Femimint Hygiene: Vagina Mints

Sentient Products LLC via fair use.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


I recently got a press release from the makers of Linger, an “internal feminine flavoring” that promises to keep your vagina in mint condition. Think of it as an Altoid for your lady parts or, as its website explains, “A small, naturally sweetened flavoring, free of artificial dyes, which was created to flavor the secretions of a woman when she is sexually aroused.” What…the…?!

So where did the idea for this curiously wrong mint come from? Linger’s website (a little NSFW) offers up a wondrous, romantic tale about the supposed discoverer of femimint hygiene, an unnamed woman who was seduced in India by a man with skin “the color of caramel.” He quelled her fears of tasting bad “down there” with a mysterious, Eastern mint. “When I returned to the States, I brought the tingly sweet tasting mint with me,” she writes. I’ve requested an interview with this mysterious entrepreneur, but have yet to speak with her. However, Linger’s PR guy did send me a sample—made in exotic New Jersey. But that was just my first taste of disappointment.

My tin of Linger looked a lot like one of those tins of mints that are given away at trade shows. And guess what? That’s what it is. A little digging revealed that Linger is made/distributed by a company called Admints, which just happens to make trade show mints. And the Linger samples just happen to have have the exact same shape, taste, and ingredients as Admint’s sample mints. So how does Linger manage to pass off breath mints as vaginal Tic Tacs in $7.99 packs? Despite the salacious creation story and testimonials on its site (“It gets a little warm as it starts to dissolve which took just under an hour. Then, it is SO good!!”), the mint is labeled “for novelty use only.” This is a common practice in the sex-products industry, explains Charlie Glickman, the education program manager at Good Vibrations. It gives manufacturers some cover if something goes awry, he explains. “They could say, ‘It’s just a novelty toy. You weren’t actually expecting to use this were you?'” And if you actually do expect to use Linger to “flavor the woman in a manner that is safe and effective,” be warned: its primary ingredient is sugar, which is not safe for the vagina. It messes up the pH and can lead to a really painful yeast infection, a condition that definitely doesn’t make someone want to “linger.”

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate