Please don't try to mask the natural smell of your vagina

Earlier this month a doctor warned women about the dangers of cleansing their vaginas with cucumbers. And now Dr Jen Gunter is offering women some more down-there advice, this time about how it should smell.

According to the leading gynaecologist, the vagina has a natural smell and using cucumbers or anything else to clean it can actually be pretty harmful.

What’s more, Dr Gunter claims any man who complains about the natural odour of a women’s lady parts should be given their marching orders because not only can it affect a person’s body image, she believes it is a form of abuse.

“If your partner insinuates that an artificial smell is preferable to the smell of a normal vagina they are the one who has an issue,” she writes in her latest blog post.

“Telling women how they can be better is a classic way of tapping into body image issues and honestly in my personal opinion it is a form of abuse.”

Her advice comes after sharing her own experience of a boyfriend complaining about the smell of her vagina.

“I once dated a guy who insinuated my vagina did not smell right,” she wrote. “When it came around to telling me how my vagina could be better it finally clicked that this is a form of control that men often use. Fortunately I am an appropriately confident vagina expert and I had a light bulb moment and dumped his sorry a**.”

Now Dr Gunter wants to urge women not to feel embarrassed or ashamed about the way the smell down-there and not to consider buying products to mask the odour or create an artificial smell in it’s place.

As Dr Gunter has pointed out previously, your vagina is self-cleaning which means it doesn’t need any additional cleansing and anything you use to try and clean it could disrupt the good bacteria and pH balance, which could lead to discomfort at best, infection at worse.

“For what I am sure is the 100th time the vagina needs no cleaning and the vulva needs very little,” she writes. “I know the array of useless feminine washes and wipes at the drugstore and the drivel spouted by Gwyneth Paltrow via GOOP imply otherwise, but I’m the actual expert.”

Vaginas have been creating their fair share of headlines this year. We’ve had the woman who turned her labia in to jewellery, the vagina inspired catwalk show at NYFW and the artist making vulva nails a thing.

There have also been several warnings about the things you really shouldn’t insert into your ladyparts including make up sponges, glitter bombs, ozone gas and wasps nests.

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