How to Make Cinnamon Clove Mouthwash

Keep your breath fresh with an all-natural cinnamon clove mouthwash that will keep your breath fresh without making you feel like your mouth is on fire.

Mouthwash is an important piece of mouth care. Brushing and flossing do most of the heavy lifting by scrubbing plaque off your teeth and clearing out your gums. But a good rinse with mouthwash can pick up the rest, both literally and metaphorically. Mouthwash can pick up any debris left in your mouth from both brushing and flossing, and it also kills harmful bacteria throughout the entirety of your mouth. However, many commercial anti-septic mouthwashes contain alcohols and other chemicals that can burn and strip your mouth of all its good bacteria along with the bad. That’s why we created our recipe for a cinnamon clove mouthwash. Using all natural ingredients, we’ve found the perfect blend that doesn’t burn (too badly), tastes great, and leaves your mouth feeling fresh and clean.

Benefits of cinnamon mouthwash ingredients

If you’ve been following our blog, you might know that we take our oral hygiene very seriously. We even have a toothpaste recipe in our article, How to Make a Natural, Flouride-Free Chocolate Toothpaste. In our efforts to avoid unnecessary chemical additives, we’ve picked for our cinnamon clove mouthwash a mixture of natural ingredients that all have a history of being used in remedies for various mouth care.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is a unique spice that has a powerful flavor and various health benefits. Traditional remedies have long since used cinnamon in helping prevent or ease various diseases and disorders. Among these include using cinnamon as a part of oral hygiene. Some people say chewing on raw cinnamon sticks can reduce toothaches and prevent diseases like gingivitis. Modern studies like the review, Effects of Cinnamon (Cinnamomum spp.) in Dentistry: A Review suggest that the traditional remedies are not wrong. Cinnamon has both antibacterial and antifungal properties. By destroying certain harmful bacteria and fungi, cinnamon has been shown to be effective at reducing swelling and infections in the mouth. Plus, the flavor of cinnamon helps our cinnamon mouthwash keep our mouth feeling as fresh as possible.

Cloves

Similar to cinnamon, cloves are often used to treat toothaches in traditional remedies. They add to the warm, sweet but spicy cinnamon flavor in our cinnamon mouthwash. Along with their supposed ability to cure toothaches, cloves also have antimicrobial properties, which make them a great ingredient to have when rinsing out your mouth. There are other health benefits to cloves, such as their antioxidants and nutrients. But we’re mostly focused on their ability to kill bacteria and fungi and give you a fresher breath.

Salt

Salt is a workhorse ingredient. It cleans wounds, kills bacteria, reduces inflammation, etc. When choosing your salt for your mouthwash, try to use something other than table salt. Table salt should work in a pinch, but you’ll get more bang for your buck if you can find a non-iodized sea salt. Our personal favorites for oral hygiene are Celtic sea salt and Redmond’s.

Issues with antiseptic mouthwash

The first issues with antiseptic mouthwash is one you are likely already familiar with. It burns. You’re supposed to rinse your mouth for 30 seconds, but by the time you reach five seconds, most mouthwashes make it feel like your mouth has been set on fire. The main issue we worry about here is the approach to bacteria that many commercial mouthwashes have. They do kill harmful bacteria, but they often are so strong that they disrupt the healthy bacteria in your mouth as well, leaving little opportunity for your mouth to develop a stable, healthy bacteria colony.

How to store your mouthwash

To store your cinnamon clove mouthwash, all you need is a glass container. You can store it at room temperature for about two weeks. However, we’ve had it last up to a month at room temperature. You can also refrigerate it to help extend its shelf life. If your mouthwash smells or looks off, then just discard it and make a new batch.

Notes

When heating the mixture, be careful not to let it cook for too long, as you can boil away your mouthwash and you’ll have to start over from the top.

You might know that cinnamon can be a spicey spice. You can change how spicy your cinnamon clove mouthwash is by steeping it for different periods. Steeping the mouthwash for a shorter amount of time will keep the flavor more mild, while steeping it for longer will create more of that burning sensation you might find in commercial mouthwashes. It will clean your mouth the same either way, so it is up to your preference what flavor you want out of your mouthwash.

Cinnamon Clove Mouthwash

Yield: 4 Cups

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Learn how to make an easy cinnamon clove mouthwash using only four ingredients that will help give you that perfect smile!

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Ingredients

• 4 cups filtered water
• 6 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tablespoon whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions

1. Bring the water to a boil in a medium saucepan.
2. Once boiling, add in the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and salt.
3. Bring to a simmer and cover for 10 minutes.
4. Strain out the water into a heatproof glass container.
5. Let cool to room temperature.

To use:

Pour out about 3 to 5 teaspoons of mouthwash into a cup. Swish in your mouth for a minute and spit out.

Notes

Simmer the mouthwash for longer if you want it to have a stronger profile. Simmer it for a shorter period if you want a milder flavor.