It's a fair bet licorice has never crossed your mind in connection with vaginal health. It might not make your top hundred. Still, a compound from the same root behind the candy has been turning up in intimate-care formulas, and there's solid research behind why.
On a label it reads as glycyrrhetinic acid, or 18-beta-glycyrrhetinic acid. It isn't a household name, and until fairly recently almost nobody linked it to vaginal tissue.
If dryness or irritation around menopause is on your radar, this one is worth understanding. So, what it is and what it does.
Where it comes from
Glycyrrhetinic acid is what's left after your body breaks down glycyrrhizin, the sweet part of licorice root [3]. Most labels print it as 18-beta-glycyrrhetinic acid.
Licorice has a long history as a folk remedy for irritated skin, going back centuries across very different traditions. When researchers looked into why it seemed to help, this compound kept coming up. Herbal traditions in China, Greece, and the Middle East all list licorice as a soother.
You've probably met it already without noticing. It turns up in lip balms, cold-sore creams, and calming face products, anywhere a formula is trying to take the heat out of upset skin. The vaginal-care use is newer, but it grows out of that same history.
The licorice-and-blood-pressure thing
There's a well-known catch with licorice. Eat a lot of it and your blood pressure can rise, and the reason traces straight back to this compound.
Glycyrrhetinic acid blocks an enzyme called 11-beta-HSD [2]. With that enzyme switched off across the body, the stress hormone cortisol stays active longer in tissues like the kidney. Sodium builds up, and pressure climbs [4].
Doctors aren't being dramatic when they warn against eating black licorice by the bag. The effect is well documented, and it has caught people who just liked licorice tea or sweets a little too much [4].
Which raises a fair question. If this compound can move your blood pressure, why would anyone want it on sensitive skin?
What it does on the skin
The soothing part doesn't run through that blood-pressure enzyme, which surprised researchers too. In one study, even after accounting for the enzyme effect, glycyrrhetinic acid still calmed inflammation on its own [2].
What it seems to do instead is act as an anti-inflammatory and an antioxidant [3]. It quiets the chemical signals behind inflammation, and it helps the cells' own defenses clear the oxidative stress that keeps tissue irritated [3]. Antioxidant here means the same thing it does in food and skincare, just aimed at skin that's already inflamed. And inflammation, on tissue this thin, has a habit of lingering and keeping things sore.
So the version of licorice that matters for skin is the local one. Put it on a patch of tissue and it works on that patch, while the whole-body blood-pressure story stays out of it.
What the studies say
Most of the evidence sits in skin and lab research, not large vaginal trials. That shapes how much weight to give it.
Dermatology is where it's strongest. A review of randomized trials put moisturizers with glycyrrhetinic acid among the better-supported choices for settling red, irritated skin and shoring up the skin barrier [5].
On the vaginal side, one trial fits the topic. Sixty postmenopausal women used a non-hormonal vaginal gel built around glycyrrhetinic acid and hyaluronic acid, plus a few botanicals, and over twelve weeks it reduced dryness, itching, and burning [1]. Since the gel mixed several ingredients, glycyrrhetinic acid can't take the credit alone, and a single study only goes so far [1]. Worth noting, though, the same women also reported more comfort during sex, and the improvements held across the full three months [1].
Why menopause changes things
Vaginal tissue relies on estrogen to stay thick, elastic, and moist. As estrogen falls, the tissue thins and dries and starts reacting to friction it used to ignore. That shift is normal. It comes with perimenopause and menopause, and it shows up after childbirth and during breastfeeding too.
Day to day, it can feel like dryness, tightness, or a sting out of nowhere, and it can make ordinary things, from a long walk to sex, uncomfortable. For many women it builds slowly enough to brush off at first, until it starts cutting into sleep, exercise, or a relationship.
Falling estrogen also leaves tissue under more oxidative stress, the slow wear that sets in as those hormones recede. So an ingredient that calms inflammation and works against that wear makes sense at this stage.
And one thing should be clear. Glycyrrhetinic acid is not estrogen and not a hormone. For women who can't take hormones or would rather skip them, including many breast cancer survivors, that's the entire draw.
What to keep in mind
Take the blood-pressure point seriously. It comes from eating licorice regularly and in quantity, which is when the enzyme gets blocked body-wide [4]. A small amount on local tissue is a different situation, but if your blood pressure runs high or you're pregnant, check with your provider before starting anything new.
Keep your expectations realistic, too. This isn't a lubricant, so it won't do anything in the moment, and it won't turn things around overnight. If something feels truly wrong, it doesn't replace a visit to the doctor. What it offers is slow, steady upkeep, the kind you tend to notice after a few weeks of regular use rather than the first night.
Reading it on a label
You'll nearly always see glycyrrhetinic acid sitting next to a humectant, usually hyaluronic acid, which pulls in water and holds it at the surface. One handles moisture and the other handles the calming, and together they cover more ground than either does alone [5][1].
That pairing turns up in some non-hormonal vaginal moisturizers, including Neycher's Vaginal Moisturizer, where licorice-derived glycyrrhetinic acid sits beside hyaluronic acid to support and comfort the tissue it touches.
So when a label turns into a wall of long names, that's one to recognize instead of skim past. It usually sits lower down, since a little goes a long way, so don't expect it up near the water and the base. It earns its spot.
Sources
- De Seta F, Caruso S, Di Lorenzo G, et al. Efficacy and safety of a new vaginal gel for the treatment of symptoms associated with vulvovaginal atrophy in postmenopausal women: A double-blind randomized placebo-controlled study. Maturitas. 2021;147:34-40. PMID: 33832645. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33832645/
- Shimoyama Y, Hirabayashi K, Matsumoto H, et al. Effects of glycyrrhetinic acid derivatives on hepatic and renal 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase activities in rats. J Pharm Pharmacol. 2003;55(6):811-817. PMID: 12841942. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12841942/
- Liu J, Xu Y, Yan M, et al. 18beta-Glycyrrhetinic acid suppresses allergic airway inflammation through NF-kB and Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathways in asthma mice. Sci Rep. 2022;12(1):3121. PMID: 35210449. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8873505/
- Morris DJ, Brem AS, Odermatt A. Modulation of 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase functions by the cloud of endogenous metabolites in a local microenvironment: The glycyrrhetinic acid-like factor (GALF) hypothesis. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2021;214:105988. PMID: 34464733. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34464733/
- Micali G, Paterno V, Cannarella R, et al. Evidence-based treatment of atopic dermatitis with topical moisturizers. G Ital Dermatol Venereol. 2018;153(3):396-402. PMID: 29368843. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29368843/
