Alyssa Cochran-Caggiano, a 21-year-old student from Massachusetts, decided to give us a tour of her bleached underwear stains in a video that now has over 4 million views.
“Is no one else completely terrified by the bleaching properties of a vagina?” she asked. “Like, how does she do that?”
As someone who both has a vagina and has friends with vaginas who I’ve borrowed underwear from (haters gonna hate), I can attest that these stains looked very familiar. I ran to the comments to see what others had to say.
I decided to hit up Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, a Portland-based gynecologist, to get some insight into why this happens.
The key word here? Discharge. “Your vagina is an acidic environment, and that’s normal,” Dr. Lincoln told BuzzFeed. “It’s healthy, and that’s because of the kind of bacteria that live there. And so, theoretically, if your discharge is slightly acidic, it could potentially change the color of fabric. I can’t say specifically it always does, or it doesn’t, or it varies, but it’s certainly possible.”
Alyssa — the TikTok poster — told BuzzFeed that she made the video with the hope of normalizing discharge. “Bodies leak and smell weird and make noises and no one ever talks about it, so people think what their body is doing is abnormal and they feel embarrassed,” she said.
“I was met with so many people saying they had no idea it was normal and they felt so much shame,” she said. “People have told me they feel safe around me and comforted by the community we have made around that video, and that is all I’ve ever wanted.”
Say it with me people: VAGINAS. ARE. DOPE.
When we are in need of certain information, the first thing we turn to is the Internet.
Unlike many years ago when people went straight to the library to seek knowledge, now that knowledge is just a click away.
Among the countless websites, there are those that deal with threads where people ask questions, and honestly, nettizens never disappoint.
Recently, someone posted a question eager to learn why their underwear appears to have bleach stains on it sometimes.
Well, it turned out that many ladies wanted to know the answer to the question, realizing they are not alone and that many others have experienced this “issue.”
As always, many were quick to provide answers. It turned out that it is the vagina’s natural pH levels that really produce these “bleach” spots.
According to experts, this isn’t a reason for concern. On the contrary, it is an indicator that your pH levels, which indicate how acidic or alkaline a liquid or a substance is, are normal.
“Now that everyone is aware, it’s completely normal to discover lighter patches in a woman’s underwear or knickers due to the acidic nature of the vagina, with a pH range of 3.8-4.5.
So, I suppose it’s time to abandon the notion of it being a result of poor hygiene. In fact, a healthy vagina is one that can bleach the fabric,” Dr. Vanessa MacKay of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists stated.
She explained that the vagina has a natural secretory system that allows it to clean itself. It is protected by the good bacteria that it contains.
