Okay, let’s say you have a date with an extremely gorgeous damsel. Physically, you’re nothing short of stunning complete with a million dollar smile thanks to your shiny white teeth. However, paranoia suddenly hits you like a one-ton anvil. What if your breath stinks? Your dreamy evening might end up becoming a disaster of catastrophic proportion. Imagine trying to give the lovely lass a kiss only for her to react with an expression of crinkling agony. I’ve experienced this kind of situation before and believe me; the feeling of humiliation is beyond words. So how on earth can you tell if your breath is bad? Alright, quit being a worry wort now because I’m going to share four very fast and ridiculously easy methods to help you find out if your breath smells like Don Juan, or similar to a bunch of rotten eggs (my breath used to smell like the latter by the way).

1. The spoon method – Get a spoon and flip it upside down. Next, insert the spoon in your mouth and place it at the very back part of your tongue. Now scrape that section of your tongue gently with the spoon. Give it a few scrapes and then take the spoon out to discover what kind of material that came off the back of your tongue. Go ahead and smell it. No foul smelling odor means that you’re in luck; otherwise you might want to find something to cover the smell before picking up your date.

2. The saliva method – This is by far the most popular method to determine the quality of your breath. Simply lick the back of your hand and then wait for a minute or so to allow the saliva to dry up a bit. Now give the back of your hand a good whiff. Smell anything awful or perhaps nothing at all? If it’s the former, grab a toothbrush, toothpaste, and some mints pronto!

3. The baggie method – Sometimes the saliva method may not work especially if the source of your bad breath originates from the nose. Believe it or not, your nose is also capable of producing unpleasant odor usually due to either a serious sinus infection or impending of the nasal passages. Anyway you can find out by grabbing a small piece of plastic baggie, preferably the Ziploc ones. Now blow into the baggie and quickly seal it up tightly. Don’t open it just yet. Give it a few minutes and then you may proceed to unseal the baggie and take a whiff.

4. The lab rat method – How about asking someone to be a lab rat for your breath test? If you’re not a loner or an anti-social person, then this is the simplest way to find out if you have bad breath. Ask a close buddy or a good old relative to act as your very own (to put it in a nicer term) breath analyzer. If they smell anything insidious, get them to determine whether the source originates from your mouth or nose so you may take the necessary action. For this method, I believe it is best that you offer them a nice treat to return the favor especially if your breath test turns out to be on the negative side.