Getting through puberty can really feel like a full-blown survival obstacle course. Every now and then you look up at all those adjusted grownups and wonder if they’ve really survived, or if they just learned how to hide it better.
The good news? You do get through this phase. You adjust to your own body’s needs and learn how to take care of yourself in a healthy way. And one day, you will be the adjusted grownup that the tweens look up to.
But for now, let’s talk survival.
Is Feminine Care Really Important?
Hygiene is an everyday word for the modern world, but it is actually a matter of survival. This is so true that good hygiene is part of different non-profit efforts to stop disease and poor life expectancies. Hygiene helps us keep our bodies clean of dangerous bacteria that might affect our health. When we go through puberty, our hygiene needs change as well.
For young women, feminine care might be the most confusing hygiene development. For some ladies, it’s not that easy to talk about with grownups. Unfortunately, if they’re only talking to people their age, they might end up with potentially harmful information. So here we have for you the ultimate puberty survival guide, with 5 feminine care tips for young women.
5 Feminine Care Tips for Young Women
Let’s start with washing and work our way down to the gritty stuff.
Care Tip #1: Wash gently and externally
As your body changes, you might be noticing how your feminine area has more discharge than usual. Clinically speaking, these discharges are naturally produced by your body to help fight bacteria and clean that area. Your body, amazingly, develops in a way that can keep you as safe as possible. You don’t actually need to help it out unless you sense something might be wrong.
So here’s our first care tip: wash gently, and only on the outside of your feminine area. Avoid forcing water anywhere inside, or you might disrupt and confuse your body’s natural cleaning system.
Care Tip #2: Use plain mild unscented soap.
We can’t emphasize enough how well your body already takes care of itself. Now, as your body changes, you might notice how there are also scent changes, especially around your underarms and feminine area. That’s fine and normal. Your body is activating extra glands as all the changes happen, and the extra sweat and odor is part of how your body cleans itself during this phase.
As a result, you might be tempted to use perfumed and scented products even while you’re washing your feminine area. However, the chemicals and additions that create scent can easily irritate and harm you. So here’s our second care tip: find mild, unscented soap, and remember to wash only on the outside!
Care Tip #3: Don’t use a sponge or other washing implement
Sometimes, when something is making us feel confused, we might react by scrubbing away as much as possible. After all, since the time we were old enough to wash our hands, we know that more scrubbing means the cleaner things are. Right? Well, yes, but not for your feminine area. In fact, using a sponge or rubbing cloth has a higher risk of bringing bacteria to that area.
So here’s our third care tip: avoid using anything that’s not part of your body to wash and clean your feminine area. It’s the best way to keep both clean and healthy.
Care Tip #4: Switch to cotton underwear (if you haven’t discovered it yet)
You’ll notice that you sweat more often, and that sometimes you feel warm inside for no reason. There is literally no reason to stay that uncomfortable. Besides, you will feel your moods wildly swinging around, and you might want to reduce as much discomfort from daily life as you can. Especially since it’s not like you can talk about it with everyone!
Cotton underwear is breathable and helps air circulate. You sweat less, retain stickiness less, and move around better. Our fourth care tip? Consider switching to cotton underwear if you haven’t yet. If it’s your time of the month, bring some extra, just in case!
Care Tip #5: During that time of the month, change pads or tampons every 3-4 hours
That sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Well, it’s different for every individual. Some will have a heavier flow, others will find it lighter. Some will experience it for as few as 3 days, others for around 7 days. It’s never fun, and always stressful one way or another. Staying both fresh and hygienically healthy is important during this time, and the simplest way to do this is to change every 3 to 4 hours (our fifth care tip!).
One of the challenges you might experience during this time is finding the brand and style of pads and tampons that suit you. The most important thing is to feel both comfortable and secure throughout the day. If you experience irritation or discomfort with mainstream products, you can always see how your skin reacts to more organic-based tampons and pads.
Learn Yourself Better
They say the years of puberty are the years where you get to explore and learn more about yourself. The many changes can be uncomfortable, but they also kind of force us to pay more attention to ourselves. Stay healthy!
