Are you wondering how to get rid of alcohol breath1? We all had a time when we had to go to an office/family gathering/give a presentation or a meeting but then have poorly been scrutinized for the alcohol breath coming from around us. Well, don’t fret because you were not the only person who had to do the walk of shame.
Partying the previous night, not caring a tinge about your weak liver but waking up with a bad hangover, cursing over-drinking2 has been an unbreakable cycle that repeats every weekend. But the guilt-tripping over the judging eyes about bad breath is awful. Get rid of the smell, rinse your mouth to remove booze breath. Sometimes this is not enough.
The breath can be as horrible as garlic or onion and make you swear never to drink again. Happens every time, right? Now, there are different ways to go about treating this. For instance, if you need dental help with this, be sure to seek out Matheson Dentistry and Implant Center in Queen Creek for dental solutions.
Not to let you down in the future after your hangover, we have some home remedies to hide your alcoholic breath so that you escape those judging eyes.
But before getting into the remedies, let’s learn about the causes of alcohol breath!
Causes of alcohol breath:
Alcohol is a drug and a poison for the human body. Our liver is accustomed to only breakdown alcohol at a minimal rate estimated to an hour. When this limit is exceeded, the remaining alcohol is stored in the liver in the form of fat, which leads to alcoholic liver diseases since juice doesn’t wholly digest quickly, the stomach stores it, which leads to the ugly stinky belches which can’t be hidden.
The body absorbs alcohol into the blood until it is metabolized completely. It circulates everywhere i.e., from your brains to lungs to every part of the body. Since alcohol is present in your lungs, the stench of it comes from your mouth.
No matter what you have, be it coffee, wine, or alcohol, everything has its distinct odor that stays until metabolized in your breath. Drinking alcohol dehydrates you, which makes your mouth dry and becomes a breeding ground for bacteria in the small particles of food stuck in your mouth.
Most of the people after drinking alcohol don’t brush and floss their teeth. This adds on to the alcohol breath in the morning. this is the first solution for how to get rid of alcohol breath?
Can you get rid of alcohol breath?
To be honest, we can do some tricks to camouflage the alcohol stench with other stronger smells, but does it work with breathalyzer? Not! The police use a breathalyzer to check the amount of unprocessed or non-metabolized alcohol is present in your body. You can fool any human with tricks but not these high tech breathalyzers because they use infrared spectroscopy than the chemical analysis which they used earlier.
Camouflaging the alcohol breath: Home remedies
Use a healthy herbal or minty toothpaste:
- This home remedy to hide alcohol breath helps to camouflage the stench for a specified period. Brushing your teeth and flossing them properly will be the best way to cover the alcohol breath. Make sure you use an overpowering fragrant toothpaste while you brush your teeth to hide the alcohol breath.
- Should you use mouthwash? Usually, mouthwashes use an alcohol base, which might add on to your already existing alcohol stench. You might risk yourself to smell more alcoholic than before.
- Hand sanitizers? These also have an alcoholic base that smells similar to the alcohol stench. If you want to get under the radar, then you can overuse the hand sanitizers and viola! You can just say you have an OCD for cleanliness and can get away for once. Wink!wink!
Chew mints or strong-flavored gums:
This is an age-old trick home remedy to hide the alcoholic breath of your mouth. Mints and chewing gum can’t get rid of your alcohol breath completely because the breath comes from your lungs. The mint can hide your alcohol breath a few times, but be careful as always chewing mint can raise suspicion if you have an alcohol addiction.
It’s still better to prevent drinking alcohol to that extend than being tagged as an alcoholic.
Read how to stop alcohol addiction.
Balance your drink with food:
Every person who is an expert on the dos and don’ts to drink alcohol will tell you to eat something with your drink. Drinking on an empty stomach is always a bad idea because the blood will have only the alcohol content, which makes you lightheaded quickly and you might puke due to the intoxication.
To balance the alcohol, its always advised to eat something along with it. This can reduce the intake as well as camouflage the strong stench, which arises when you drink raw.this This answers the question of how to get rid of alcohol breath.
Keep yourself hydrated:
As cleared earlier, our capacity to metabolize alcohol3 is prolonged. The liver works at the pace of one drink an hour, which doesn’t sit well with us. As the alcohol content increases, our body dehydrates. Make sure to drink equal amounts of water with the alcohol, after every drink, you can drink water in the same quantity.
This will help in faster metabolizing of the alcohol and reduce the stench of alcohol from your mouth. This is the most straightforward home remedy to hide your alcohol breath.
The alcohol has diuretic properties4. It makes your mouth dry, which makes the odor-producing bacteria breed in your mouth. Drink a plentiful amount of water or your choice soda (similarly harmful to your body as alcohol) to avoid hangovers and alcohol breath in the morning. Drinking plenty of water will induce the authority to force out the juice through urine.
Eat food items with strong odor:
Onion:
It is known to be one of the smelliest food. This can come as your savior for the alcohol breath. If you eat dishes made with onion or just eat raw onion salad, you can use this home remedy to hide alcohol breath for some time. Eating onion, especially the red onion, will mask your alcohol breath as it has a stronger odor than the white onions.
TIP: You can order side dishes that have onions in large amounts. Onion fingers, onion fritters, or salad that has onion in the large number are some of the best sides along with the alcohol.
Garlic:
This is a piece of sorry news to those who were planning on a kiss after your drinks because, just like alcohol, the body stenches of garlic if you had some. You could kiss goodbye to the plan if you had garlic.
A home remedy to hide alcohol breath, garlic can hide your alcohol stench even for a whole day, depending on the amount of garlic you had. The garlic odor will be all over your body as your body pores will also aid in expelling the garlic through sweat, just like the case of alcohol.
TIP: Crushing garlic clove along with honey and taken raw or as spreading over your toast. Garlic bread as an appetizer before the drink also works as long as the garlic overpowers the alcohol breath.
Spices and condiments:
Spices like clove, cinnamon, etc. are known for strong fragrance, and they last longer too. So if you are looking for an alternative to mint, this is it! You can suck on a cinnamon stick or have cinnamon toast for your breakfast to avoid the alcohol breath. Chewing cloves also can hide the stench if you run out of cinnamon.
You can make a concoction with the spices to help your alcohol breath. This will also help to ease down your hangover and headaches in the morning. This simple home remedy to hide alcohol breath is natural and effective.
Black coffee or strong-flavored beverage:
Nothing is a better cure than a strong espresso in the morning. Black coffee helps in faster metabolism and makes you alert in the morning, which like shooting two birds with one stone.
You can use this home remedy to hide alcohol breath as well as stay alert after your hangover in the morning by having a strong black coffee. Coffee is known for the aromatic odor, which is pleasant and makes you calm. This is a go-to remedy for the alcohol problems you face.
TIP: adding sugar to your coffee will foil your motive. Make sure you drink your black coffee without sugar or milk as the more robust the coffee extract, the longer the camouflage. You can have multiple coffee shots or candies to hide your breath throughout the day.
Spicy, curries, peanut-butter:
These food items are known for their strong smell. If you are trying to get under the radar, then your only way out is to eat spicy food and aromatic curries though out the day. The oil in the peanut butter also is equally strong, which makes it easier for you to hide the stench.
TIP: You can plan your eating schedule with smelly foods like fries, curries, black coffee, peanut butter toast, flavored cakes, asparagus, spicy rice, or anything filled with chilies. Eating foods with intense flavors and smells can hide your alcohol breath for a day.
Lemon:
After mint, lemon is the next best refreshing smell, but it is more than that. Lemon has many advantages as you can wear your intoxication by licking a slice of lemon or drinking lemon juice and mojitos. The citrus present in lemon helps to break down the toxin in your body, which makes the metabolism of alcohol faster. You can use this home remedy to hide alcohol breath because it works every time.
TIP: Instead of alcohol-based mouth wash, you can make yourself one using lemon juice, some salt, and warm water. After rinsing with this potion, you can make a lemon tea or mix it with honey and green tea to ease your headache and the alcohol breath. This will help in covering up the smell of alcohol and buy your body some time to break down the alcohol altogether.
Tomato, fresh basil or mint juice:
Drinking tomato juice is known to mask the smell of alcohol. Basil Leaves and mint leaves also have a strong smell that can mask the odor of alcohol from your mouth. These drinks are effective only for a short time, so make sure you keep your mouth refreshed if it starts to stink again. Use this home remedy to hide alcohol breath effectively.
Clean yourself from head to toe:
Alcohol is absorbed in the blood, which is circulated in your body till completely broken down into acetic acid. Since the body tries to expel the toxic alcohol out of your body, sweat and body pores come into play. The alcohol is expelled through the sweat and body pores, which makes you smell like alcohol.
So not only the mouth but also your skin becomes an accomplice to giving out the smell of alcohol.
The best way to avoid that is to take a complete shower from head to toe using a strong-smelling body wash or scrub. Put on clean clothes to mask the smell more. Making your body smell good is the next step to camouflage your previous night endeavors. Simple yet effective home remedy to hide alcohol breath!
TIP: Spray yourself with intense perfume and deodorant. Make yourself smell like a garden, but don’t overdo as it can raise suspicion. Smelling good or bad can do the trick. Either smell like garlic, so no one comes near you to identify the alcohol smell or feel like a rose, but be careful about it the entire day.
Increase in metabolism:
Alcohol, as everyone knows, is toxic for your body, it causes several health issues like liver, heart and brain damage, cause cancer, dementia, depression, anxiety, etc. Well, you get the picture of how dangerous it can be. So to maintain your body mechanism, you need to work out properly. The better the body’s metabolism system works, the faster the alcohol is broken down, which ultimately means the lesser time you will smell like the drink you just had. If you keep your body fit, then it will take less time to break down the alcohol in your body.
Things to keep in mind while having alcohol:
- Avoid mixing your drinks. Stick on to one glass because incorporating them leads to more odors. Drinks like vodka, which claim to be odorless, actually do have an alcoholic smell.
- Avoid drinking on an empty stomach; it will increase the alcohol smell around you.
- Remember to brush and floss every time you drink, to prevent bacteria growth in your mouth.
- Drink in limit and moderate drinking, to give your body time to metabolize the alcohol.
- Time is the ultimate savior, as that’s what the body needs to flush out the alcohol thoroughly. Give enough time interval to metabolize the alcohol before you step out.
- Ultimately it is on you who has to deal with consequences, so deal with it upfront or quit drinking so that you are not in these conditions.
All gifs credits: giphy.com
ALSO READ: Books for Beginners
- Hlastala, Michael P. “The alcohol breath test—a review.” Journal of Applied Physiology 84.2 (1998): 401-408. ↩︎
- Field, M., Wiers, R. W., Christiansen, P., Fillmore, M. T., & Verster, J. C. (2010). Acute alcohol effects on inhibitory control and implicit cognition: implications for loss of control over drinking. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 34(8), 1346-1352. ↩︎
- Cederbaum, Arthur I. “Alcohol metabolism.” Clinics in liver disease 16.4 (2012): 667-685. ↩︎
- Adam, Y., et al. “Diuretic properties of Orthosiphon stamineus Benth.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 124.1 (2009): 154-158. ↩︎
Last Updated on by Namrata