Warning issued over bizarre new vagina trend

There's been a fair share of vagina trends this year: makeup for your vagina, glitter for your vagina, what's next?

Well cucumbers, that's what. 

Doctors are warning women not to succumb to a bizarre and dangerous trend of using a cucumber as a douche for the vagina which is currently sweeping the web.

Dubbed the "vagina facial", the odd craze involves inserting peeled cucumber into your vagina and then twisting it around for about 20 minutes or longer.

Bloggers in support of the cucumber trend are claiming that the fruit's high vitamin content sanitises your genitals and gives it a pleasant odour, and can even reduce the chances of getting sexually transmitted infections.

But Canadian gynaecologist Dr Jen Gunter has warned that the trend could actually leave you at a greater risk of infections like gonorrhoea and even HIV.

This is because washing with a cucumber upsets the natural pH balance of your intimate bits, Dr Gunter warns. 

'This idea that some kind of vaginal cleansing is required, be it a peeled cucumber or the "feminine washes" sold at drugstores, is misogyny dressed up as health care and I am having none of it,' she wrote on her blog.

"Vaginas are not dirty. Study after study after study tells us that douches, cleanses, steams, vinegar, pH balancing products, aloe, colloidal silver, garlic or whatever else passing as the vaginal snake oil du jour at best do nothing but have real potential for harming good bacteria or disrupting the mucosal surface.

"By damaging lactobacilli and the mucosa, attempts at vaginal cleaning increase a woman's risk of contracting gonorrhoea or HIV if she is exposed.

"Paradoxically, it will also cause odour."

So ladies, keep that cucumber away from your downstairs!