Bad Breath: How to Know and Fix It

A cornerstone of civilised society is the understanding that certain personal indiscretions are simply not spoken of. If a gentleman’s cravat is askew, a valet will set it right; if his breath carries the sour note of decay, no companion, however intimate, will volunteer the information. Your peers at the club will not mention it. Your associates will position themselves a yard further away during conversation, a retreat you may mistake for a preference for personal space.

The cause is almost always manageable: the tongue, the gaps between the teeth, hydration, and, when those fail, the dentist. What follows addresses each in order.

A simple test, conducted in private: take the inside of your wrist, moisten it with the tongue, wait ten seconds, and assess the scent. What you perceive is the greeting you offer others at conversational distance, unvarnished by your nose’s tendency to ignore its own environment. If the result is disagreeable, act.

The cause, in nearly every case, is manageable through hygiene, beginning with a matter most men neglect. Start with the tongue, which serves as a harbour for noxious elements in quantities that would alarm you, were you to dwell upon it. I strongly advise against dwelling upon it. When you take up your brush and whatever paste the supermarket provides, scour the tongue as well. Better still, use a tongue scraper. I mourn the loss of the tortoiseshell implement, but the surgical steel contraptions available today yield a difference that is immediate and considerable.

Clear the spaces between your teeth daily. In my youth, we relied on waxed silk thread; today one is presented with impossibly thin synthetic ribbons that glide with alarming ease. Whatever material you choose, the debris that accumulates is, to speak plainly, rotting. Decomposing matter wedged into the crevices of the mouth offends the air exactly as one would expect. Mouthwash cannot reach these depths. You must use the floss.

Drink water throughout the day. Coffee and wine dry the palate and rob the mouth of saliva, the body’s own mechanism for cleansing itself. The arrangement works, provided you supply it with what it requires.

If the affliction persists despite diligent effort, see a dentist. I am aware that the prospect induces reluctance. My assistant has taken pains to assure me, and I have observed the truth of it, that the contemporary surgery is a considerably improved institution. Virtually painless. Persistent halitosis, when it resists the daily routine, is usually a sign of underlying decay or gum disease, not a failure of will. There is no shame in seeing a dentist. The only disgrace is recognising a correctable fault and choosing not to correct it.