8 Ways to Get Rid of Vaginal Odor
The vagina has a natural odor. If you notice an unusual smell, you may be able to get rid of it by changing your hygiene practices, personal care products, or diet.
If you notice that your vagina is giving off a bad odour, it’s usually because the PH level is off the charts - basically, it is unbalanced.
Vaginal odor is any smell that comes from your vagina. It could be the odor produced by healthy vaginal secretion or an unpleasant, abnormal smell caused by an infection.
Your vaginal odor may change throughout your menstrual cycle or other times, like pregnancy or menopause.
The vagina is not supposed to smell like nothing! Just like other body parts — including the scalp, belly button, armpits — the vagina has some scent.
And that scent? Isn’t that of dandelions, daffodils, or daisies?
“A vagina isn’t supposed to smell like flowers, no matter what our culture likes to tell us,” says sex educator Searah Deysach, owner of Early to Bed, a pleasure-product company in Chicago that ships worldwide.
The scent of your vagina will vary based on things like:
- hydration levels
- recent food intake
- medications
- overall health status
- where you are in your menstrual cycle
The natural secretions from your vaginal tissue often produce an odor. This is totally normal and to be expected. Still, sometimes that odor can seem stronger than usual.
Here are some potential causes of stronger or abnormal vaginal odor:
- sweating
- poor hygiene habits
- bacterial vaginosis (BV)
- vaginitis
- trichomoniasis
- forgetting to take a tampon out
- douching
- diet
- hormone changes (menstrual cycle, pregnancy, menopause)
In rare cases, more serious medical concerns can cause vaginal odor, such as:
- rectovaginal fistula
- cervical cancer
- vaginal cancer
If your vagina smells a little off, and that scent is not accompanied by other symptoms, you may be able to relieve the symptoms on your own.
Many reasons can cause your PH level to be imbalanced, chief among them are tight clothing, dirty underwear, underwear that isn’t cotton, drugs, hormonal imbalance, sweating, and sex.
How can you change the culture of your vagina?
1. Probiotic
This helps to maintain the normal bacterial level in the body and the vagina. Probiotics are drugs you can get at the pharmacy without a prescription. Yoghurt is also a good probiotic.
2. Apple cider vinegar
Take apple cider vinegar with water. This changes the PH level of the vagina and makes it more acidic. The more acidic it is, the less it stinks.
3. Boric acid suppositories
These are little pills that go inside the vagina, they will also return the vagina to the normal PH level and thus improve the smell.
All of these can easily be gotten over the counter at a pharmacy.
4. Shower or bathe regularly
Get this: The off smell could just be a sign you need a shower or bath.
“The area can accumulate sweat, dead skin, and dirt,” Gersh says. And just as those things can affect the smell of your pits, they can affect the smell of your vagina.
Maintaining a regular hygiene practice can help avoid the accumulation of the scent that you don’t like.
But if the scent has already taken root and you don’t have time to shower, simply take a warm washcloth and wash your pubic mound and outer lips.
“Even just using your finger to swish the warm water around the vulva is adequate,” she says.
5. Stop washing inside your vagina
To be clear: While you can (and should!) wash the outside of your vagina (aka the vulva), you should not start going in your hole with water, washcloth, or soap.
“It’s true that a vagina is a self-cleaning machine,” Gersh says. “The natural makeup of bacteria inside the vaginal canal is designed to keep the canal healthy and clean — and that bacteria doesn’t need any help from you to operate optimally.”
Washing inside the vaginal canal isn’t just unnecessary, it’s downright dangerous. Washing inside the vaginal canal — especially with fragrant soaps — can upset your vagina’s natural bacterial makeup and pH.
And when your vagina’s natural bacterial makeup gets disrupted? You put yourself at risk of developing infections like BV, which (negatively) affect your vaginal odor.
6. Check for recent product swaps
Did you recently change your detergent? Start using a different body wash? Switch up your toilet paper brand? All of these things can affect your vagina, according to Gersh.
“Take some time to think through what things have changed in your routine,” she says. “What soaps you’ve been using, the type of underwear you’ve been wearing, and how tight your clothes are could all be the culprit.”
The culprit could also be switching up your:
- sexual lubricants
- sex toy cleaner
- type of condom (or other barrier methods)
7. Stay hydrated
Nope, we’re not talking about booze. We’re talking about water.
Drinking plenty of water is good for more than just your skin. It can help your vagina’s overall health too, by encouraging healthy sweating and fluid release, Deysach says.
8. Eat a balanced diet
As a general rule, a balanced diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins, will elicit a softer scent compared with greasy, fast foods.
As Gersh puts it: “A balanced diet makes for a healthy body, and that includes your vagina.”
Just be warned: “Some very strong-smelling foods like asparagus, garlic, and onions can result in a stronger-smelling cooch,” Deysach says.
So, if you’ve been eating a whole lot of asparagus, garlic, and onions recently, simply cutting out those foods could return your vagina to its natural scent.
“There are no prescription medications to treat just vaginal odor,” Gersh says.
However, an unusual vaginal odor is a byproduct of vaginal bacterial disruption, infection, or hormonal disruption, she says, all of which can be treated with medication.
For example, a bacterial sexually transmitted infection (STI) like gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis — all of which can affect vaginal scent — can be cleared up with a prescription antibiotic, she says.
Antibiotics can also be prescribed for other kinds of infections, such as:
“And for people with menopause who are experiencing changes and odors and other symptoms associated with hormonal changes, you can prescribe localized or oral hormone replacement medications that help,” she says.
The quotation in the headline above should clue you in.
While there are a number of online articles and forums waxing poetic about at-home and DIY “remedies,” the truth is these should be avoided.
These include (but are not limited to) those listed below:
Douches and scrubs
Remember when we told you not to wash the inside of your vagina? Well, that also means avoiding products like douches and scrubs that are marketed as internal washes.
These might claim to help eliminate odor-causing “bad” bacteria, but they also eliminate the “good” infection-fighting bacteria.
“Doing things like aggressively washing the vagina on the inside can throw your bacteria ratios out of whack,” Gersh says. The result? Odor!
Foods
You should not, under any circumstance, put garlic gloves, cottage cheese, or yogurt inside your vaginal canal.
There have been studies about the use of garlic suppositories for treatment of vaginitis, but raw garlic can cause burning, irritation, and allergic reactions. More studies are needed on this, but for now it’s not recommended.
“We live in a world full of bad advice and putting food inside your vaginal canal falls in that category,” Gersh says. “The food isn’t going to do anything but harm your vaginal microbiome.”
Fragrant ‘feminine hygiene’ products
There are a number of perfumed tampons, pads, and toilet papers on the market. Avoid these.
“The vagina is a very delicate ecosystem that’s going to be negatively impacted by these fragrant products,” Gersh says.
