Brushing Teeth vs. Mouthwash (Tested)

[ayomi]

Dental student here. You’re not meant to use mouthwash after you brush - that’s like the equivalent of putting on sun cream and then taking a shower - you’re washing all the toothpaste and the good stuff (like fluoride which helps to strengthen your enamel) off your teeth and spitting it out. Mouthwash is effective when you’ve had a meal and you want to quickly rinse the food out and have fresh breath. You could even use it before you brush but please do NOT use mouthwash afterwards!

Flossing + brushing = best combo!

[daydream]

My guess for why there is more bacteria on your front teeth is that when you're swishing mouthwash around your mouth, your molars and back teeth are practically being jet washed by the pressure in your mouth removing more plaque and destroying more bacteria, whereas your front teeth are getting less.

[wiscoer]

I thought listerine was suppose to be used AFTER brushing your teeth.

[zacharyhallberg]

Hi! Microbiologist here -- the reason that the mouthwash version doesn't look "effective" is because your signal is saturated! Am more than happy to go further into here if you'd like, but the short version is that I bet that if you did dilution plating, you'd see a pretty large difference in the total # of bacteria you see for the control vs. the mouthwash.

Keep it up! Science literacy and sharing how people do science is SO important right now in this era, and I appreciate so much the outreach that you do with this channel!

[laggsbd]

We all know this video is an excuse to eat a lot of choclate.

[Dullfang]

This would have been an amazing experiment to have done in high school.

[citlalivillegas]

Flossing +brushing + mouthwash =the ultimate convo .

[gabbylikeskicks]

Dental student here. I had a professor who once said tooth brushing is essential, to the point that brushing even without toothpaste is still very beneficial. And yes, we shouldn't rinse off the paste after brushing, just spit out the excess toothpaste. Let the fluoride do its work on the teeth

[quickshot]

You should of did one with mouthwash + toothpaste.

[sarangrawat]

Just a Friendly reminder to anybody reading this: Clean your Tongue too👍👍

[kikinsteve]

This is where you really have to pay attention to product claims. Listerine's ad says it kills 99.9% of bacteria THAN BRUSHING ALONE. Which means in order to kill that target 99.9% you have to do both.

[br]

Fascinating! I'd love to see you do a version of this comparing an electric toothbrush to a manual toothbrush.

[soeplada]

Didn’t brush my teeth last night and today this shows up. Shout out to my agent

[skmed]

I never knew that people were doing only one or the other. I was always under the impression that you're supposed to floss, brush, AND rinse with mouthwash.

[xukuang]

my guess as to why there’s less bacteria on back teeth than front after using mouthwash is that when you gargle, most of the liquid will flow to and fro at the back of the teeth, leaving back teeth more exposure than front teeth. Try visualising how the mouthwash will behave when you gargle and you’ll realise that the front teeth are exposed relatively lesser to mouthwash than the back.

[alexh]

Theory for 'why there is more bacteria on the front teeth when using mouth wash', when you are swishing around the mouthwash your lips are pressed tight to avoid any dripping and are firm against the front teeth making less mouthwash hit that area. Similar when gargling your head is back so the mouthwash isn't flying out of your mouth.

[jakenuno]

Best thing for me is alternating mouth wash types such as alcohol based, non-alcohol based, and Plax throughout the week and periodically adding a post-brushing mouth wash such as Smart Mouth to my routine really made a major difference to my oral hygiene. This paired with a good upgrade to an ultrasonic toothbrush such as Burst and a quality water pick, made all the difference. Long term results showed visibly whiter teeth, loss of all visible tartar, no more swollen bleeding gums and a polished smooth feeling on all my teeth that I had not felt in my whole life. (Tartar and plaque on teeth feels gritty and rough, clean teeth with a healthy enamel layer feel smooth and polished like slippery ice, feel with you tongue, not fingers) Also, sometimes I’ll give an extra couple minutes to a particular area of my teeth that I felt a bit too much grit on, resulting in a smooth polished feel after. I learned a lot of these techniques from other orthodontists and dentists who wrote papers and created videos educating these practices. As a child who’s parent took them to the dentist about 3 times, ever, I knew as an adult I had some work to do to save my teeth from its past. Glad I did my homework. Hope this helps someone in their journey.

[dercoolsteboy]

Pls do a experiment, where yo combine all the three methods (Brushing/Flossing/Mouthwash) or just flossing

[DunmerSG]

I never thought of mouthwash as an alternative to brushing my teeth, but a complementary thing to do after brushing teeth... Am I the only one?

[bitcoinjedi]

Good work.. Imagine tooth brush + mouth wash combination VS Tooth brush + tooth paste. I have a feeling the first one will do the best.