If you're like me, you'll chomp on raw onion, garlic and other stinky foods with no regard to their aftereffects. But say that you do the same and you forget too late that you have an important face-to-face meet up with a client afterward. What do you do when breath mints can only do so much, and you're miles away from your toothbrush?
On a lark we bought a product by Colgate called Wisp at Target. And after a particularly pungent meal at House of Kabob, in which I ate a raw onion like it was a piece of fruit, I used it as a breath defouler.
]
Since it's meant for long haul truckers and other travelers without immediate access to running water, I was able to use it without so much as my own spit for lubricant — and the act of brushing seemed to stimulate my salivary glands.
As for the brush itself, it looks like a tiny, miniature toilet brush. And in your mouth, it feels like one. There's a dollop of gel inset the middle of the tiny brush head that gets released little by little when you start brushing. Since it's ultra concentrated, the net sensation is intensely minty.
After I was done, I tested my breath on my companion who was sitting in the passenger seat (no, I didn't brush and drive: I did it when the car was parked). I said phrases like “I wish I were a fish” (anyone remember Don Knotts in The Incredible Mr. Limpet?); and it seemed to work. That is, until I let out a smelly burp that she said hit her like a punch in face. So there you go: Wisp works somewhat on the immediate vicinity of your mouth, but not against your belches.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.