Hygiene is one of those things everyone is expected to know but no one ever talks about, and there’s more to it than just wearing deodorant and rinsing with mouthwash.

You probably remember that Sunday afternoon when your dad pulled you aside and taught you how to shave like a man. Unfortunately, this is about the only formal lesson you got in personal hygiene and grooming. From that point on, you were on your own.

Perhaps this is all a big conspiracy put on by the makers of Axe Body Spray; they want to ensure that guys have no idea how to avoid smelling like sweaty apes without dousing themselves in cologne and deodorant. Or maybe it’s just not very cool for bros to sit around and brag about their personal hygiene. Either way, there are some serious hygiene habits that are missing from the average male’s daily routine.

Here’s what you should be doing on a regular basis:
Inside Your Mouth

The freshness of your breath is the ambassador of your words. You could be whispering the sweetest of sonnets into someone’s ear, but if you smell like you just gargled a sewer rat, it’s going to be a turnoff no matter what.

These tips will help keep things fresh all day:

Invest in a decent electric toothbrush. Every time I see my dentist, he slips me a $10 coupon for an electric toothbrush. Either he’s a shill (doubt it) or these things really work. The key is to get a decent one, not just one of those regular toothbrushes that vibrates. You should spend at least $100 on your starter kit, if not a little more.

You can get a Philips Sonicare FlexCare brush that will treat you right for $111 or so. Or, if you’re on a budget, you can spend $35 on an Oral-B Vitality Dual Clean. While clearly inferior to the higher end models, it has something that is guaranteed to improve your brushing: a 2-minute timer. A timer ensures that you’re brushing for the recommended amount of time. You might be surprised at how little time you spend on your teeth currently.

Floss everyday. We all know that flossing is important, but few of us do it consistently. But it’s really, really worth it. It’ll freshen your breath, prevent gum disease and save you from those withering looks from your dental hygienist.

The problem for most guys, though, is the hardware. I’m willing to bet that if flossing wasn’t such a pain in the ass, you’d do it more often. Try buying a cheap reusable floss holder instead of using naked floss. You can get a pack of three for $10 and keep refilling them with normal floss. Heck, with one of these, you might even enjoy flossing.

Avoid those disposable flossers that you’ll see in the checkout lines at grocery stores. Not only will they cost you way more in the long run, but they produce a lot of garbage as well.

Bonus tip: According to the American Dental Association, it doesn’t matter if you brush then floss or floss then brush, just so long as you use an ADA approved product and do both tasks diligently.
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Brush your tongue. Buildup on your tongue not only looks disgusting, but it’s the number one cause of bad breath. Giving your tongue a good scrub when you’re brushing your teeth can nix this. But if you have a sensitive gag flex, you might want to try some of these tips:

Make a fist with your left hand with your thumb inside and hold it tightly. For many people, this suppresses the gag reflex; no one is sure why.
Exhale through your mouth as you brush.
Brush perpendicular to your tongue (i.e. side to side) rather than back and forth.

If all else fails, buy a tongue scraper (ask your dentist) or use a piece of floss to scrape your tongue.

Investigate for tonsil stones. Tonsil stones, or tonsillolith, are solidified deposits of food, bacteria and other junk that collects in the nooks and crannies of your tonsils. As you can imagine, they smell pretty nasty. So, if you have chronic bad breath, you may want to scope out the back of your mouth and see if you can spot any of these buggers.

You can see some pictures of what you’re looking for here. To remove them, try gargling with salt water or knocking them out with a toothpick or Q-tip. If all else fails, ask your doctor–you may be prescribed antibiotics, or in extreme cases, undergo surgery to remove your tonsil stones.

In the Shower

Showering feels like hitting the “reset” button on your accumulated stank. But chances are, you’re doing it wrong. Consider changing it up:

Don’t shower everyday. Your mileage may vary on this, but most people don’t need to shower every day. In fact, showering every day strips away the necessary oils in your skin and hair, which makes your body produce more to compensate. You can probably get away with showering once every other day. If you can’t swing that, skip the shampoo every other shower. If your hair gets greasy spots, try sprinkling some baby powder around the roots between shampoo days.

You might also want to consider a dry shampoo for no-shower days. You can make your own by grinding together 1 cup of oatmeal with 1 cup of baking soda. Sprinkle it on your roots, wait a few minutes and then comb it out. Fresh!

Wash your face with honey. If you have extremely sensitive skin, or are just looking for a cheap organic face wash, try this: Wash your face with honey. I mean it. Go to your nearest hippy food co-op or Whole Foods and get some local, raw honey (commercial honey is often too processed to have the same benefits). Honey is a natural humectant (e.g. moisturizes without leaving oily residue) and exfoliant. It even has natural antibacterial qualities.

Wet your face in the shower and massage it into your face. Leave it there as you wash the rest of your body and rinse it off last thing before getting out.

Actually wash your feet. Guess what? Soaking your feet in half an inch of soapy runoff while standing in the shower doesn’t count as washing your feet. Get in there with a wash cloth and scrub your toes and the bottom of your feet. This will help you kick embarrassing foot fungus and other odorous or unsightly issues.

Cool off before hopping out of the shower. This may sound masochistic, but right before you get out of the shower, turn it on full blast cold. There are numerous benefits to this so-called James Bond Shower (see: awesome article from The Art of Manliness), chiefly in the hair and skin department. But in the summer, it also prevents you from sweating the moment you step out of the shower and getting stinky all over again.

Down South
This is where things get really dirty. On any given day, all this business in your boxers is yours and yours alone. But when things get up close and personal, bad hygiene downstairs becomes much more noticeable. Follow these measures, or risk having her ask “who’s got the funk?” the next time you get down.

Pop a squat. If you’ve been to the non-touristy parts of Asia or Africa, then you’ve likely encountered a squat toilet. To you, these may seem primitive, possibly gross. But in reality, squatting is the most natural position for taking care of business, with numerous health benefits. It requires less straining and leaves less residue behind. In fact, many public squatting toilets don’t even provide toilet paper, since it’s often not necessary when you’re popping a squat.

Elevating your feet can give you some of the smooth moving benefits of a squat toilet, even on your dumb American toilet. A six-inch footrest should do the trick. If you don’t want guests asking you why you have a step stool in front of the can, then you could try using a big pack of toilet paper as a footrest.

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