D on’t fool yourself,” said a 1928 advert for Listerine mouthwash , “Since halitosis never announces itself to the victim, you simply cannot know when you have it.” Many of us do indeed worry that our breath smells fetid and sulphurous. There’s even halitophobia, when people are convinced they have bad breath but don’t. It is estimated that up to half of us have bad breath , which seems a bit excessive: the rate of “objectionable bad breath” is thought to be more like 2.4% of adults . It’s hard to diagnose it yourself. Breathing into your hands and sniffing them only tells you if your hands smell. Licking the back of your wrist and smelling it after 10 seconds isn’t accurate either. Flossing and then smelling is only likely to reflect any decaying food. The taste in your mouth isn’t closely related to how your breath smells. Breath clinics have machines such as halimeters that measure sulphur emissions, but the most reliable way is for an expert to smell and score the level and type...
