Scarleteen

It seems every 2 seconds an ad for Lume or a similar product pops up on TV. My question is do these products do more harm than good? What chemicals are in them? It's obvious that private parts aren't supposed to smell like roses. Do you feel these products are bogus and promote myths and have negative
bod image affects? I thought because of UTI and infections that you were never supposed to put anything like that down below.

Hi Chocolate Moose,

You're right that putting anything like deodorant or a douche directly on the vulva increases the odds of getting an infection rather than doing anything useful.

I'm also not a huge fan of Lume and similar products because they do seem to play into that fear that our genitals smell "wrong" and need to be fixed by buying something. People can use whatever they want on their bodies, and I do think it's courteous to be mindful of our overall body odor if we're going to be around other people. But there's a way a lot of these products talk where they act like the worst thing that could happen during your workout or during sex is that someone notices your body smells, rather than just acknowledging that yep, sometimes our bodies don't smell amazing because of things like sweat.