If your intimate part were a song, she’d be “Independent Women, Pt. 1” by Destiny’s Child—she can take care of herself. The truth is, your intimate part really doesn’t need much help when it comes to staying clean and healthy. Basic maintenance of your lady parts doesn’t require strenuous effort—we’re talking about getting annual well-woman exams, Pap smears and HPV tests every five years, wearing breathable underwear, and avoiding UTIs, among other things.
As you age, your intimate part goes through a lot—particularly childbirth and menopause—and you may see changes in appearance and dryness. It’s tempting to turn to the latest trends that claim to nourish your lady parts, but if your intimate part is ever making you physically uncomfortable, it’s best to go straight to your doctor rather than hop on any of these hype trains. Unfortunately, some ladies still insist on messing around or tidying up down there in the most, ah, creative of ways. Here are four common moves that can go very, very wrong.
First of all, stay far away from intimate part steaming.
We’re all for the Goop-y philosophy of living your very best, healthiest life. But when Gwyneth Paltrow starts doling out patently bad advice, we’ve got to draw the line. Your intimate part isn’t a carpet—you should not steam clean it. According to our friends at Women’s Health (and because Goop took down the post due to justifiable backlash), Paltrow defined steaming for V as when you “sit on what is essentially a mini-throne, and a combination of infrared and mugwort steam cleanses your uterus, et al. It is an energetic release—not just a steam douche—that balances female hormone levels.”
Self-medicating is always a bad call.
Those over-the-counter intimate part creams or suppositories for yeast infections have their place; this is about the more homespun approach people sometimes try. “You should never try to self-medicate with homemade remedies like garlic or tea tree oil,” says Dardik. At the very least, they won’t make a dent in your misery. At the very worst? Well, it’s not pretty. “I’ve seen chemical burns from some of these Internet suggestions, and a chemical burn inside of your intimate part is not something I’d wish on anyone,” says Dardik.
The douching really needs to stop.
Pretty sure you know this already, but just in case: Your downstairs isn’t supposed to smell like a tropical breeze. “These products do exactly the wrong thing to the intimate part microbiome, making it more susceptible to infection,” says Constance Young, MD, assistant professor at Columbia University Medical Center’s department of obstetrics and gynecology.
The female body can really do some amazing things.
We’re not going to give you some spiel about the intimate part being a “self-cleaning oven”—you’ve heard it before, and frankly, we like to keep our cooking metaphors separate from our genital care. Buuuut, it’s totally true. Your hoo-ha maintains its own special pH-balanced environment, thanks to the lactobacillus bacteria present in it. When you squirt a douching mixture up there, you’re changing the normally acidic environment to a neutralized one—and inhibiting your intimate part from protecting itself.
We know what you’re thinking: If it’s so bad for you, why are there so many products on the market? “It’s all about marketing that’s not based on any science—it’s the equivalent to Febreze, but for a more intimate setting,” says Young. If you absolutely, positively feel the need to freshen things up, stick to the tried-and-true method of (surprise!) unscented soap and water—but only on the outside.
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