Highlighting The Vag: 21st Century Glam, Or Body-image Obsessed?
After shaving it, bleaching it and doing kegel exercises, how about putting some make up on it too?
Scandi Company ‘The Perfect V’, have put a new product on the shelves, the Very V Luminizer. As innocent as it may at first sound, the product is offering something brand new to the world of feminine care and its available worldwide from the 27th July.
The Very V Luminizer, in its most humble form, is a highlighter in a line of products designed to care and nourish the female pubic area, or as they put it, ‘The V'. And whilst we can’t deny that highlighting our faces until we shine like a beautiful beacon of glowing sparkly sunlight is an understandable obsession, we’re left wondering how necessary it really is to get sparkly in our intimate area. The rest of the range includes moisturisers, cleansers, ‘rejuvenating serum’ and beauty sheets, amongst an entire range of products designed to, as they put it, “refresh and maintain your beauty VANICURE™ regimen”.
As I scroll through the 8-product-strong collection, I wonder how necessary a set of products can really be if I’ve never felt a need any desire to further my 'V' skincare routine before. Furthermore, as Mary Jane Minkin, M.D., a clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale University advises in Women's Health Magazine, its important to be careful with soap, and really, “you really only need to rinse with warm water to keep things clean down there”. This led me to feel a little concerned about the effect of an 8-step lotions and potions routine on such a sensitive area. On closer inspection, I found that the products that could perhaps end up going beyond the 'V' (the washing products and mist) did actually point-out their careful pH balance even if they are, like the rest of the products, "formulated [only] for the delicate skin of the V area only”.
Just saw an article about a highlighter for your vagina. Can we stop putting shit on our fannies please?
— Lottie L'Amour (@Lottie_Lamour) 21. juli 2017
However, reminding ourselves of the company’s name ‘The Perfect V’, I revert straight back to my confused state. In fact, if you've ever watched British TV’s groundbreaking show 'Naked Attraction’ (sure, I haven't either), then you’ll be absolutely certain that no two V’s are the same, varying in everything from size, to colour, to grooming styles. 'The Perfect V’ does point this out, adding that the ‘pretty little triangle [is] sometimes neat, at other times unruly, but always perfect and unique in its own personal way’. But part of me can't help feeling that a gal with an ‘unruly V', probably wouldn’t want to spend $42 to let it shine with ‘luminous iridescent color’. No, to me, it really does seem that the market could be directed towards a more specific image of hair-free, smooth and blemish-free skin. Enter: the porn industry induced body-image expectations, a world free of shaving rashes, stubble and dry skin – a world free of skin reacting in a real-life way.
And if a company is aiming to stick to the message that every V is a perfect V, why are they so concerned with marketing products to aesthetically better them? The image of a “flawless” and “blemish-free” V is an image endorsed by not only the porn-industry but also the media. If we really want to feel better about the skin we’re in, then it’s time to start normalising the diversity of the 'V' , encouraging health, rather than offering products to try and bring it closer to the standard of ‘perfection’ women are encouraged to strive to. Furthermore, the most worrying thing about the make up range is that there’s only one colour of highlighter, with no information anywhere about how this can work on different skin tones. And if a company can’t offer ‘perfection’ to every shade of skin, then they really need to stay away from that word completely.
On the other side of the argument, the company would probably argue that their line offers products to nourish the skin in our most intimate places and offer the prospect of a shiny, glowing luminous lady-garden to the women that want it. But until this website gets less about striving to ‘perfection’ and more about loving the skin you’re in, whatever size, shape, race or age you are, then we’re not getting hyped.
Connect with Facebook