A kiss can make you feel everything, or it can make you feel nothing. Therefore, a common purpose of the kiss is helping determine your attaction to someone. A kiss can make or break your relationship: it is the separator between friend and lover.

It could be argued that a kiss is just as intimate as sex, and makes just as much of an impact. I remember certain kisses more than most of my sexual encounters.

Here are my ingredients for a good kiss:

It's common sense, but too many people are guilty of having bad breath. Bad breath can happen to you! Practice self-awareness and make sure you keep your teeth clean and your breath fresh. It doesn't matter how good a kisser you are, bad breath will ruin everything.

Whether it's the end of a first date, or after a few weeks of dating, the anticipation you build creates tension and you break the tension with a kiss. It's like the anxious moments in any good developing story. Make sure you don't wait so long that the other person questions whether you're interested in them...or the opposite sex, as I'm prone to do.

When you're leaning in for a kiss, you can't use your mouth to speak, so why not say something with eye contact? But, I make sure to close my eyes during the actual kiss because it's a little creepy when one of us has our eyes open, and it can be distracting. For instance, I couldn't have kissed anyone with my eyes open this past week with Discovery Channel on in the background because it was Shark Week-- I would have totally snuck some peeks at the TV. They say that blind people's senses other than sight are enhanced. Temporary blindness during a kiss may intensify the way a kiss feels, the sound of another person's breathing, or the touch of their hand.

A good kiss is powerful, so you should just let it grip you and go with it. The moment is broken if you try to control it.

We are all guilty of kissing people we weren't into: maybe on the dance floor, or during a moment of weakness late night in the bar. If you only kiss people you really want to kiss, those kisses will be a lot better. Kissing too many people might lead to numbness. But on the other hand, some people might tell you "practice makes perfect".

Kissing is a team effort. Don't squelch someone's spirit by going on the offensive or taking control. Feel each other's tendencies out, and go from there.

Tongue use can be great, or horrible. My buddy was dating a girl who continuously licked his face when they kissed. It led to them breaking up. Remember, it's a kiss, not a facial wash. No one likes to be attacked by a tongue, or have their entire mouth filled by someone's tongue. But a tongue used well can make a kiss great.

Catching someone off guard with a kiss can be a wonderful thing. Give them a little gift when they least expect it.

Whether it's candlelight, a tent under the stars, in the ocean, or in a sudden rain storm, special/new surroundings make a kiss interesting. Because your eyes are closed most of the time during a kiss, you'll hear and even feel the things that are going on around you more clearly.

Make sure, like your tongue, you control your saliva. Don't create river of slobber down your chins.

Don't get fixated on someone's face. Touching their neck or sides, or just holding them close during a kiss makes it even better.