Femfresh Advert Avoids Biological Words For Female Genitals (Again)

Femfresh Advert Avoids Biological Words For Female Genitals (Again)
Angry Young Woman
Kniel Synnatzschke via Getty Images
Angry Young Woman

Femfresh have scored yet another spectacular own goal, proving that they are (yet again) unable to use biological words for female genitals.

The new advert, which HuffPost UK Lifestyle stumbled across earlier today, says "finally, the care it deserves".

"It"?! What do you mean "it"?!

This strikes us as particularly ironic that a product designed to wash one's vulva and labia fails to use the terms "vulva" and "labia", especially when the product is designed for adult women who are supposedly mature enough for the words.

This isn't the first time the brand's advertising failed to use the correct terms. In 2012 a Femfresh ad campaign faced widespread social media backlash for using such as "kitty" and "va jay jay".

When asked why the brand does not use the real terms on its branding, a spokesperson replied: "We don’t use the word vagina because it is not accurate for the area of the body which femfresh targets. femfresh is for the skin around the labia and vulva which are located around the vaginal opening.

"We didn’t use the accurate names in marketing material: the ‘vulva’ & the ‘labia’- as research has shown us that many women don’t fully understand what these areas of the anatomy are and do not connect with it. Instead we use the term Intimate skin as this is both accurate and easy to understand."

Back in 2012, their Facebook page read: "Femfresh is one of the kindest ways to care for your va jay jay, kitty, nooni, lala, froo froo! Whatever you call it, make sure you love it."

Their Facebook page has since been suspended, but this is due to 'fake Femfresh pages' cropping up and is an issue that has been raised with Facebook IP Infringement team.

"Just a short note to tell all recent posters that we have seen your comments and we will be getting back to you. Whilst we welcome debate, please can we ask that you don’t post anything abusive or use bad language as this contravenes our policies and we will have to delete the posts. Thank you"

Rather than appeasing the situation, their threats to delete posts only added more fuel to the fire and prompted the following responses:

"I agree about the bad language - using words like 'la la', 'froo froo' and 'hoo-haa is really awful use of the English language, particularly when perfectly acceptable terms such as 'vagina' or 'vulva' already exist."

"I'm really sad that you don't see how abusive it is to put up ads informing me that not only should I infantilise my genitalia but I should also be ashamed of their natural (and lets face it quite attractive) smell. Unfortunately it's probably a bit difficult for us to remove your ads but perhaps you would consider doing so. thanks

PS I'm assuming you realise that the word vagina isn't offensive. Just checkin"

What do you think of the advert? Let us know in the comments below.

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