Take It From a Mermaid: Your Holy Grail Shouldn't Smell Like Fish

For Gyno-Canesbalance, a gel for bacterial vaginosis, Lola MullenLowe tapped the ultimate spokesperson: Alexa, a mermaid who wants to talk about that fishy smell.

It’s an old, humiliating insult to say a woman’s nether regions smell like seafood. (We like to think “Viva La Vulva” has come a long way toward defanging vulva-shame, even if it doesn’t directly address odors.) Actually, genitals have all sorts of aromas, but a strong “fishy” smell shouldn’t be one.

Unless you’re a mermaid, in which case … live your best life!

The problem is, most women don’t know the “fish” smell is a bacterial problem, because the shaming is so great that such odors seem like a natural inevitability. Thus, just 4 percent seek treatment for the condition, Lola MullenLowe says.

Enter Alexa, your mermaid friend who talks straight and lives fabulously.

“No one knows what a fishy smell is like better than a mermaid,” the agency observes, “so we cast one to talk with humor and charm about not feeling self-conscious about the symptoms of vaginal flora imbalance and how to treat it in time.”

I guess this isn’t a great moment to mention that even fish don’t actually smell “fishy” until they’ve been out of the water for awhile and have started to go rank. What you’re smelling is death, not a healthy living sea creature. 

Maybe the moral here is, whenever you smell that smell, in any context, something is probably off.