by KATE CLANCY
Readers of this blog are already aware that their vaginas are at their best when they are on the acidic side. Vaginal flora is healthy, bacterial overgrowth is at a minimum, and any foreign bodies that want to pass through are firmly discouraged. Semen and douching can increase pH, douching especially so since the liquid used to douche not only has a relatively high pH but flushes out normal, good bacteria.
If there are substances that increase vaginal pH, might other substances decrease vaginal pH and thus encourage the growth of normal flora?
RepHresh thinks so. RepHresh is a company that makes pH-balancing gels and cleansers for your ladyparts. Recently, they started carrying a new product, RepHresh Brilliant, which is a pH-balancing tampon (hat tip to my undergraduate Sophia Bodnar for being the first to tell me about it). They claim that menses increases pH, and thus a tampon that decreases pH will keep bacterial overgrowth in check. The RepHresh Brilliant tampon contains strips of material that slowly release lactic acid and citric acid as they are saturated with menstrual fluid.
Scientific American for more