Your Vag Doesn't Need A 'Detox' So Stay Away From Vaginal Detox Pearls

Oh goodness. I have just visited the Shaking My Head Vigorously aisle of the NOPE Store to collect all the You’ve Gotta Be Kidding Me’s my arms can carry. There’s yet another product out there that women are putting into their vaginas that makes my vagina confused and angry—possibly even more than that whole sea-sponges-as-tampons incident not too long ago.

In short, they are little satchels called “Herbal Womb Detox Pearls” you stuff up into your vagina that are “designed to cleanse the womb and return it to a balance state.” They are intended to treat any upset in your baby-making biz from fibroids to general unease, all while leaving it smelling like a garden. Here are my thoughts on that:

1. I’m no cleaning expert, but how does leaving pungent old dead wet leaves in the oven to ferment help make it cleaner? Is today Opposite Day?

2. You’re told to keep them in there for three days. I’ve seen perfectly crisp heads of lettuce get funky in the fridge in less time than that, and they weren’t tucked away in a bacteria-filled steam room. Also, if you’re not supposed to keep a tampon in for more than eight hours due to the risk of toxic shock syndrome, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say roadblocking your most delicate of passageways with a traffic jam of bonkers in a cheesecloth is possibly not the wisest medical decision.

3. You are advised to not have sex while steeping this discharge tea in your tampon tunnel. Gosh, thank goodness for that advisory, because I can just imagine all the folks lining up to dive in among the myriad of strings to make them like parsley’s ancient cousin wrapped in roses.

4. Nobody needs potpourri in their pink palace. Flowery air fresheners are meant for bathrooms and wherever you keep litter boxes or teenagers’ shoes, not all up in your most sacred of pockets. Your vagina is not a potpourri bowl.

5. We’ve all heard of warm baths, right?

6. And doctors? We know we can call a doctor to ask them what to do if we think our womb is unbalanced, right? Like stand up straighter and stay away from the internet?

7. OH MY GOD, STOP TRYING TO MAKE VAGINAS SMELL LIKE FLOWERS. THAT IS NOT WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO SMELL LIKE.

8. Their brochure has a picture of what came out of one client’s hotbox after being crammed with their hoo-ha herbs. Now, I was in sales for quite some time, and never ever ever ever EVER did I hear the benefits of adding photographs of a stranger’s debris-filled cervical mucous as a persuasive measure to close a deal.

9. We shall not even discuss that while only one schmear of post-detox vag matter appears in the pamphlet, their website has a smattering of users’ amateur close-up photos of both during and after snatch snaps, as well as a pantyliner present portfolio for your viewing pleasure. I will never unsee that and will be calling my therapist once I’m done typing here.

10. Just…no.

So if you happen to see this in a store near you, run—don’t walk—as fast as you can in the opposite direction while patting your womb, reassuring it that you respect it far too much to buy into that kind of DIY gynecological experimentation and floral-scented madness.

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