All of us with a vagina usually know that awkward feeling if a new and strange smell comes our way.
The vagina is especially sensitive to different changes in your daily environment, so anything that affects this delicate balance will affect the smell as well as the type of discharge and its consistency.
As the vagina is a self-cleaning body part, more often than not the odours can come and go.
But occasionally it could be an indicator of something more serious, and with a variety of factors affecting a woman’s odour, how can you be sure it's just a passing phase?
What should my vagina smell like?
It’s hard to exactly pinpoint what a healthy vagina smells like, because every woman has a different scent, says Dr Sherry Ross.
But some women use words like earthy, ripe, or even pungent or slightly sour to describe their normal vaginal odour.
The key is to know what your ‘normal’ smell is,” she says.
Factors which may impact the smell of your vagina include:
- Antibiotics
- Douching
- Spermicide
- New sexual partners
- Frequency of sex
- Infections.
Smells after sex
Smelling an unusual smell from down below after having intercourse doesn’t necessarily mean there's something to worry about.
The change in odour related to sex comes down to the vaginal pH level.
Whenever something gets in there, this is known to alter a woman’s pH levels and can affect how it smells.
Yeast infection
If your vaginal odour seems sour after sex, or just in general, and it’s accompanied by a thick, white discharge and an itch, it could indicate a yeast infection.
The main cause of a yeast infection is the overgrowth of yeast on an area of the body.
Yeast infections aren't an STD. They aren't contagious, and can't spread to another person during sex.
However, sexual contact sometimes leads to yeast infections.
Making small changes to your diet can also impact the smell of your vagina.
Certain foods are also guilty of disrupting the vagina’s delicate pH balance which could either help or hinder the odour.
According to Dr Ross, the worst offenders for food and vaginal odours include garlic, onions, turmeric, blue cheese, cabbage, red meat and vinegar.
Smoking and alcohol are also highly likely to cause unpleasant vaginal odours.
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