To me, one of the more revolting thoughts of a morning ritual is drinking orange juice following brushing your teeth. I say that, but there was the whole experiment with Honey Nut Beerios during a beach week, but perhaps that is a discussion for a different post. The acrid taste in your mouth when you sip on some otherwise sweet, palatable juice can make you a prime candidate for a Keystone Light commercial. But why does it happen?
A friend of mine makes her own soap, and through various jabs back and forth, we've had long discussions about Sodium Lauryl Sulfite (SLS). If you look in various soaps and shampoos, you'll likely notice that it is a prominent ingredient. SLS is a surfactant, lowering surface tension between liquids or a liquid and a solid. It helps to cause the foaming that most are used to while cleaning. Additionally, SLS is surprisingly effective at lysing cell membranes (which are generally made of phospholipids), which is why duration of washing your hands will always be more beneficial than antibacterial soaps (heck, if the anti-vaccine nut jobs can get airtime, why not us anti-anti-bacterial soap folks??).
Focus... we're talking taste, not hand washing here. SLS has that covered too, and will act as an inhibitor to the sweet receptors on your tongue. But bringing up the hand washing isn't totally random here. Did you notice that I made mention of cell lysing and phospholipids? It just so happens that on your tongue, phospholipids also act as inhibitors to the bitter receptors. So when SLS removes these specific inhibitors, your mouth is much more sensitive to bitter tastes.
There are some studies out there which suggest that the interaction in your mouth will last approximately 1 hour before full taste senses are regained, but the data is actually quite sparse. There is also a study commissioned by the US Department Of Energy that suggests that part of the foul is caused by interactions with stannous fluoride (Tin(II) fluoride if any chemistry students I know want some practice), but I can't figure out how the DoE comes into play here so take that for what its worth.
My final thoughts for the day:
Apparently SLS can also be used as a shark repellent. Who knew the ocean tasted like orange juice to sharks? Oh yeah, and Honey Nut Beerios really are disgusting...