Toothpaste--To Rinse or Not!

After you finish brushing your teeth, swishing around some water before spitting ensures that you rid your mouth of all that frothy toothpaste. But as it turns out, having a little toothpaste residue left in your mouth isn’t a bad thing—in fact, it’s an important part of keeping your teeth healthy.

This is because toothpaste contains fluoride. It greatly helps oral health by strengthening the tooth enamel, making it more resistant to tooth decay. It also reduces the amount of acid that the bacteria on your teeth produce. If you rinse your mouth with water immediately after a brush session, you’re also rinsing away the fluoride, which doesn’t give it much time to work its magic.

The need to completely clear your mouth after brushing can be strong, especially if you’ve rinsed with water for your entire life. Some people rinse with mouthwash as a workaround—but that may not be such a great idea either, since toothpaste has a significantly higher concentration of fluoride than mouthwash does.

Skipping the post-brush water rinse is just one way to improve oral health