Should You Rinse After Brushing Your Teeth?What Studies Show

Most of us were taught to finish brushing with a mouthful of water. UK dental advice says the opposite. Here is what the advice says and what the studies show.

The advice

After brushing, spit out the extra toothpaste but don’t rinse with water, because rinsing washes away the concentrated fluoride left on your teeth.¹ The same goes for mouthwash, even a fluoride one: use it at a different time of day, such as after lunch.¹

A trial that found no difference

In Lithuania, 407 children brushed daily at school with fluoride toothpaste for 3 years.²

• In one school, children rinsed thoroughly with a beaker of water.
• In another, they could only spit once.
• A third school without the brushing program was the comparison.²

Both brushing schools had far fewer new cavities than the comparison school, and rinsing made no significant difference between them.²

A trial in adults that found a benefit

In Saudi Arabia, 175 adults with lots of decay were randomly assigned to their usual brushing or a “modified” routine.³ The modified routine meant:³

1. About 2 cm of toothpaste
2. Brushing for 2 minutes
3. Swishing the foam around the teeth
4. No rinsing, and no food or drink for 2 hours

After 2 years, new cavities between the teeth averaged 1.15 in the modified group against 3.37 with usual brushing.³ Only 106 people finished, and because several changes were bundled together, the trial can’t show how much came from skipping the rinse.³

What experts concluded

A UK expert meeting reviewed the evidence and found no high-quality evidence to settle the question, but noted that international guidelines give consistent advice anyway.⁴

The practical upshot

• Spitting without rinsing costs nothing and matches the guidance.¹⁴
• Use mouthwash at a separate time, not straight after brushing.¹

See prescription fluoride toothpaste for root cavities and does mouthwash fix bad breath?

Try: “I’ve always rinsed after brushing and then used mouthwash. Given my cavities, should I change the order or timing?”

Is It My Breath? covers this in Chapter 6, “Gums, Floss and Hormones,” in a section called “The Two-Minute Routine,” which includes spitting instead of rinsing in its base routine. Its Breath Log takes one line a day for time, food, dryness, taste and what you tried. See the book.