Is it OK to rinse your mouth with water after using Listerine?

2/5/2006 12:51:40 PM

no, the water reacts with the cleaning agents in the listerine, forming an acid that will eat away at your tongue...



cmon

2/5/2006 12:54:26 PM

no, the water reacts with the cleaning agents in the listerine, forming an acid that will eat away at your tongue...



cmon

2/5/2006 1:05:25 PM

i ♥ Listerine. It's probably fine to rinse with water, but why would you? It seems like it decrease its effectiveness...

2/5/2006 1:10:09 PM

bwuahahah.

2/5/2006 1:10:22 PM

how would it decrease effectiveness? if you used the listerine properly (and for the correct amount of time) it should have killed the bacteria/germs/whatever already. i usually rinse afterwards to avoid swallowing any listerine-saliva.

2/5/2006 1:20:05 PM

mouth wash does 1% what brushing your teeth does

2/5/2006 1:34:51 PM

I just figured the left-over Listerine that's in your mouth after you spit out most of it would continue to do some extra work. maybe im wrong, and maybe i just dont care becuase i dont mind the taste

2/5/2006 1:35:53 PM

my guess would be that it would be recomendable. Water is really quite good for all parts of you.

2/5/2006 2:00:16 PM

I think it says on the bottle (or maybe I just read somewhere else) that you aren't supposed to eat or drink anything for at least an hour in order for listerine to be its most effective. But I doubt water is really going to do anything for you or against you in that department.

2/5/2006 2:55:06 PM

Quote :

"I just figured the left-over Listerine that's in your mouth after you spit out most of it would continue to do some extra work. maybe im wrong, and maybe i just dont care becuase i dont mind the taste "

2/5/2006 10:25:01 PM

Flossing and drinking water will do more to fight bad breath and gingivitis than using Listerine will. In fact, mouthwash like listerine can make your breath worse in the long run because it causes a decrease in saliva production and saliva is crucial for fighting germs in your mouth.

2/6/2006 12:30:17 AM

Quote :

"I think it says on the bottle (or maybe I just read somewhere else) that you aren't supposed to eat or drink anything for at least an hour in order for listerine to be its most effective. But I doubt water is really going to do anything for you or against you in that department."

You mean flouride?

2/6/2006 12:31:15 AM

^^ I find it particularly usefull to brush the back part of the tounge. The first few times you do it it feels really strange, like you're gona throw up. but after a while you start to really want to brush your tounge to get rid of bad breath. It's like the cuetips people use in their ears, it's strangley discusting and extremely hygenic at the same time.

2/6/2006 10:52:35 AM

Quote :

"Flossing and drinking water will do more to fight bad breath and gingivitis than using Listerine will."

that may be true, but doing all 3 is the most effective.

2/6/2006 11:24:24 AM

did you know listerine marketed the idea of bad breath as a way to sell its product more heavily?

Quote :

"Listerine was invented in the 19th century as a powerful surgical antiseptic. It was later sold, in a distilled form, as a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea. But it wasn't a runaway success until the 1920s, when it was pitched as a solution for "chronic halitosis"—a then obscure medical term for bad breath. Listerine's new ads featured forlorn young women and men, eager for marriage but turned off by their mate's rotten breath. "Can I be happy with him in spite of that?" one maiden asked herself. Until that time, bad breath was not conventionally considered a catastrophe. But Listerine changed that. As the advertising scholar James B. Twitchell writes, "Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis." In just seven years, the company's revenues rose from $115,000 to more than $8 million."

http://www.answers.com/topic/listerine

[Edited on February 6, 2006 at 11:51 AM. Reason : m]

2/6/2006 11:49:01 AM

one of my professors told our class of several experiments that he had done to find out the effectiveness of listerine. They swabbed someones mouth before using listerine and rubbed the swab on a peatry dish. Next, they had the person use listerine for the amount of time that the label say, and swabbed his mouth again in certain increments. The listerine actually caused more bacteria to grow in the subjects mouth. Bottom line is, antiseptics and anti bacterial products are just a gimmick.

2/6/2006 12:08:08 PM

Quote :

"that may be true, but doing all 3 is the most effective."

No, it is not.

Listerine might kills some germs initially but it causes a decrease in saliva production which creates a better environment for germ culture. Your breath will end up worse if you use a mouth wash like Listerine versus just brushing, flossing, and drinking water. Saliva is vital to good oral hygiene.

2/6/2006 12:50:21 PM