The mouthwash has gone viral on TikTok, so we put it to the test
Words by George Nash
Like all the very worst first-date stories, it all began with bad breath.
In 1993, California-based dentist Dr Harold Katz developed a formula to help his own daughter deal with her persistent pungent oral aroma. The result was The Breath Co. (known as Therabreath in the US) and a range of mouthwash, the brand claims, clinically proven to fight bad breath for 12 hours.
George Nash
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Three decades on, I doubt even Katz himself could have predicted that his Fresh Breath Oral Rinse would become a viral sensation, obtain an Amazon star rating of 4.5, and prompt a customer who goes by the moniker ‘The Fresh Paul of C Town’ to proudly boast: “30+ females wanted to stick their tongue in my mouth. Anyone who has trouble with the ladies needs to get on this.”
That’s just a flavour of the widespread acclaim Dr Katz, known as ‘the Bad Breath Guru’, and his mouthwash have garnered online, with the Therabreath brand gaining hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and TikTokers and Instagram influencers alike gushing about the product.
And so with the poetic words of Mr Fresh Paul reverberating loudly in my ears, I decided to put this icy mint phenomenon to the test.
First impressions were mixed. Despite a rather excessively-colourful orange and blue bottle that looked like a cross between toilet cleaner and Mr Meeseeks from Rick and Morty, I was pleased to learn the mouthwash is alcohol free, non-burning, gluten free, is suitable for vegans and vegetarians, is kosher and contains no artificial dyes. This might just be the most inclusive mouthwash of all time.
Powered by something called ‘active oxygen’—isn’t all oxygen technically ‘active’? Does this imply the existence of ‘inactive’ oxygen? Do I need to get out more?—the formula targets the sulphur-producing bacteria that live and multiply on the tongue and cause bad breath.
And who was I to argue? If there is one person you’d want on your team for the ‘microscopic inhabitants of your mouth’ quiz round, it’s certainly Dr Katz. With a degree in Bacteriology from UCLA, this bloke might be considered something of an expert in the field.
After taking the first swig, I was pleasantly surprised by its mild taste. For whatever reason, I had convinced myself that using a mouthwash claiming to keep you breath fresh for half a day had to be on par with doing an episode of Hot Ones inside Mount Vesuvius while glugging a scotch bonnet smoothie.
But instead, there was virtually no burning sensation at all. So pleasing was the experience, in fact, that I probably would have been quite content gurgling the stuff all day—while going for a run, while watching TV, while sitting on a Zoom call.
But a 90-second swirl around the mouth is what the bottle recommends, so a minute and a half of mild, minty pleasure was all I was granted.
George Nash
My mouth felt instantly clean, my breath pretty agreeable. Like Fresh Paul, perhaps I too was beginning to believe the hype? Maybe the Bad Breath Guru’s magic had also worked on me?
There was only one way to find out definitively. In the same way the quality of a superhero movie is defined by its villain, the strength of any half-decent mouthwash is determined by how well it stands up against the worst oral offenders. Think garlic bread, think raw onion, think chives, think tinned tuna—basically all the foods you should under no circumstances take anywhere near the office canteen.
And so, much to the horror of my girlfriend, a bad breath banquet was on the cards. “An abomination. The culinary equivalent of nightclub toilet,” were the exact words as I piled the garlic monstrosity on my plate. But I knew I had to push Katz’s recipe to its limits, and I was intent on pulling no punches whatsoever.
George Nash
The results surprised me. While I can’t say it completely eradicated the dreaded morning breath, there was a noticeably milder 7am stench.
“There was definitely an improvement,” my partner admitted as the third snooze alarm went off. “It made waking up next to you that bit more bearable.”
That kind of compliment isn’t exactly cheap, however. At anywhere between £6 and £10 a bottle, it is a rather hefty price to pay. But if this mouthwash helps even just one other person to feel more confident, then it has more than justified its existence.
