Don't put vanilla melts in your vagina

It's Friday and you don't want to talk about this but we're going to anyway.

Look, I just have to talk about these vagina melt things or else I don’t know - I might spontaneously combust or something. So grab a gin or your poison of choice and buckle up for some vag talk.

Here’s the deal: A new fad marketed on TikTok is potentially dangerous and exploits the lack of understanding young people may have about their bodies.

Vagina melts are a new spin on vaginal pessaries, except that suppositories are for a medical reason and melts are just a new way to convince a new generation that their vulvas smell weird and taste bad. Young influencers on TikTok are being used to encourage teenagers and young people to put melting suppositories inside them, claiming they’re “moisturisers” – but the reality is, they’re just one more product pushing people with vulvas to believe they need something to change the day-to-day smell of their vaginas.

One TikTok user finished her glowing review (with 2.2 million likes) of the vaginal melts with the words: "Bon appetit."  Another (79k likes) hashtagged her message with ‘fresh clean hype’.

Feminist author and advocate Clementine Ford says the melts are just another attack on women’s self-worth.

“This is just another way that patriarchy and capitalism work in tandem to first create women’s self-loathing, and then monetise it. Paranoia and misogyny has women waxing, shaving, douching, sheet masking and apparently now flavouring their vaginas in order to avoid men’s disdain and revulsion,” she says.

“But I’ve yet to see the marketplace address the same issues in men - which, if the other trend blowing up TikTok right now, in which young women compare their tidy houses to the rat infested, garbage pile hazardous waste zones their boyfriends are content to dwell in, seems to indicate there might actually be a need for.”

I have to agree. For a long time I’ve been championing better sex and sexuality education in schools and one of the reasons is because I believe we’ve failed young people in understanding their bodies.

It is crucial that young people know that their vulvas are not meant to smell or taste like a strawberry sundae or a rose garden. Someone has to tell them that vanilla does not need to be on the menu, or else TikTok will.

Most of us completely understand that the normal taste and smell of a vulva is different for every person. We generally recognise a strong smell is a sign of a potential health issue, not a call to put a blueberry melt inside you. But without frank and free talks with the young people in your life about their bodies – how will they know?

It’s our responsibility as parents to teach our children about their bodies. And regardless of whether you have young people you care for, we should all be championing better information for young people in school. We do not want them turning to TikTok instead of a Family Planning nurse or GP if they are confused about what’s going on with their body.

Sex education needs to teach young people about discharge as well as menstruation. It needs to cover this topic for all genders so young people aren’t pressuring each other to smell like roses, or put things inside them so they smell like roses!

WWJD?

Family Planning National Nurse Advisor Rose Stewart says the message needs to get through that vulvas do not need douching and suppositories to be “clean”.

“We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – your vagina doesn’t need moisturising, steaming, melting, or douching. In fact, most of the time your vagina will thank you most for following some basic hygiene rules and then leaving it alone. Wiping front to back after you’ve peed, washing gently when you’re in the shower is all you need. Products – and vaginal melts are just one example – that claim to clean or improve your vagina, are expensive and unnecessary. They’re feeding the insecurities that many women feel about their bodies and the notion that there’s something wrong with them that needs fixing, or something unclean about them that needs sanitising.”

A lack of education feeds into this. Stewart says a lot of people don’t know their vagina from their vulva.

“Simply put, the vagina is on the inside and the vulva is on the outside. When we do things that interfere with our body’s natural processes – like moisturising, steaming, melting or douching, or shaving or waxing, we risk damaging the skin which puts us at more risk of infection. Unless it’s sore or itchy, our very best advice is to leave it alone!  And if it is sore or itchy – get it checked by a nurse or a Family Planning doctor.”

Head of Customer Satisfaction at Adulttoymegastore Emma Hewitt says there is a lot of misinformation out there about caring for your vulva. Prior to Covid 19 she planned information evenings for adults to better understand their bodies.

“Putting things not meant for your vulva into your vulva isn’t a good idea. That might sound obvious, but we know that people do this. Using something like a cucumber or an electric toothbrush will throw off your PH balance and could give you a yeast infection. People need to avoid anything food-related really.”

With so many products on the market it can be hard to know what’s safe and what isn’t. “Lubricants need to be from a reliable company and you should check the ingredient,” Hewitt says. Just because someone says something is natural, it doesn’t mean it’s natural.

She recommends anyone with a sensitive vulva choose lubricant that is free of fragrance, sugar, Glycerol or Glycerine, parabens and propylene glycol. “They are all super common in lubricants and are ingredients that need to be avoided if you are prone to UTIs, yeast infections, or if you have any sort of skin sensitivities.”

It’s crucial she says to make sure if you’re having sex, it’s safe. A vaginal melt will interfere with a latex condom and could cause it to break. “Anything oil-based is going to mess with latex condoms. Oil breaks down latex making your condom no longer safe and making your latex toys porous.”

A quest to have a fancy smelling vulva could cause an unwanted pregnancy or an STI. And all because marketing teams are creating insecurities and exploiting them for profit. We can overcome this, but it involves a commitment to talking to our kids and ensuring schools are adequately covering sex and sexuality education.

All of this is information that adults should know, but when folks don’t even know what a vulva should smell like then it’s understandable there’s confusion. Stewart says when it comes down to it, a vulva shouldn’t smell like vanilla.

“A vulva should smell like a vulva – the idea that it’s meant to be fragrant or flavoured like a melon is just an invention. Unless you’ve a smelly discharge – which can signal an infection or an STI – your vulva should smell pretty neutral. Sort of earthy or musty. It certainly shouldn’t smell like vagina melts or pineapples or cantaloupes or any other kind of fruit or vegetable”

Bon appetit.