Mission Impossible: Feminine Hygiene in England

Remember when your mother came at you with one of these? (Wiki commons)

I didn’t expect feminine hygiene products in England to be quite as prevalent, nor as good, as they are in France.

On the other hand, I didn’t expect to spend a solid year trying to obtain ― and failing to obtain ― such a simple, useful item as a twin-pak of Massengill Vaginal Cleansing Powder or premixed bottles.  Massengill  is, after all, nothing more than powdered vinegar. But I failed to find anything of the sort. Indeed, one website for which I had high hopes advertised that Massengill might just be available from them without a prescription. What? For powdered vinegar?

Prescription meds from the kitchen cupboard

Apparently, the Brits think vinegar is a prescription drug.

So then I thought I’d just buy some apple cider vinegar (thinking even white balsamic would be a little too trendy for the purpose intended) and mix up some of my own cleanser and apply it with something else very common in France ― and even the prude-heavy United States ― a simple, squeezable bottle with a long neck that is meant for internal feminine cleansing.

Nope. I spent a full hour looking for such a thing on the internet and finally came up with one…for about 15 pounds, which translates to somewhere around 25 bucks. In the U.S., such a thing ― if anyone wanted it rather than disposable bottles of Massengill or Massengill clones ― would be about five bucks.

However, if I wanted anal cleansing, that’s another matter entirely. I could get bottles with ribbed nozzles, nozzles with little spiky things on them, whirling nozzles…in short, any kind of anal cleaning bottle I wanted.

Mind you, we are not talking about enemas here. I know about enemas. Everyone who grew up in the 1950s knows about enemas. And we would have moved ― any and all of us ― to the Soviet Union, during the height of the Cold War, to avoid them. Alas, a touch of tummy trouble and out would come the fearsome bag, with that menacing look on Mom’s face.  It really doesn’t bear thinking about. Oh the pain, oh the shame.

Enemas: Fascinating subject to Brits

But in England, they advertise the features of enema equipment in fascinating detail. Enema equipment comes in bottles of 8 ounces or so capacity. Also available are one-gallon bags. And five-freaking-gallon bags. (Whew!  So glad my mother didn’t have one of those!) There are, on offer, enema bags meant to be used in the shower. In the shower?  Oy, vay. Remind me to check for hanging rubberized equipment in any bathroom in a house where I’m a guest before I take a shower, especially if it isn’t a separate shower, but a shower/bath.

So that’s life in England. A fascination with cleansing products and equipment for the posterior aperture of male or female, and an almost studious ignorance of the need― heaven forbid the desire―to cleanse the interior of the front of the female anatomy, and a concomitant almost total lack of equipment and potions with which to do the job. 

Massengill connection
My husband even suggested that I call my best friend in Maryland, have her go buy a Massengill twin-pak, empty it, and mail me the resulting two cunning little bottles and nozzles, capable of being filled at home with a vinegar-water mixture quite a few times before they’d probably become too wimpy to use. For mailing, emptying them would be cheaper than sending them complete. And lord knows what kind of trouble we would get into with Homeland Security if the things leaked and some gawky doofus with more authority than brains found them leaking in transit.

Today, however, I decided to take the plunge I thought might bring me success in my quest for cleanliness. I braved the x-rated UK sites that advertised various equipment for enhancing what we shall circumspectly refer to as relationships, and voila!  I located a bottle and nozzle via mail order for a reasonable price. The nozzle is smooth, has a few holes for the mixture to exit into the place intended, and it doesn’t twirl or tickle.

Now my only problem is wondering what the deliverer of the Royal Mail will assume goes on in our little house behind the big fences and hedges.