How an Elderly Woman Helped Me Understand What Clove Water Was Actually Doing to My Body — and Why It Scared Me

You have tried it.

Maybe someone sent you the recipe in a group chat. Maybe you watched a video and the woman swore it changed her life. Maybe you boiled the cloves yourself, late at night, quietly, so nobody in the house would know you were still dealing with this.

You did everything right. You followed the instructions. You waited.

And for a few days — maybe three, maybe five — it seemed to work. The smell softened. The discomfort eased. You exhaled.

Then it came back.

Not just came back. Came back stronger. With a different smell. A different texture. A different kind of discomfort that made you wonder if you had made something worse.

So you tried the next remedy. The garlic. The hydrogen peroxide. The yoghurt. The apple cider vinegar. The boric acid suppositories someone on Reddit swore by. The pharmacy cream that cost ₦4,500 and lasted four days.

Every single time — some relief. Then the return.

And here is the part nobody talks about. The part that lives in your chest, not your body.

You stopped wanting your husband to get close. Not because you stopped loving him. But because you were terrified of what he might notice. You started timing everything around it. You counted days. You kept distance when you shouldn't have to.

You started to believe something was fundamentally wrong with you.

Some women stop initiating. Some women start sleeping at the edge of the bed. Some women smile at their husbands in the morning while quietly carrying something he doesn't know is there.

This is not a hygiene problem. This is not a self-care problem.

This is a woman who has been trying everything — and nobody has told her the truth about why nothing is sticking.

My Name is Eki Preye.

I am not a doctor. Not a nurse. Not a wellness influencer with a brand deal and a ring light.

I am a woman from Bayelsa State who married a man she loved deeply, moved to Lagos at 27, and spent four years quietly falling apart inside a problem she could not solve.

My husband is a gentle man. The kind that doesn't complain. The kind that does not make you feel dirty even when you feel it yourself. But I started pulling away from him. Slowly. The way you close a window before the rain — so gradual that nobody notices until the room is already sealed shut.

I spent over ₦180,000 in four years on things that did not work. Creams. Antibiotics. Probiotics. A gynaecologist in Victoria Island who told me to "maintain good hygiene" as though I had not been obsessing over it for years. A different gynaecologist who gave me metronidazole for the third time, as if the first two prescriptions had simply been the wrong kind of defeat.

What none of them ever asked me — not once — was why it kept coming back.

They treated the symptom every time. They handed me something to quiet it down. And it would quiet down. For a while.

Then it would come back. And I would be back in that chair, with that look on my face that women who have lived inside this problem will recognise immediately. The look of a person who is tired of being told the same thing.

I started trying everything I found online. Including all the clove water recipes. Including the herbal steaming routines. I was desperate. And desperation makes you try things without asking the right questions.

It was not until I went home to the village — for a ceremony I did not even want to attend — that everything changed.

The Ceremony I Almost Did Not Go To

My aunt's daughter was being introduced. The family had been planning the Ijaw traditional wine-carrying ceremony for months. Everyone was going home to Bayelsa. My mother called me four times. I told her I was busy. I told her Lagos traffic was too much. I told her work would not let me go.

The truth is — I just did not want to be around that many women.

Women who would notice. Women who would ask questions. Women whose sharpness I had grown up being afraid of. You know the kind. The aunties who say nothing directly but see everything.

Eventually I went. Because a daughter who does not come home to her cousin's introduction is a daughter who has to explain herself for years afterward. I packed a bag, took the night bus, and arrived at my mother's compound at five in the morning smelling of Oshodi motor park.

The ceremony was joyful. The kind of loud, colourful, proud gathering that reminds you of everything good about being from where you are from. Women in George wrappers, men in flowing isiagu, children running everywhere, the smell of banga soup thick in the afternoon air.

Mama Ngozi was there.

She is not related to us by blood. But she has been around our family long enough that my mother calls her sister. She is in her mid-fifties, a herbalist's daughter who married a schoolteacher and raised six children. She knows things. The quiet, watching kind of knowing that older women carry without announcing it.

She was seated near the kitchen entrance when I walked past. We greeted. She held my hand a moment longer than was necessary. And she looked at me the way a woman looks at another woman when she sees something she recognises.

I felt it before she said anything.

Later in the evening, during the break between dances, she found me near the back of the compound. She had that expression — gentle, careful, the face of someone choosing their words like they are carrying something fragile.

"You have been trying things," she said. Not a question. A statement.

I froze.

The Discovery That Changed Everything

She took me inside. Away from the noise, the laughter, the dancing. A small room at the back of the house where the older women kept the food that had not been served yet.

She sat across from me. She poured me water from a small clay pot. And she said the five words I had spent four years waiting to hear.

I did not cry the ceremonial kind of tears. Not the polite kind. I cried the way a person cries when they have been holding something very heavy for a very long time and someone finally says — you can put it down now.

She let me cry. She did not touch me or shush me or say anything until I was finished.

Then she began to speak.

I asked her — but what is actually happening? Why does it keep coming back every time?

She was quiet for a moment. Then she explained it in a way that no doctor, no pharmacist, no wellness blog had ever explained it to me before.

I sat with that for a long time.

Four years. ₦180,000. Countless nights of quiet shame. And it had taken one woman — not a doctor, not a pharmacist — sitting in a room with me in the back of a village compound, to tell me what was actually happening.

Not because she was magic. Because she had the knowledge that nobody online had bothered to tell me.

"What do I do?" I asked.

She described a method. Not dramatic. Not painful. Not something that required grinding pastes in the middle of the night or inserting anything or steaming over a pot for thirty minutes. Something simple, natural, and built around supporting the body instead of attacking what was growing in it.

Less than five minutes a day. Done at home. No special equipment. No grinding. No inserting. No steaming. No burning. The ingredients — she told me — were things I could find in any market in Lagos. Total cost of materials was less than ₦3,000.

But the real test was yet to come.

Friday Night

It was a Friday. Fourteen days after I had come back from Bayelsa.

My husband had cooked. He does that sometimes — Banga soup, the way I taught him, never quite right but always an act of love. We ate together. We talked. It was the kind of evening that used to be easy and had become careful.

Later, when the room was quiet, he reached for me.

And I did not move away.

I did not calculate. I did not make an excuse. I did not shift to the edge of the bed with a reason that had nothing to do with the real reason.

I just — stayed.

I will not tell you the details of that night. But I will tell you that I cried afterward. Not from shame. Not from fear. From relief so complete that my body did not know what else to do with it.

He held me. He did not know why I was crying. He just held me the way a man holds a woman when he senses that something important has shifted — even if he cannot name it.

I Didn't Plan to Tell Anyone

I told one friend. Chiamaka — we have known each other since university. She lives in Abuja. I called her on a Sunday afternoon and told her everything.

She went quiet for a long time.

Then she said: "Eki. I have been dealing with the same thing for two years. I just never told you."

Two women who had known each other for twelve years. Both carrying the same thing. In silence. From each other.

I told her the method. She tried it. She called me on day nine.

After that — woman to woman, voice note to voice note — it spread the way real things spread. Not with advertising. With testimony.

Same understanding. Same method. Same results.

Why I Am Sharing This

Six months later, I went back home. Not for a ceremony this time — just to see my mother. Mama Ngozi was there, as she often is, sitting in the same spot near the kitchen entrance.

I told her everything. Every woman who had called me. Every voice note I had received. She listened. When I finished, she laughed — the deep, chest-full laugh of a woman who is not surprised by anything.

I asked her: "Mama, can I write this down? Can I document what you taught me, properly, with everything you explained — so women who cannot come to the village can still access it?"

She was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded.

That is why this guide exists.

Compare That To What You Have Already Been Spending

• ❌Pharmacy antibiotics (metronidazole, fluconazole): ₦3,500–₦8,000 per round. Work for 5–10 days. Do not address why it keeps returning. Most women have taken 3–10 rounds.
• ❌Feminine hygiene washes and pH-balancing products: ₦2,500–₦6,000 per bottle. Many contain fragrance and alcohol — ingredients that disrupt the very balance they promise to protect.
• ❌Private gynaecologist consultations: ₦15,000–₦35,000 per visit. Most end with the same prescription. Almost none include a conversation about why it keeps recurring.
• ❌Herbal steam sessions (salon or at home): ₦5,000–₦20,000 per session. Delivered without safety guidance on temperature, duration, or frequency — all of which matter enormously.
• ❌Imported supplements and probiotic capsules: ₦12,000–₦40,000 per month. May help — but most women are using them alongside practices that undo everything the supplement is trying to do.
• 💔 The real cost — the one nobody puts a number on: The distance you have created in your marriage. The nights you moved away. The mornings you spent counting days instead of being present. The version of yourself you stopped being. There is no receipt for that. But you know exactly what it has cost you.

How Much Does This Guide Cost?

Let me be honest with you about what went into creating it.

After Mama Ngozi gave me permission, I did not simply write down what she told me. I spent months verifying every claim against published research. I hired a medical writer to review the scientific sections. I cross-referenced everything with evidence on vaginal microbiome research, pH balance, and herbal phytochemistry. Here is what the creation of this guide actually cost:

A fair price would be ₦27,000. That is less than one private gynaecologist consultation that will tell you the same thing for the eighth time.

But I know times are hard. And I know that the women who need this most are the ones who have already spent the most trying to fix it.

So if you take action today —

Once You Click That Button, Here Is What Happens

1. You are taken to a secure payment page. It is simple and takes less than 60 seconds to complete. You pay once — no subscriptions, no hidden charges.
2. Your payment is confirmed automatically. You do not need to send any screenshot or wait for manual approval.
3. Your guide is delivered directly to your WhatsApp number and your email inbox within 60–90 seconds of payment. You can begin reading it immediately — on your phone, tonight.

It is me, Eki. As long as your payment is confirmed, your access is 100% guaranteed. I personally make sure of it.

What Happens In The First 7–14 Days

Real conversations. Real women. Real results. ← Swipe to read →

Right Now, You Have Two Choices