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The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

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Two-page newspaper spread from Lysol describing how disinfecting your vagina with Lysol was a "correct" practice of feminine hygiene.
Mid-century Lysol campaigns shamed women into “disinfecting” their vaginas. Source unknown.

Contraceptive douching products begin to be remarketed as feminine hygiene products.

1970s

RHRR
AIDS
Mid-century Lysol campaigns shamed women into “disinfecting” their vaginas. Source unknown.

Following the introduction of "the pill," douche product manufacturers begin to build a market around the "problem" of vaginal odor, moving douching from a code for contraception to an issue of hygiene. By 1988, the sale of feminine hygiene "deodorants" will have risen 21.3% in drug stores, and feminine douches will have risen 3.9%. Sales will then explode again in response to the AIDS crisis.