Lysol-Scented Vaginas: The Strange History of Douching

It’s actually not always about beaver stank.

Vaginal douching came about primarily as a method of birth control, but by the aforementioned golden age of womens’ magazines, it had evolved into a “beauty tool.” Water, vinegar and even antiseptic concoctions, such as Lysol, were employed. The concentrated germ-killer was described in ads as “scientifically correct,” “gentle” and “non-caustic.”

Douching has since been proven ineffective as a method of contraception, although some studies report it does result in reduced fertility. One, published by the American Journal of Public Health, found that douching may reduce a woman’s chance of becoming pregnant during a given month by approximately 30 percent. Even so, ads like many of those Lysol ran had a considerable double-entendre.

“I think they said something like ‘Dispel your fears’ or something similar,” recalls Bette, 79, a Lysol douche regular back in the earliest days of her marriage. “We didn’t talk about these things as openly as we do now, but while the ads seemed to be talking about odor, I was using the product for birth control. I’ve a feeling lots of other married gals used it with that in mind, too. I don’t think [unwanted pregnancy] was something [advertisers] would admit to meaning when using the word ‘fear’ in an ad, but I absolutely believe the inference was intentional.”

Bette, who didn’t conceive until the second year of her marriage -- after she’d stopped douching -- was a firm believer that she had Lysol to thank for her sexual freedom as a newlywed. “I stopped altogether when I got pregnant with my second son about five minutes after having my first,” she laughs. “I, three of my friends and my sister-in-law all had our second children at the same time, within a month or two of one another.” All were using Lysol douches at the time. “I figured that first year might have been either luck or coincidence.”