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We all know that brushing and flossing are gospel when it comes to oral hygiene, but guidance on caring for your tongue isn’t hammered home from your dentist and parents in the same way. Thank goodness we now have TikTok to tell us how to live our lives! Kidding—but it’s true that whenever there’s an information vacuum, social media will rush to fill it, and tongue scraping has gained traction with clock app users as a solution for a cleaner mouth and better breath.
Interest piqued? The idea caught our attention at SELF HQ too, so we did what we do best—asked the experts if the practice (using a metal or plastic tool to scrape the plaque off your tongue) is legit and then tried it out for ourselves.
Plaque, which is made up of bacteria and food remnants, poses a big threat to your mouth because it can cause cavities and gum disease. While the impact of tongue plaque on your overall oral health hasn’t been studied, experts do agree that a film on your tongue could indicate that you’ve been slacking in the hygiene department and contribute to the buildup of bacteria in your mouth. Oh yeah, and a funky tongue can also lead to bad breath.“There’s evidence relating cleaning of the tongue to improvement of malodor,” Leena Palomo, DDS, a board-certified periodontist and the chair of the Ashman Department of Periodontology and Implant Dentistry at NYU, tells SELF.
Some people also enjoy tongue scraping because they find it satisfying to see all that gunk come off (sorry for the visual). That’s what got Alice Boghosian, a spokesperson for the American Dental Association, into it: “After I brushed my tongue, I saw what the scraper took off and I was like Oh, I need to clean this,” she says. “Scraping your tongue is not going to hurt. It’s just an added step, and if it makes you feel better, do it. It makes me feel better. So I scrape my tongue in the morning and the evening.” It gives a new meaning to “no harm, no foul.”
Now that you’re in the loop on tongue scraping, it’s time to get you the right tool for the job. We tried out a few of the best tongue scrapers to give you a sense of how they actually work and feel. Honestly, we’re hooked, and we think you will be too.
- Shop the best tongue scrapers
- How do you use a tongue scraper?
- How often should you use a tongue scraper?
- Comes with travel case
- Feels durable
- Inexpensive
- Too much pressure hurts
I haven’t been excited about anything related to my oral hygiene routine since I had a Tooth Tunes brush that played Miley Cyrus’s music while I cleaned my teeth. (I was maybe 11.) All that is to say, trying this MasterMedi scraper gave me more enthusiasm for my mouth-care routine than I’ve had in years. The U-shaped metal device initially reminded me of the tools my mom breaks out once every summer to crack open lobster, which weirded me out a little, but I quickly moved past that once I actually tried it.
To get all of the white film off my tongue, I glide the device over its surface about three times, once in the center and once on each side. I got the hang of it quickly; my only piece of advice is to start off gently—this tool is pretty sharp and too much pressure will hurt. The whole routine takes about 20 seconds, and it just makes my mouth feel that much cleaner. As a nice bonus, the scraper comes with a plastic travel case that I’ve used from the get-go to keep it clean and protected in my medicine cabinet.
Material: Stainless steel
- Helps with morning breath
- Water stains it
You don’t need to get a tongue scraper that’s pretty enough to be sold at Anthropologie, but hey, why not? This copper one not only looks good, but it actually helped our tester’s breath. “Despite my best efforts, my morning breath can be pretty, uh, intense, so it was nice to see that something as simple as scraping my tongue a few times could help prevent it,” she says. Similar to the MasterMedi, you’ll need to do a few swipes over the tongue to catch everything.
Worth noting: The copper looks pretty, but it stains. “I followed the brand's directions and cleaned it after every use, but there are a couple water stains that seem to be stuck there for good,” our tester says.
Material: Copper
- Flexible design
- Easy to control
- Inexpensive
- Sharp enough to cause nicks
DrTung’s scraper is the same U shape as the first two, but has two grippy handles our tester appreciates: “I feel like I have more control by being able to hold both ends and add some pressure to get more of the yucky-ness off my tongue,” she says. The device has some bend to help you maneuver it, but you’ll probably want to do at least two passes over your tongue to make sure you grab all of the plaque. “It’s kind of hard to get the back back, so the first pass gets like 70% and I have to do one or two more to go deeper,” our tester says. “My mouth feels instantly refreshed after using it.”
Some advice: Make sure to go slow and only apply gentle pressure while you get the hang of this. “It’s pretty sharp, which is great at scraping, but keep that in mind because it has cut the corners of my mouth when I don't adjust it properly,” our tester says.
Material: Stainless steel
- Can be used one-handed
- Improves tongue color and texture
- Pricier than others
Instead of a curve that pulls the plaque off your tongue, this tool has a loop at the top of a single handle. It offers the same plaque-lifting benefits of the others on this list, but has a design that’s way easier to use one-handed. The metal edges on this doohickey are also purposefully blunt to help prevent cuts or aggressive-scraping-induced injury.
For our tester, this scraper entered her life right on time: “During a routine visit a few months ago, my doctor pointed out a white film on my tongue. (Embarrassing!)” she says. “I’ve been sure to give the surface a good brushing each morning and night since then, but I’ve seen limited improvement. After a week of using this medical-grade stainless steel tongue scraper from Davids, however, I’ve noticed a smoother, more even texture and color to my tongue.”
Material: Stainless steel
- Easy to clean
- Lightweight
- Inexpensive
- Some reviewers don’t like the ridges on the scraper side
This has a similar design to the David’s scraper, with a single handle that turns into a loop. But one side of this cleaner is a scallop-edged scraper and the other has bristles to get down into the grooves of your tongue. Reviewers say the bristles are strong and provide a better cleaning than what you get with a toothbrush. “What a magnificently disgusting device to use. The first time I used this, it sloughed so much gross gunk off my tongue,” one Amazon reviewer says. “I noticed that adding this to my oral health regimen has greatly reduced issues with bad breath.”
Material: Plastic
First off, don’t use any tools that aren’t specifically designed for tongue scraping. “You have to be very careful,” Dr. Boghosian says. “I had a patient who said she was using a butter knife.” Don’t be like that person.
Once you have a proper tool, stick your tongue out as far as possible and place the scraper as far back as you can without making yourself gag. Use gentle pressure to sweep any debris or coating forward and off your tongue. Wash whatever is on the tongue scraper off under your faucet. If you didn’t get everything in one swoop, move the device over to the next area of your tongue and repeat the same forward motion.
There really aren’t rules around how often you should use a tongue scraper, since there’s so little research on the benefits of it to begin with. You can do it when you brush your teeth in the morning, at night, or both of those times. It’s purely your preference.
The most important thing is that you don’t let brushing and flossing fall to the wayside because of scraping. “A lot of times, when we add things to a routine, it takes away from the basics. So the first caution would be: Don’t let tongue scraping or anything else come in between that absolute blanket recommendation of brushing twice a day—two minutes each time with a soft toothbrush—and flossing,” Dr. Palomo says.
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