A doctor has warned women against participating in a bizarre new trend dubbed the “vagina facial”.
The craze involves a woman inserting a peeled cucumber into her vagina and twisting it around for 20 minutes.
Bloggers have claimed that the high vitamin content of the cucumber sanitises the genitals and gives it a “pleasant odour”, while reducing your risk of an STIs.
However, Canadian gynaecologist Dr Jen Gunter said doing this with a cucumber can actually increase your risk of a sexually transmitted disease.
Inserting the cucumber will upset the natural pH balance of the vagina and leave a bad odour, contradicting the blogger’s claims.
Dr Jen said: “This idea that some kind of vaginal cleansing is required, be it a peeled cucumber or the ‘feminine washes’ sold at drugstores, is misogyny dressed up as health care and I am having none of it.
“Vaginas are not dirty. Study after study after study tells us that douches, cleanses, steams, vinegar, pH balancing products, aloe, colloidal silver, garlic or whatever else passing as the vaginal snake oil du jour at best do nothing but have real potential for harming good bacteria or disrupting the mucosal surface.”
Rather than cleansing the vagina, using a cucumber on female genitals will damage the lactobacilli and the mucosa which will increase a woman’s risk of gonorrhoea or HIV.
Women also risk fungus growing in their vaginas by using the vegetable to cleanse as the vegetables can pick up fungi in a vegetable patch. These fungi will thrive in the vagina.
Dr Jen added: “Cucumbers seem prone to all kinds of nasty fungi and I just don't think anything capable of getting blossom end rot [a type of vegetable rot] should go in a vagina.
“All in all I'd say it's probably wise to not introduce an object with unknown plant microorganisms into your vagina.
“And no, a little wash in the kitchen sink is not going to sterilise the cucumber.”
Vaginas are self-cleaning and only need water and a mild soap around the vulva area to feel fresh.
In fact, a recent study by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences revealed that women who douche their vagina are twice as likely to develop ovarian cancer than those who don’t.
A separate study from the University of California, Los Angeles said soaps and lubricants can raise a woman’s chance of being infected with STDs like herpes, chlamydia and HIV.
