Have We All Used Mouthwash at the Wrong Time?
Based on an unscientific survey of my husband, the largest WhatsApp chat and everyone I work with, 100% of respondents use mouthwash after brushing their teeth. But common sense can tell that many people use mouthwash at the wrong time. And that’s a lot of people: Nearly 200 million Americans used mouthwash in 2020, according to Statista . But as it turns out, the best time to rinse your mouth is before brushing your teeth.
Why do so many people use mouthwash after brushing their teeth?
Perhaps your dentist told you long ago to use mouthwash after brushing your teeth, and you never questioned it again. Maybe rinsing after brushing your teeth gives you a feeling of unsurpassed freshness and the completion of oral hygiene. You may have subconsciously learned this from commercials spiced up with your Saturday morning cartoons as a child, or had the vague notion that mouthwash must be marinated, in a sense, to stay clean and undiluted with other liquids in order to work better. (Which is actually true .)
Why is it better to use mouthwash before brushing your teeth?
Dr. Anna Peterson recently defied conventional wisdom by posting a viral TikTok video stating that it is best to use mouthwash immediately after meals or before brushing your teeth.
“Your toothpaste…has about 1450 ppm (ppm) of fluoride…Your mouthwash has only 220 ppm of fluoride,” she began. “This is a much lower concentration and not enough to protect your teeth from the sugars you eat and drink. So when you brush your teeth and immediately rinse your mouth with mouthwash, you just wash away all the high concentration fluoride and get very low concentration fluoride.”
In a follow-up video , Dr. Peterson explained how after we’ve eaten, the sugars in our food lower the PH in our mouth, making it acidic, and during this “acid attack, your teeth start to dissolve.” If we brush our teeth at this point, we are rubbing acid into our teeth, causing erosion. “Use mouthwash to get your teeth out of this critical area.” Who knew?
Well, actually many dentists knew. In our study, we found supporting claims that mouthwash reduces the concentration of fluoride in toothpaste made by the British Dental Journal , NHS , and many American dental clinic websites .
The difference between cosmetic and medical mouthwash
We recently looked at whether mouthwash was necessary at all , and unless it’s specifically recommended or prescribed by your dentist, it really isn’t. (I don’t use it, and I haven’t had cavities since my skittles ineptly in my youth.) But you might like that antiseptic clean feeling or want to give your teeth an extra layer of protection.
Cosmetic mouth rinses, according to the American Dental Association , “temporarily control bad breath” while therapeutic mouth rinses contain “active ingredients designed to control or reduce conditions such as bad breath, gingivitis , plaque and caries.
In any case, according to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service , “Using a fluoride-containing mouthwash can help prevent cavities, but don’t use a mouthwash (even a fluoride one) immediately after brushing your teeth or it will wash away the concentrated fluoride in your toothbrush.” paste left on the teeth.
We’ll leave you with this quote from Chicago’s Water Tower Dental Care : “If [using mouthwash] before brushing is like rinsing dishes, after brushing it’s like soaking dishes in diluted bleach water after they’re clean.” “. And who needs diluted whitening water on clean teeth?