A “Lipstick” to Glue Your Labia Shut? Please Don’t
Gosh, it was just a few weeks ago that startled gynecologists frantically warned women against stuffing jade eggs in their vaginas like Gwyneth Paltrow suggested on her “health” website. But sticking a rock in your lady parts seems pretty sane compared to the latest product giving Ob/Gyns heart palpitations: a labia “lipstick” to glue your labia shut.
Daniel Dopps, a Wichita chiropractor (which makes it even weirder) is the inventor of Mensez, which he describes as a “feminine lip-stick” that glues your lower lady lips shut. I’ll bet you never knew your labia needed to be glued together before, did you? [1]
The purpose of the “glued labia” is actually to help women hold in their menstrual flow, sort of like a human DivaCup. Popular women’s magazines have been covering Mensez left and right.
Dopps says Mensez is a “natural combination” of amino acids and oils that are applied to the labia during a woman’s menstrual period via a lipstick applicator. The “glue” holds a woman’s flow until the next time she goes to the bathroom, when urine dissolves the seal and everything comes out. Then, it is simply reapplied.
A patent was granted for the Mensez stick on 10 January 2017, but it is not yet available in stores. That’s a good thing because this product is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea, gynecologists are warning. [2]
Jen Gunter, a San Francisco Ob/Gyn, warns that repeatedly applying some type of glue to the labia could cause abrasions. Worse, like a horror film, the glue could cause the labia to grow together and require surgical separation. Says Gunter:
“The idea that a blood tight seal could be obtained with some kind of simple home application is ridiculous. Perhaps [Dopps] has never seen labia up close?” [1]
Poor Dopps.
The whole idea is pretty disgusting, and it doesn’t sound like Dopps thought it through. Gunter points out:
“What happens if you laugh or cough, and a little bit of urine comes out—does that dissolve your seal and all of a sudden your backed-up menstrual blood comes out?” [3]
Yeah, and what about, uh, pubic hair?
Lauren Streicher, M.D., an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, says that if a woman used this product and had a particularly heavy period and didn’t urinate enough, the blood could theoretically travel back up into her uterus and out through her fallopian tubes, potentially causing endometriosis through retrograde menstruation. [3]
And people on the Internet have been asking a question that’s lingering in my mind, too: If urine disintegrates the seal, why doesn’t menstrual blood? It’s fluid, right?
Stick with the pads, tampons, and cups. If your labia stick together, that’s going to be one heck of an embarrassing ER visit.
Sources:
[1] Gizmodo
[2] Medical Daily
[3] Self