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| Do As Tokyo Does | Freshen That Breath | (Entered Nov. 25, 2008) |
Recent Do As Tokyo Does: | |||
It's a sad rule of nature that we can't smell, or judge for ourselves how good or bad our own breath is. As you can imagine, this is more of a problem in a country like Japan, where personal space is at a premium, and most people spend their days jam packed against other people.
This particular brand 'ACUO' made by the candy powerhouse 'Lotte', is nothing special, I just picked it at random. Besides not being an effective breath freshener, gum has one other annoying problem. You eventually have to spit it out. And since Japan has about 3 public garbage cans in the whole country, you end up chewing on this god awful little piece of rubber for hours. On to better things please science! Name: Acuo
Ora2 is for those people that are too lazy to chew gum, or think the novelty of spraying concentrated gum juice directly into the back of their mouths is cool. It comes in a handy little spray bottle, is available in a variety of flavours, fits easily in your pocket and doubles as pepper spray if you're backed into a dark alley and need to vaporize some thug's eyeballs to escape. Does it freshen breath though? Once you've got this one, it'll probably end up sitting in your bag or purse unused, till the end of time. The only occasion it might come in handy is on a first date just before you go in for that hesitant goodnight kiss. Give yourself two or three quick sprays (incognito of course) to the back of the tongue and try not to inhale at the same time. Name: Ora2
Breath Care's little gel capsules are the only product in the group that actually go after the root of the problem. Instead of trying to freshen your mouth, they instead try to freshen your stomach, where bad breath would seem to originate. Success?
Impressive to say the least! I've tested this out by breathing on other people and the results have only been positive. However it still works on the basic principle of trying to overpower bad breath instead of fighting it. Pills are swallowed, the thin gelatin coating breaks down in your stomach, super concentrated parsley/mint liquid smothers any other smell in the vicinity. This is also the only product out there that can make your burps smell like mint, which in itself is deserving of some sort of award. However, they also have the power to dehydrate, as that concentrated extract no doubt needs gallons of water to properly flush out of your body. Careful not to overdose! Take max. two or three pills at a time. Oh and whatever you do, don't bite down on them. You'll regret it. Name: Breath Care
The same brand as above, but these ones are chewable. If you get confused between the two, you can refer to these ones by their other name: Breath Refreshing Sugared Gummy Candy.
If you boiled a thousand gallons of lemon juice until you were left with a thin layer of super concentrated lemon scum on the bottom of the pot, then took that scum and compressed it until it was the size of a little ball like those shown above, you might have some idea what these are like. I ate two and they went off like miniture nuclear bombs in my mouth. I'm still not sure if I'll ever taste anything again. Breath care for suicidal fanatics maybe. Name: Breath Care
Well we've got gum, sprays, pills, gummies, I guess we better add suckable candy to the list too just to make sure we leave no stones unturned in the war against bad breath. Coming in a variety of flavours, these tablets have the consistency, taste and smell of Pez candy. How does it measure up?
If you're like me and hate Pez, then no doubt you'll hate Breo too. The package says on top 'namete ajiwau shita kirei' which translates to: suck taste tongue clean. Well it definitely sucks, but I'm not sure about the cleaning tongues part. For one thing, this seems to be nothing more than a peach flavoured piece of candy. I tried one after eating some spicy korean food and natto for lunch, but if there are any breath benefits here they must be mostly psycological. Name: Breo
Once you turn over all the stones, then you start on the pebbles and the grains of sand. Japan Tobacco (ironically) has released a breath freshening drink for men. There was no woman's version that I could find, but JT knows that men are the stinkier ones and need more help in this department.
A breath freshening drink may sound original but how do you make it taste good? It's seems that Japan Tabacco doesn't know either. The bottle ingredients list rosemary extract near the top, but the other ones are hard to make any sense of. Tastes more like a strange mix of Pocari Sweat, toothpaste and menthol. If that sounds good to you then you're welcome to all the rest of it. Name: Fresh Breath for Men
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Abandoned Ginza
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