Image this: You are preparing for an evening out. Your hair is completed, your make-up is flawless, and the outfit’s a slay. The ultimate contact? A little bit fragrance, after all! However wait — as a substitute of your signature scent in a elaborate bottle, you are pondering of reaching for one thing somewhat extra… naturally-derived.

That is the thought course of behind vabbing, a follow that has not too long ago gone viral on TikTok to doubtlessly enable you entice a accomplice. “Vabbing” is a portmanteau of “vagina” and “dabbing,” as a result of to vab, you utilize your pure physique fluids — particularly vaginal discharge and secretions — as fragrance, dabbing it behind your ears and in your wrists the place you’d historically put on perfume. 

TikTok customers declare that utilizing your pure aroma can result in all types of romantic magic due to the pheromones emitted from it, and a fast scroll by the hashtags #vabbing and #vabbingtrend reveals each firsthand trial movies and sew movies of different customers who cannot consider such a factor exists. One of the crucial common movies comes through person jewlieah, who tried vabbing on the gymnasium and claimed it labored for her, and has since made many movies in regards to the phenomenon.

Meet the consultants:

Is there any legitimacy to this now-viral perfume ritual — and what’s extra, is it secure and wholesome? Dr. Mona Gohara, a board-certified dermatologist in Connecticut and affiliate medical professor of dermatology at Yale Faculty of Medication, says that there is no scientific analysis to again up these seductive claims. “There is no such thing as a science behind the idea of utilizing vaginal secretions as a perfume to draw a accomplice,” she explains. Dr. Rosemarie Ingleton, a board-certified dermatologist in New York Metropolis, agrees. “There’s little scientific proof to assist that pheromones work for human attraction the way in which they do for some animals, and ‘vabbing’ as a follow has not likely been studied,” Dr. Ingleton shares.

Whereas Dr. Gohara does not essentially advocate utilizing your vaginal fluids as perfume, she says that if you are going to attempt it, there are just a few finest practices to observe. “I might undoubtedly advocate that one makes positive that their vaginal well being is in verify earlier than doing this to make sure that there isn’t any an infection that might unfold,” she says. She suggests washing your fingers earlier than and after the “harvesting course of” in order that, to place it politely, “you don’t unfold the wealth on communal surfaces at work or play.” Dr. Gohara additionally recommends skipping out on vabbing in case you have a identified STI and says to ensure others do not are available contact with any “vabbed” physique elements.