Mouth-taping is a recent phenomenon that has swept TikTok, advertising a better night’s sleep and a sharper jawline – but does it work?

The latest online trend is to tape your lips together when you go to bed to prevent mouth breathing and encourage breathing through your nose while asleep.

On Moncrieff, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland’s Professor Anne Curtis explained the new trend sweeping social media in more detail.

“Now, we're not talking about duct tape across the mouth," she said. "We're talking about a small piece of tape.

"There's certain different kind of X shapes or cross shapes that you put over your mouth from the top to the bottom lip.

“The idea is it will keep your lips closed as you sleep to basically force you to breathe through your nose for the night."

Prof Curtis said that seemingly mouth-taping has "taken off with a vengeance on TikTok".

"People are saying that it not only has great benefits in terms of you getting a good night's sleep but it can, pretty much, you know, re-alter the shape of your face," she said.

“What I would say is, first of all, in terms of changing the shape of your jaw and making that defined, there is absolutely no evidence for that.

“In terms of your sleep, it's a little bit more nuanced in that there are some small studies that have shown that mouth taping can reduce your snoring.”

Close up of a middle aged man with an anti-snore nose strip and mouth tape on. Image: Alamy

Prof Curtis said that most people breathe through their nose anyway but this might be useful for those who don’t.

She also said that those who snore a lot during the night might suffer from sleep apnoea and they would be “much better served” by going and seeing a respiratory physician.

Prof Curtis explained that there are “some benefits” from breathing through your nose.

“Our nose from kind of an immune point of view, it's almost like a barrier - it's like an immune barrier,” she said.

“So because we have nasal hair in our nose that traps, you know, a lot of the sort of bad stuff, you know, the bacteria, the viruses, all of that, it's kind of like a sieve.

“It controls the temperature of the air as well, so that the air that goes down into your lungs is just at the right temperature.”

According to Prof Curtis the “bad things” associated with mouth breathing are “bad breath, dry mouth” and it has “actually being shown to have an effect on our oral hygiene, in terms of cavities and gum diseases”.

“Nose breathing can be a really good thing, but you know, one thing I would say is, many of us could try to practice doing that during the day, we don't necessarily have to do that during the night,” she said.

Woman fed up of partner snoring. Image: Alamy

In terms of mouth-taping changing your jaw shape, Prof Curtis said this is simply untrue.

“Well, I wasn't so sure about this, so I actually contacted a good colleague of mine Cian Hehir, who's also in the RCSI [and he is] a surgeon and I asked him what he thought about that,” she said.

“He said it’s completely cod’s wallop - that your jaw is completely set when you're an adult.

“There may be something about that in terms of, you know, changing your jaw shape when you're a child but when you're an adult no amount of mouth-taping is actually going to change the shape or the definition of your jaw.”

Prof Curtis said the only real benefit to mouth-taping at night is to prevent snoring and for people to remember this is specially designed tape and not just duct tape you have at home.

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Man snoring while his wife is covering ears with the pillow. Image: Alamy