If you have a baby powder taste in your mouth, it might be a possible result of poorly washed dishes and food, medications, brain injury, gum disease, allergy and infections, pregnancy, cancer treatment, or smoking. Some of these issues can be easily resolved by taking care of them yourself, and others might require medical help. But if you’re craving baby powder, that could mean your body lacks some essential minerals that need to be taken care of by eating nutritional meals.
Since obviously, you haven’t been consuming baby powder, it’s a taste described as perfumed flour, metallic taste, or a soapy taste.
Consuming baby powder is the most common reason for getting this taste in your mouth. But several other situations can create this similar taste in your mouth. It does make you wonder how you could possibly get this powdery taste in your mouth.
It might be a sudden discovery that you’re getting a taste as if you actually ate baby powder. Something this unfamiliar can be annoying when you don’t know the reasons behind such a taste.
Let’s look at possible factors that could be causing this soapy taste in your mouth and what remedies you need to opt to get rid of it!
Potential causes for baby powder taste in the mouth
As mentioned earlier, this baby powder taste in the mouth is described as a soapy taste or even metallic taste in the mouth. It’s very similar to feeling like you also ate soap in some way.
The baby powder does smell good, and no one resists such a sweet smell, especially when babies have it on.
But things take a different turn when you get this familiar taste in your mouth. Below are some possible causes that might explain this taste in your mouth.
1. Poorly washed dishes and food
Properly washing your dishes is extremely necessary. If there’s soap left on the dishes, and you haven’t rinsed your dishes properly, it can harm your digestive system.
One possible reason behind getting this baby powder taste in your mouth could be because you haven’t been rinsing your dishes properly for quite some time now. If it happens once or twice, it won’t show that much, but if some time has passed, it’ll start to show by feeling this metallic taste in your mouth.
Not just failed rinsed dishes but other factors included are:
- Not rinsing the fruits and vegetables properly
- Failing to wash dishes thoroughly
- Forgetting to scrub the steel straws from inside with a brush
- Not cleaning hands properly before making meals
If this is the reason why you have a baby powder taste in your mouth, then you can make sure this goes away by cleaning dishes and your food correctly. It’ll slowly eliminate this weird taste from your mouth.
2. Certain medicines
Not all, but sometimes certain medications can leave you with a bad aftertaste. The aftertaste of these medicines can make you feel like you just had some baby powder with a soapy aftertaste.
If you recently changed your medications or started on some new ones, they might have a drug that is the real culprit behind this situation. It can be annoying so look at your medicines and what drugs it contains and probably ask for alternatives from your doctor.
3. Brain injury
If you recently suffered from a brain injury, it could be a possible reason for getting mixed up tastes in your mouth with issues in your taste buds and mind unable to recognize them.
Our brain is responsible for sending signals to different parts of the body and receiving information back. If our brains can’t recognize these tastes and differ from one another, it can cause problems.
A brain injury can also end up messing with your taste buds and trying to identify various tastes. It can cause you to think you are tasting baby powder, but that might not be the case. It’s better to consult your doctor and get the proper diagnosis and treatment for your loss of smell.
4. Gum disease
Gum diseases are common if someone doesn’t take proper care of their oral hygiene. It includes brushing two times a day and flossing. If you don’t maintain good oral hygiene, food particles can easily cause various problems like infections, tooth decay, and gum diseases.
These issues can result in getting a weird smell from your mouth, including a soapy or peculiar metallic taste. If you notice other symptoms along with this taste of baby powder-like swelling, redness, and tooth pain, you should visit your dentist right away.
5. Allergies and infections
Sometimes seasonal allergies are also responsible for messing with your taste buds. This loss of smell can develop particular weird tastes, such as eating baby powder.
Another similar impact is having a sinus infection where your nose is stuffy, and you can barely smell or taste things as you initially do. When these allergies or infections act up and become stronger, it becomes difficult to tell tastes apart as they affect your sense of smell.
6. Pregnancy
During this time, the hormones start acting up and taste changes. Pregnant people get averted to some foods but crave some others, depending on their sense of smell.
It can mess up with the foods and cravings to an extent where even a pregnant woman reported cravings for baby powder.
Of course, you can’t eat baby powder, but our minds also play tricks into thinking we did get a taste of it. So, you might want to talk to your doctor for a solution to your weird cravings.
7. Cancer treatment
It can be challenging for someone who has cancer and receiving radiation and chemotherapy to maintain the same taste platter as others.
Those who are being treated suffer from an altered sense of taste and sense of smell. It could be another reason for people to get a taste of baby powder in their mouths.
8. Smoking
If you have recently upped your game on smoking more than usual, you need to know some prominent side effects. It’s damaging your body more, and it also changes the way you taste things.
All the inhaled chemicals will affect your tongue, the taste buds, and how different foods smell and taste. It can mess up your sense of smell and specific tastes with others, causing you to think you might have eaten baby powder.
Can you crave baby powder?
You can have a craving for consuming baby powder.
Just like people crave eating chalk, dirt, paint chips, glue, paper, sand, and ice, amongst many other non-food items, people can crave eating talcum powder and, more specifically, baby powder too.
A name for these kinds of cravings does exist, and it’s called pica, an eating disorder where a person craves non-nutritive and non-food items.
But the main reason behind such cravings is because a person is deficient in one or more minerals in their body, including iron, calcium, and zinc.
Baby powder has talc, a naturally occurring mineral, and it’s your body’s way of telling you that you lack a specific mineral. Depending on whichever mineral you’re lacking, you might observe symptoms in your body that need attention.
Craving baby powder could also be a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Even pregnant women might crave it.
FAQs
Why do I have a powdery taste in my mouth?
Your teeth lack mineral content which can make them prone to breaking off easily. A condition called hypomineralization is when there’s decreased mineral content in your mouth, resulting in exposed enamel.
Eating foods high in oxalic acid like strawberries or spinach can also be a temporary side effect. It’s better to visit your dentist if you’ve been experiencing it for quite some time now.
What to do if you inhale baby powder?
If someone has accidentally inhaled baby powder, it’s best to move them to an open area. Ask them to breathe in the fresh air. Do not tell them to rinse or throw up.
Seek medical help and take them to a hospital right away. Things differ depending on how much baby powder has been inhaled.
Is it safe to eat baby powder during pregnancy?
If you’re craving baby powder during pregnancy, that implies that you have a deficiency of some minerals. It simply means your meals lack proper nutritional value.
This condition is known as pica, when the body is deficient in certain minerals and craves non-edible items. It occurs more in pregnant women because their bodies have increased nutritional needs, probably not being met.
Is Johnson and Johnson baby powder safe?
Many women reported against Johnson & Johnson, claiming that it causes ovarian cancer over prolonged use. The FDA found some small amounts of asbestos in a sample of this brand.
But the brand claims it’s safe as ever, and the mild nature of products hasn’t proved to cause any such medical issues. Still, they have pulled away from the markets of North America.
Can cigarettes make you lose a sense of taste?
Smoking can indeed affect your sense of taste and smell.
A study conducted on smokers sniffing different food items failed to identify six out of eight odors. They are mainly unable to identify a bitter taste or salt.
This can also mess up with their mind trying to differentiate between different food items and their taste. It can create confusion, and one can end up thinking they consumed baby powder somehow.
To summarize
Unless you have an addiction to eating baby powder, you don’t need to rush to a hospital and seek medical help immediately.
If you’ve been feeling a baby powder taste in your mouth, then you probably didn’t rinse your dishes well enough last time.
It can be as common as that, or pregnant women might be craving baby powder because their body lacks minerals. Whatever the real issue might be, it’s easier now to narrow it down and try to eliminate the problem to get rid of this unusual taste in your mouth!
