Etiquette Checker weighs in on your breath, buzz
Posted: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 7:56 PM
By Melissa Dahl, health editor
What it is: The Etiquette Checker, $54 at www.japantrendshop.com
What it claims to do: Prevent you from being the obnoxious drunk with the horrible breath – just in time for holiday parties. An awesome infomercial from Japan demonstrates how the Etiquette Checker works: After chowing down on seasonal treats and cocktails, breathe into this little gizmo, and it will rate how bad your breath is and how inebriated you are on a scale of one to six.
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| japantrendshop.com |
My experience: The problem with a gadget you’re supposed to use when you’re drinking is that you’re always drinking when you’re supposed to be using it. After receiving the Etiquette Checker, I immediately stashed it in my bag, intending to whip it out and try it among friends on the weekend. But as the conversations got going and, ahem, the drinks got flowing, I could never remember to actually use the thing.
And then the little brother came to town for a visit. Who better than family to help reveal how bad your breath is and how tipsy you are?
Turns out, this little gadget is essentially a super fun party trick. While hanging out at a music festival in Seattle, I ate a bratwurst topped with ketchup, and the Etiquette Checker ranked my breath a four out of six. My brother ate a cheeseburger with the works – including onions – and “blew” a five.. The thing seemed to be working until dinner: We split a pepperoni pizza and it reported my breath was only a three, but his was a five!
As for drinks, we each had three beers, and the Etiquette Checker gave both of us threes, which didn’t seem right since I’m smaller than my brother. Shouldn’t I have ranked a little tipsier than he did?
Unfortunately, the questions we had about the Etiquette Checker went unanswered, because the instructions are in Japanese! (It comes with “Englisch” instructions, too, but it’s a really poor, confusing translation.)
What the expert says: For answers, I turned to Harold Katz, a dentist and bacteriologist who established the California Breath Clinics in 1993.
Katz says the Etiquette Checker does likely measure the amount of alcohol on your breath. “If somebody drinks alcohol, that little instrument might pick up the alcohol because it has vapors and releases fumes into the air,” Katz says.
Still, it’s not the most useful Breathalyzer device, because rather than giving you a precise measure of your blood-alcohol content, it only gives you a score from one to six without interpreting what that number means.
But he says simply looking at the Etiquette Checker’s $54 price tag is enough to tell him the device can’t truly measure bad breath.
“That little device is not sophisticated enough to give an accurate reading whether someone has bad breath or not,” Katz says. He says the only reliable device that measures halitosis is called a Halimeter, which costs about $1,800. (Not exactly a recession-friendly stocking stuffer.)
Bad breath is caused by bacteria that lives in the back of your tongue and throat, which is what the Halimeter measures. Katz believes the Etiquette Checker is likely measuring the amount of moisture and heat in your mouth – which, he says, might explain why the gizmo gave my brother and I different results even thought we’d both eaten a piece of pizza from the same pie.
“If people want to test their breath, they can do it for free,” says Katz.
His first tip is best done in private: To check out your breath, lick the back of your hand, let that dry for a few seconds, and then take a whiff. Because the bacteria that causes bad breath lives in your saliva, it’s a much more reliable way than simply breathing into your cupped hand.
Or, Katz suggests, you can take some preventive measures to ward off bad breath.
“The number one thing we recommend is drink more water; you need to keep your mouth more moist. Dry mouth leads to bad breath more than anything else,” Katz says. He suggests staying away from alcohol and alcohol-based mouthwashes. And make sure to brush your tongue when you brush your teeth -- and floss once a day. To fight bad breath, Katz recommends two toothpastes called Therabreath and Periotherapy.
Bottom line: Although it doesn’t quite do what it claims, the Etiquette Checker is a fun little device to use at holiday parties this season.
