Oil Pulling and Mouth Taping: Do They Work? The research (2026)

What do oil pulling and mouth taping claim?

Oil pulling is an Ayurvedic practice: you swish a tablespoon of edible oil (usually coconut or sesame) around your mouth for 5 to 20 minutes, then spit it out. Social media claims include whiter teeth, less plaque, healthier gums, fresher breath, and wider benefits such as "detoxing" the body, clearer skin and better immunity.

Mouth taping means sealing your lips with a strip of tape at night to force breathing through your nose. Claims include deeper sleep, less snoring, less dry mouth, fresher morning breath and, more recently, a sharper jawline.

Both are cheap, popular and easy to try, so it is worth separating the plausible claims from the rest.

What does the evidence show for oil pulling?

The best evidence comes from two systematic reviews. An Oxford review of five randomised trials (160 people, 10 to 45 days) found no significant difference in plaque between oil pulling and chlorhexidine mouthwash or placebo, and called the evidence limited (Gbinigie et al., 2016). A larger 2024 meta-analysis of 25 trials (1,184 people) found oil pulling improved gum inflammation scores compared with non-chlorhexidine rinses, but chlorhexidine was better for plaque, and the overall quality of evidence was very low (Jong et al., 2024).

Most oil pulling trials are small, short, carried out in a single centre and poorly blinded, which makes positive results easy to overstate.

What does the evidence show for mouth taping?

A 2025 systematic review in PLOS One found just 10 studies with 213 patients in total. Two showed improvements in sleep apnoea markers, such as the apnoea-hypopnoea index (AHI, the number of breathing pauses per hour); the others found no difference, and the authors warned of a "potentially serious risk of harm", including asphyxiation if the nose becomes blocked (Rhee et al., 2025). A 2026 meta-analysis found that nasal obstruction worsened sleep apnoea markers substantially (AHI up by about 14 events per hour), while two small mouth taping studies reported reduced AHI in people with mild sleep apnoea; there was too little data to pool (Alshehri et al., 2026).

Who might reasonably try them?

Oil pulling: adults with healthy teeth who enjoy the ritual and want an extra rinse, as long as it is in addition to brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste and cleaning between the teeth. Five minutes is plenty; there is no evidence that 20 minutes is better.

Mouth taping: possibly an adult with a clear nose, no signs of sleep apnoea, who has been told they breathe through their mouth and want to see whether it helps dry mouth. Even then, a doctor or dentist should check first, and you should use gentle, easily removable tape that does not seal the lips fully.

Who should be careful?

Oil pulling

• Children and anyone with swallowing difficulties. Accidentally inhaling oil can cause lipoid pneumonia (lung inflammation from oil), which has been reported after oil pulling in several case reports (BMC Pulmonary Medicine, 2015; Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease, 2018).
• Anyone replacing brushing with oil. It does not deliver fluoride, which is the best-evidenced way to protect teeth (Delivering Better Oral Health).
• Your plumbing. Spit used oil into a bin, not the sink.

Mouth taping

• Anyone who might have sleep apnoea. The NHS lists loud snoring, breathing that stops and starts, gasping or choking noises, and feeling very tired in the day as signs to see a GP (NHS: sleep apnoea). Untreated sleep apnoea is linked to stroke, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and accidents caused by tiredness, and if you are diagnosed you may need to tell the DVLA. Taping over symptoms can delay diagnosis.
• Anyone with a blocked nose, allergies, a cold, a deviated septum or nasal polyps.
• Children, and anyone who has drunk alcohol or taken sedatives, who may not wake easily if breathing becomes difficult.
• People with sensitive skin, as adhesives can irritate the lips.

The NHS snoring page advises seeing a GP if your snoring has a big impact on you or your partner, or if you feel sleepy in the day.

If you want to try: what to look for

For oil pulling: a plain edible oil you already have works the same as branded products. If you prefer a ready-made version, look for a short ingredient list, no added sugar and clear allergen labelling. Georganics Oil Pulling Mouthwash is a coconut, sunflower and MCT oil blend with peppermint in an aluminium bottle (£7.90 for 100ml). It contains wheat germ oil, so avoid it if you have a wheat allergy, and ignore the "detoxify" wording on the label.

For mouth taping: we are not recommending a specific product. If your doctor is happy for you to try it, choose a hypoallergenic, porous tape that leaves gaps at the corners of the mouth and can be peeled off instantly. Better first steps for snoring are on the NHS page: losing weight if needed, cutting alcohol before bed, sleeping on your side and treating a blocked nose.

Bottom line

Oil pulling is low cost and mostly harmless for adults who spit the oil out and keep brushing, with very low certainty evidence for a small benefit to gums; it is not a substitute for fluoride toothpaste and does not "detox" anything. Mouth taping has little good evidence of benefit and a real risk for people with nasal blockage or undiagnosed sleep apnoea. If you snore, wake unrefreshed or have been told you stop breathing at night, see a GP before you reach for tape.