It's morning and you have to leave in exactly one minute if you want to make your train. The only problem? You haven't yet brushed your teeth. Obviously, you don’t have time for a deep clean, so you skim your toothbrush over your not-so-pearly whites and then swill some mouthwash. That’s just as good as just cleaning your teeth, right?

Perhaps not. “You’ve got to do the brushing properly – and the mouthwash, if you want to use it, is something to make you feel better,” says Dr Toby Edwards-Lunn, a dental practitioner at West Terrace Dental Practice in Eastbourne. “But you can’t avoid brushing your teeth and use mouthwash and think that you’re getting away with it.”

Does swilling the minty liquid actually bring any added benefit? For years, it has been suggested that mouthwash is hogwash – although that hasn't stopped demand for the product growing significantly. Here, two dental experts address their own scepticism, explain who should be using mouthwash, and share their tips on how we should use it.

Does mouthwash work?

The benefits of mouthwash have been exaggerated, according to Dr Edwards-Lunn. “We all know the TV advert where the mouthwash is swished between the teeth, cleans everything and leaves them all sparkling clean,” he says. “It effectively doesn’t do that.”