A Top Beauty Blogger Offered Advice On Lightening Your Vagina – And People Aren’t Happy
In a blog post entitled ‘Why Your Vagina Gets Dark and How To Lighten It,’ Huda chats to dermatologist Dr Doris Day about the ways women can lighten their labia. Tips include losing weight to reduce friction, moisturising the area and applying a solution of coconut oil and lemon juice to your genitals.
There are quite a few things wrong with this advice. For starters, the vagina has a very delicate pH balance and is highly sensitive, so putting home-made concoctions like lemon – which is very acidic – and coconut oil on your labia could damage this balance and ultimately cause irritation. The piece even goes as far as to recommend brightening creams and chemical peels for your nethers, which are not only completely unnecessary but could potentially be dangerous – your vaginal ecosystem has a very particular way of working and anything foreign that disrupts this could become harmful.
It’s also concerning that the article is about lightening your vagina, when in fact Huda is talking about the labia, which makes up part of the vulva. The vulva is external, whilst the vagina is internal. Not only is being anatomically correct particularly important when advising people on such a sensitive part of their bodies, Huda is looked to as an authority in the beauty industry – 25.2 million followers on Instagram, the information she gives out has to be correct.
But practical issues aside, the real problem with the piece is the idea that women should lighten their vaginas at all; that having a darker labia is something that needs to be corrected. It perpetuates the damaging message that ‘lighter is better’. Plus, as Metro writer Ellen Scott points out, the labia is naturally darker than the rest of the skin due to melanin, which is more concentrated on areas including the nipples, penis and anus.
Since the backlash, Huda updated the article, stating: “We wanted to address some concern over this topic. We appreciate and respect everyone’s opinions on this subject and want to express that we do not feel lightening your vulva is necessary. Our goal is to give details for those who may wish to, by sharing expert advice from a leading dermatologist. We’ve seen a lot of harmful DIYs on the internet, so we hope this post provides the best information on the topic and offers safe ways for people to do this, should they wish to.”
But with such a large following, Huda should be helping women celebrate their bodies, not encouraging them to ‘fix’ themselves in order to adhere to an impossible beauty standard.
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