Now, as a doctor, I am fairly used to hearing weird and wonderful stories of people applying various concoctions and creams to their genital area, either to cure a rash or because of something they read on the internet. However, last week I was quite shocked when a colleague sent pictures of a brand of high-end vaginal creams being sold at an elite department store in London. The Perfect V brand describes itself on its website as ‘luxury skincare designed and formulated for the V area’. Aside from the fact that there can never be ‘The Perfect V’, since each vagina is highly variable as demonstrated by the artistic endeavour The Great Wall of Vagina; the website is littered with language which reinforces archaic ideas that a whiter, brighter and tighter vagina is the only acceptable vagina. 

The product range includes the VV Serum, which promises to ‘rejuvenate, revitalise and firm’, to the Very V Luminizer which ‘highlights, softens and illuminates’. How can a dab of cream do all this? Apparently, through the extraordinary ability of natural ingredients such as arctic cloudberry, bilberry and lingonberry to name a few. I have absolutely no idea what any of those are and neither will most women, but that is part of the allure perhaps; your genitals would feel better if you ‘misted’ it with the juice of exotic berries? Personally, I would suggest eating more exotic fruits instead, so your body can absorb the vitamins and nutrients as I think was intended, rather than coating your vagina in them.