Here's the most cursed recent addition to our collection: a bottle of Lysol disinfectant, circa early 1960s, from Canada.

[vagina_museum@masto.ai]

Here's the most cursed recent addition to our collection: a bottle of Lysol disinfectant, circa early 1960s, from Canada. The label contains instructions for using the product to clean toilets, floors, dirty diapers... and vaginal douching.

[vagina_museum@masto.ai]

Douching with Lysol was a fairly common practice in the first half of the 20th century in North America. The product was specifically advertised to women for this purpose. Here's a sampling platter of some of the ghastly ads, if you'd like your day thoroughly ruined. https://masto.ai/@vagina_museum/110508673168425715

[vagina_museum@masto.ai]

Although advertising and product instructions used euphemisms such as "feminine hygiene", and focused on the language of cleanliness, a lot of Americans were douching with Lysol for a different reason: contraception.

[vagina_museum@masto.ai]

Douching is by no means a reliable method of contraception, but early to mid 20th century Lysol was perhaps better than other douche solutions for this purpose. This is because one of its ingredients at the time was an abortifacient.

Oh, and also highly toxic. Lysol douching was linked to a wave of poisonings including five deaths in the 1910s.

[vagina_museum@masto.ai]

This little bottle of Lysol holds the record for being the most lethal item in our display of unnecessary vaginal cleaning products. Most products on the market these days range from pointlessly ineffective to likely to give you an infection. That's progress, we guess.