Personal hygiene is a crucial part of our everyday lives that helps us stay healthy and keep infections away.
Besides that, it also gives us a sense of self-confidence when we know we’re clean and presentable.
To maintain good hygiene, we often find ourselves researching on what we can do to improve and spend a lot on different products. And one very important area when it comes to hygiene is feminine hygiene.
Feminine hygiene is all about keeping our lady parts clean. You might think you know everything there is to know about it but, did you know about these myths you should be avoiding?
- Discharge equals infection
Often, when we think about feminine hygiene, there is pressure to keep everything prefect. There is this ideal of having a perfect, discharge-free vagina but that myth isn’t doing anything to help.
Although it’s true that infections can come with different types of discharges, it doesn’t mean that all discharge is bad. When the vagina cleaning itself, it’s normal to see some discharge and that is normal.
A major difference between normal discharge and discharge you should worry about is whether the discharge is accompanied with other unusual symptoms.
- You should always smell like roses down there
This is another myth that is commonly believed. It’s made so many ladies feel embarrassed about themselves when in reality, it’s totally natural to have different smells.
Just because there are scented products like sprays, pills and deodorants marketed to you doesn’t mean that you should be using them. These products actually trigger infections.
You shouldn’t worry if you have some smells down there because our lady parts naturally have different natural smells.
- You need to wash with soap to be clean
The assumption that you need to handle your vagina like any other part of your body while cleaning simply isn’t true. Many people aren’t educated on how to clean up properly so they end up scrubbing themselves down there with soap in order to feel clean.
These areas are very delicate and any small thing can cause irritation. For the most part the vagina is self-cleaning and the best thing to use is plain water and a soft wash cloth to clean the outside.
- You must always shave
Whether you choose to shave or not is a personal choice. And if you don’t want to, it doesn’t mean that you’re automatically unhygienic. You can maintain by keeping the area clean and doing an occasional trim and that is enough.
You don’t always have to rush to buy all sort of shaving product because you can still be perfectly clean if you choose not to shave.
- You still need to douche
Douching is a common practice that has been there for a long time. There are even douching kits still being sold that are supposedly meant to help maintain perfect hygiene.
As much as there are many studies that show clear negative effects of douching, it’s still a common practice.
Douching has been linked to higher risks of complications like Pelvic Inflammatory Disease and it’s not advisable. It doesn’t do much to make your vagina cleaner and in fact, it could invite serious health complications.
