatively, rinse with unsweetened cranberry juice.

Magnolia officinalis for Bad Breath

One of the latest and most encouraging discoveries in the management of oral malodor uses extract of Magnolia officinalis for bad breath. The extract (MBE) can easily be produced from the stem bark of the magnolia tree, and incorporated into products such as chewing gum and mints to produce a fast acting, portable, and effective breath freshening agent. The substance doesn’t just mask offensive odors with a pleasant smell: scientific research indicates that it actually causes a rapid reduction in the number of odor-producing bacteria in the mouth, thereby providing a lasting benefit.

Until now, gum and mints for halitosis have been mostly a short term aid, used to produce a pleasant smell on the breath while the product is actually in the mouth. The effect fades quickly as soon as the mint dissolves or the flavor of the gum dissipates, sometimes leaving an unpleasant taste in the mouth. While some of the ingredients in these products do have antibacterial properties, the amounts that can be delivered in a single mint or stick of gum are insufficient to really do any good. Using Magnolia officinalis for bad breath seems to be different: controlled scientific study has found that mints containing just 0.2% MBE reduce virtually all of the bacterial species studied within five minutes.

It seems that we might have learned of the potential of Magnolia officinalis for bad breath much sooner if we had listened to ancient Chinese wisdom. The bark extract involved has long been used by the Chinese for everything from headache, through fever, and stress relief. Research in other medical specialties reveals that it may be useful against various other common infections and studies with MBE gum and mints for halitosis suggest, as an incidental finding, that it may help prevent tooth decay as well, by killing the bacteria associated with that. It seems almost too good to be true.

Extravagant claims have been made about the potential of many commercial products, including gum and mints for halitosis, for relief of oral malodor. To date, however, research has not provided the answer to why people suffer from the problem in the first place, or how to get rid of it for good. These answers are still to come. Similarly, using Magnolia officinalis for bad breath will not be a cure if the conditions that allowed the bacteria to proliferate in the first place are not corrected. None the less, a truly effective, portable breath freshener could revolutionize daily life for millions of people.

Source:
Greenberg, Michael. Philip Urnezis and Minmin Tian. “Compressed Mints and Chewing Gum Containing Magnolia Bark Extract Are Effective against Bacteria Responsible for Oral Malodor” J. Agric. Food Chem., 2007, 55 (23), pp 9465–9469.