Healthy, clean vaginas may not really smell like anything much, and they don’t smell bad. A healthy vagina can vary in scent across the menstrual cycle and smell somewhere between neutral and pleasant, while at other times more pungent.
A healthy vaginal should, at the very least, not repulse you.
We like what we like – to a point
There are some big individual variances in what smells appeal to us and which don’t, and that can determine what mates we choose and what sexual activities we participate in with that person.
Smell is a hugely important part of mate selection. Though the taste of a vagina can vary a lot, 90% of taste is thought to actually be smell1. So, if a vagina isn’t smelling right to you, there might be more to it than meets the eye.
When it’s more than just a smell – learning vaginas
It’s important to note that we’ve been socialised to associate vaginal odour with certain opinions. Negative comments about vaginal odour are simply part of Western culture.
Think of all the ‘jokes’ you’ve heard and probably repeated yourself over the years, especially as a child or teenager. These messages get buried in our brains as facts, so unpick that a little.
Naturally, a sweaty day-old crotch smells as bad as anyone’s, including yours, but once clean, it should be back to smelling like whatever is normal and healthy for that vagina.
When we’re discussing how nice or not nice something smells, it’s critical to remember that we are creatures of reward-based training.
For example, if you associate the smell of a woman’s vagina with great sex, there are probably a lot of things you’ll learn to love due to that association, including vaginal odours. Our brains are clever like that.
But, if you’re new to vaginas or have had some bad experiences, you don’t have that positive olfactory association and may need to learn it before the smell of vaginas will have a more positive meaning to you. You know, like learning to like certain foods or enjoy certain music.
Learning vaginas takes practice, and the more positive rewards you get, the more you can appreciate the scent of a vagina that is so close you can touch it.
Some smells are normal (even if you don’t like them), but some odours signal there’s a problem for you or a partner. Here, we unwind the difference.
Healthy vaginal odour
Healthy vaginal odour isn’t unpleasant. A healthy vagina may have an aroma ‘of the sea’ but never fishy, rotten or disgusting.
But, we have natural variations in our body odour, hormonal cycles, and what we eat and drink can impact how the vagina smells. We are critters that run on huge amounts of signalling molecules that go directly into our noses and brains. Smell is meaningful for survival.
In that sense, you can usually tell if you just find yours or someone else’s vaginal odour is a bit offputting (or downright gross) or if it seems like there’s something going terribly wrong. Your nose will tell you.
Vaginal odour changes a lot across the menstrual cycle
In a small study2 on the pleasantness of the odour of vaginal secretions across the menstrual cycle, the pre-ovulatory and ovulatory phases were associated with slightly weaker and more pleasant/less unpleasant odours than the scents found later in the cycle, including during bleeding.
But, there was a wide variation in odours found across the cycle, with the study revealing a change in pleasantness and intensity of vaginal odours at different times, even within the same woman.
How important is smell for sex? It depends
In another study3, men and women rated how important smell was in choosing a sexual partner. In fascinating results, smell was the single most important factor in mate choice for women.
Men, by contrast, rated a mate being physically attractive and smell as being equally important in mate selection.
On top of this, women also singled out smells as being the most able to negatively affect sexual desire, while males regarded odours in a much more neutral way. This difference is thought to be related to reproductive strategies.
Unhealthy vaginal odour
Now, not all vaginas have a healthy vaginal microbiome. Some vaginas have always smelled bad due to disruptive bacterial colonies acquired early in life, but some started smelling bad at a certain point. (If this certain point was unprotected vaginal or oral sex with you, you might be part of the problem.)
Each of the microbial players in a vagina produces substances that interact and produce odourant molecules. The triethylamine (TMA) molecule is a great example, which is what causes the fishy odour in bacterial vaginosis but is also the actual fishy odour on a fish.
TMA is produced by rotting vegetation, and our brains do not like to eat anything with this molecule in it. It’s a danger signal. There are many danger signals like this, and most often, they are related to bacteria that our body isn’t going to like. These bacteria may be in this vagina.
Can I have sex with or go down on someone with a smelly vagina?
The golden rule is if you wouldn’t eat it, don’t have sex with it without a condom.
Characters of vaginal malodour
- Fishy
- Faeces (poo)
- Foul
- Rotten meat/dead animal
- Sour
- Vinegar
- Ammonia/cleaning fluid
- Onion, sulphur
- Musty
- “Not quite right”
What might be causing vaginal malodour
If you or your partner has developed a vaginal odour, understanding the possible problems is useful. There are a handful of issues that can cause vaginas to smell, and these issues are almost all bacterial in nature.
- Bacterial vaginosis (fishy, sexually transmitted)
- Aerobic vaginitis (foul, rotten meat, faeces)
- Gonorrhoea (STI, fishy, foul)
- Trichomoniasis (STI, fishy, foul)
- Unbalanced microflora of unknown cause, ‘other’
- Lost or forgotten tampon (foul, fishy, rotten meat)
- Smegma (cheesy, pungent)
- Overgrowth of lactobacilli (sour, like yoghurt)
- Yeast infections (sour or yeasty odour)
Vaginal infections that do not cause vaginal odour
What if I just don’t like the smell of a vagina?
You don’t have to like the vaginal odours of certain people, or in fact, any vagina at all. There are no rules.
It might pay to do more field research, sniff a few more vaginas, and see where you land with it, and ask around for others’ experiences.
The sage advice from experienced people is to do a covert vaginal sniff test. You do this by fingering first (fingering, get good at it), and then pretending to cough and covering your mouth with your hand, and smelling it discreetly to get a decent reading on vaginal odour before you make a more significant investment going down on or having sex with someone.
If you really don’t like how someone smells, you’ll probably not hang around that person for long, and that’s ok too. Call that natural mate selection.
I don’t like my own vaginal odour
If you don’t like your own vaginal odour, get a test and see if your vaginal microbiome has anything to do with it.
How to tell which problem is causing vaginal odour
A trip to the doctor or sexual health clinic for a vaginal swab and examination should be first to check for STIs and other vaginal infections.
An at-home comprehensive microbiome test may also be useful, particularly if nothing definitive comes back in the tests or if symptoms return soon after treatment. Or, if you’re just curious. They’re fantastic tests and easy to do.
If there are symptoms, there’s a problem, so find a practitioner to help.
How to increase protective lactobacilli bacteria in the vagina
A useful strategy for vaginal flora imbalance, as part of a greater strategy, is, if you tolerate them, add more live fermented foods and probiotics to your diet. Focus on lactobacilli-containing foods, as these are the predominant species in healthy vaginas.
Life-Space Womens Microflora Probiotic is an excellent choice for improving vaginal health, as it contains the most important strains. If the vaginal odour is just a bit off, a round of vaginal and oral probiotics can work wonders.
Next on the list is to add lactulose, a selective vaginal prebiotic, to feed the probiotics. The Lactulose and Probiotic Kit has everything you need to start, including capsules and instructions. If you already have the probiotics, just get the Lactulose Kit, which comes with capsules.
Here are some other great tips on clearing up a smelly vagina.
How to talk about unpleasant vaginal odours
At My Vagina, some of our patients have had what they now understand to be bacterial vaginosis for as long as they can remember, but they thought that’s just how their vagina smelt.
Bear in mind that this might be the case for someone you care about and like enough to want to have sex with. You might think, “How can you not know?” but they truly might not. So be gentle.
There are incredible new testing methods and effective treatments and it can be made better. Read more in our great article on how to tell your girlfriend she’s got bad vag.
References4,5
- 1.Stoyanov GS, Matev BK, Valchanov P, Sapundzhiev N, Young JR. The Human Vomeronasal (Jacobson’s) Organ: A Short Review of Current Conceptions, With an English Translation of Potiquet’s Original Text. Cureus. Published online May 17, 2018. doi:10.7759/cureus.2643
- 2.Doty RL, Ford M, Preti G, Huggins GR. Changes in the Intensity and Pleasantness of Human Vaginal Odors During the Menstrual Cycle. Science. Published online December 26, 1975:1316-1318. doi:10.1126/science.1239080
- 3.Herz RS, Cahill ED. Differential use of sensory information in sexual behavior as a function of gender. Hum Nat. Published online September 1997:275-286. doi:10.1007/bf02912495
- 4.Subramanian C, Nyirjesy P, Sobel JD. Genital Malodor in Women. Journal of Lower Genital Tract Disease. Published online January 2012:49-55. doi:10.1097/lgt.0b013e31822b7512
- 5.Synnott A. A sociology of smell. Canadian Review of Sociology. Published online November 1991:437-459. doi:10.1111/j.1755-618x.1991.tb00164.x
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