Can Women Take the Honey Pack?

Women do take honey packs, and the products will not refuse to work in a female body. The underlying biology of sexual arousal shares the same core blood-flow pathway in both sexes, so the hidden pharmaceutical ingredients tucked inside many honey packs can produce real vascular effects in women. But “can” and “should” are very different questions. Honey packs are unregulated supplements with undisclosed drug content, no standardized dosing, and safety profiles that have never been studied in women specifically. What follows is a breakdown of what these products actually contain, how those ingredients interact with female physiology, and where the genuine risks lie.

What Is Actually Inside a Honey Pack

Honey packs, sometimes called “royal honey” or “VIP honey,” are marketed as natural sexual enhancement products. They typically list ingredients like raw honey, royal jelly, tongkat ali root, and ginseng. The packaging leans hard into the word “natural.” But laboratory testing repeatedly finds something the label does not mention: prescription-strength erectile dysfunction drugs.

When researchers in Libya analyzed seven herbal honey mixtures from retail shelves, two contained tadalafil, the active ingredient in Cialis.¹ A broader surveillance effort found that PDE-5 inhibitors (the drug class that includes both sildenafil and tadalafil) were detected fourteen times in honey and honey-based products over a six-year monitoring period, making them the second most common chemical hazard found in these products.² The FDA has issued dozens of warnings about specific honey-pack brands over the years, pulling products from shelves after finding undeclared sildenafil, tadalafil, or both.

This matters because the question “can women take the honey pack” is really two questions. The first is about the herbal ingredients on the label. The second, more important one, is about the prescription drugs hidden behind them. You need to think about both separately, because they do very different things in a woman’s body.

Why PDE-5 Inhibitors Can Affect Women Too

The reason drugs like sildenafil work for erections is that they block an enzyme called PDE-5, which normally breaks down a signaling molecule involved in relaxing blood vessel walls. When PDE-5 is blocked, blood vessels in the genitals stay dilated longer, increasing blood flow. Here is where the surprise comes in for many people: that same signaling pathway operates in female genital tissue. The physiological process of sexual arousal shows major biochemical and neurovascular similarities between men and women, despite obvious anatomical differences.³

During arousal, relaxation of smooth muscle in the clitoris and surrounding blood vessels leads to engorgement and increased vaginal lubrication. Sildenafil acts on this pathway. In postmenopausal women, researchers documented that sildenafil increased blood flow to both the uterine and clitoral arteries, and they proposed it could play a role in treating the vascular component of arousal difficulties, such as reduced clitoral engorgement.⁴ Animal studies confirmed that sildenafil facilitated genital arousal responses through this same blood-flow pathway.⁵ In premenopausal women with type 1 diabetes, a single dose of sildenafil significantly increased clitoral blood flow within one hour, as measured by changes in arterial velocity.⁶

So yes, the hidden drugs in honey packs are biologically active in women. They increase genital blood flow. But increased blood flow is not the same thing as improved sexual experience, which is where the story gets more complicated.

What Clinical Trials Actually Found

Pharmaceutical companies spent considerable money in the early 2000s trying to get sildenafil approved for women, and the results were underwhelming. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial studying women with sexual arousal disorder, sildenafil did produce improvements on some measures of arousal compared to placebo. But the effect was much stronger in a subset of women who had arousal problems without also having low desire. Women whose primary issue was wanting sex less frequently did not see the same benefit.⁷

More recently, a randomized trial tested a topical sildenafil cream applied directly to genital tissue. In an exploratory analysis of women diagnosed with arousal disorder, those using the sildenafil cream reported significant improvements in arousal sensation, desire, and orgasm scores compared to placebo, along with reduced sexual distress.⁸ This is worth noting because it points toward localized application being more promising than swallowing a pill, which is effectively what a honey pack delivers.

The overall picture from clinical research is that sildenafil can improve the physical blood-flow component of arousal in women, but female sexual satisfaction depends on a much wider set of factors than blood flow alone. Pfizer ultimately abandoned its pursuit of FDA approval for sildenafil in women, in large part because the drug did not consistently outperform placebo across the full range of sexual function outcomes.

The Placebo Effect Looms Large

One reason it has been so hard to prove that any drug works for female sexual dysfunction is that the placebo response in these trials is enormous. A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials found that women receiving placebo improved by an average of about 3.6 points on the Female Sexual Function Index, while women receiving active treatment improved by about 5.4 points. That means roughly two-thirds of the treatment effect was accounted for by placebo.⁹ Separate research confirmed that sexual function scores improved significantly even after eight weeks of placebo alone.¹⁰

This does not mean the improvement is fake. Placebo effects are real physiological and psychological responses. But it does mean that if a woman takes a honey pack and feels it “worked,” there is a very good chance the ritual itself, the expectation, and the psychological framing contributed more than whatever was in the packet. That is not a reason to dismiss someone’s experience. It is, however, a reason to question whether an unregulated product with hidden drugs is the best way to get there.

Drug Interactions That Can Turn Dangerous

The most serious risk of unknowingly consuming a PDE-5 inhibitor is not the drug itself in isolation but its interaction with other medications. The life-threatening combination is PDE-5 inhibitors plus nitrates, a class of drugs prescribed for chest pain and heart conditions. Nitroglycerin (whether as a sublingual tablet, a patch, or an IV drip) works by releasing nitric oxide, the same molecule that PDE-5 inhibitors amplify. Stack them together and blood pressure can crash.

In a controlled study of angina patients, taking sildenafil before receiving sublingual nitroglycerin caused an additional systolic blood pressure drop of about 16 mmHg at one hour and roughly 12 mmHg at four hours compared to placebo.¹¹ Another study found a four-fold greater decrease in systolic blood pressure when sildenafil was combined with sublingual nitroglycerin, and concluded that giving sildenafil to patients on any form of organic nitrates is contraindicated.¹² In real-world settings, this combination has caused fatal drops in blood pressure.¹³

Women take nitrates too. If you use nitroglycerin for angina, isosorbide mononitrate or dinitrate for heart disease, or even recreational poppers (amyl nitrite), consuming a honey pack that contains sildenafil or tadalafil could produce a medical emergency. And because the label does not disclose the drug, you would have no way to know you are mixing contraindicated medications unless you already suspected the product was adulterated. The same concern extends to alpha-blockers prescribed for blood pressure and certain HIV protease inhibitors that alter how PDE-5 inhibitors are metabolized.

The Herbal Side of the Label

Setting aside the hidden pharmaceuticals, the declared ingredients in honey packs include a handful of traditional remedies with varying levels of scientific support in women.

Tongkat ali (Eurycoma longifolia) is the ingredient most often headlined on honey pack packaging. A four-week trial in moderately stressed adults, including 31 women, found that a standardized tongkat ali extract reduced salivary cortisol by about 16% and increased testosterone status by about 37% compared to placebo.¹⁴ However, a longer twelve-week trial specifically in menopausal women found that a tongkat ali water extract produced no significant lasting changes in female reproductive hormones, including testosterone, estradiol, and progesterone. A brief bump in progesterone at six weeks in one dosage group disappeared by twelve weeks.¹⁵ The evidence for tongkat ali specifically improving sexual function in women is thin.

Royal jelly, another common ingredient, has been studied in animal models of polycystic ovary syndrome rather than as an aphrodisiac. In rats, royal jelly at a specific dose improved hormonal and follicular parameters partly through anti-androgenic and antioxidant effects.¹⁶ ¹⁷ These are interesting findings for a very different clinical question than libido enhancement, and they come from animal studies, not human trials. Royal jelly in the tiny amounts present in a honey pack is unlikely to produce meaningful hormonal shifts.

Korean red ginseng has the strongest evidence base of the common honey pack herbs, at least for women. A meta-analysis of natural product trials found that Panax ginseng improved sexual arousal and desire compared to placebo across pooled studies.¹⁸ A crossover trial in menopausal women specifically found that Korean red ginseng extract significantly improved arousal scores on a standardized questionnaire.¹⁹ But a separate crossover trial in premenopausal women found that while ginseng did improve multiple domains of sexual function, the improvement was not significantly different from placebo, suggesting a substantial placebo effect.²⁰ The honest summary is that ginseng may help, but the effect is modest and entangled with expectation.

None of these herbs in their labeled amounts are likely to cause harm for most women. But none of them are the reason people report dramatic effects from honey packs, either. The dramatic effects, when they happen, almost certainly come from the undeclared pharmaceutical content.

Pregnancy Is a Hard No

If there is one population that should absolutely avoid honey packs, it is pregnant women. Sildenafil has been investigated as a potential treatment for placental insufficiency and fetal growth restriction, and the results raised alarms. A Dutch clinical trial was suspended after eleven newborns died among mothers given sildenafil, though the study population already carried elevated risk due to severe early-onset fetal growth restriction. A systematic review noted that sildenafil is not approved for any obstetrical use and should not be given to pregnant women outside the context of a clinical trial.²¹ Consuming a honey pack during pregnancy means potentially exposing yourself and a developing fetus to an undisclosed dose of a potent vasodilator. The risk calculus is not even close.

Why the Dose Problem Is Worse Than You Think

When a doctor prescribes sildenafil to a man for erectile dysfunction, the starting dose is typically 50 mg, adjusted up or down based on response and side effects. The dose is standardized, the drug is pharmaceutical-grade, and the patient has been screened for contraindications. None of that infrastructure exists with a honey pack. You do not know whether the packet contains 20 mg or 200 mg of sildenafil, whether it contains sildenafil or tadalafil or both, or whether the concentration is consistent from one packet to the next within the same brand.

Tadalafil lasts far longer in the body than sildenafil, with effects potentially persisting for over a day. If a honey pack contains tadalafil and you need emergency medical care involving nitrate administration within that window, the interaction risk persists long after you have forgotten about the honey. Women who take blood pressure medication, have low baseline blood pressure, or have cardiac conditions face compounded risk because they may not tolerate even a modest additional drop in blood pressure.

Side effects that are well documented with prescribed PDE-5 inhibitors, including headache, facial flushing, nasal congestion, visual disturbances, and dizziness, can all occur in women taking honey packs. Anecdotal reports from women who have tried these products describe exactly these symptoms, which makes physiological sense given the shared vascular pathway.

Ginseng as a Standalone Alternative

For women curious about herbal approaches to sexual function, it is worth separating the ingredients that have at least some evidence behind them from the unregulated cocktail of a honey pack. Korean red ginseng is the ingredient with the most promising, if still limited, data. The arousal benefit observed in menopausal women was obtained using a standardized extract at a known dose in a controlled setting.¹⁹ Standardized ginseng supplements are widely available, inexpensive, and carry a long safety record at typical doses. If the herbal angle appeals to you, a standalone ginseng product with a known concentration is a far more rational choice than a honey pack of unknown composition.

That said, even the meta-analytic evidence for ginseng shows modest effect sizes, and the placebo response in female sexual function trials is consistently large.⁹ This is not a dismissal. It is a useful reframing: if expectation and context account for most of the improvement women experience with any sexual supplement, then you can get that benefit without swallowing an unknown quantity of prescription medication hidden in honey.

What Honey Packs Share With Other Tainted Supplements

Honey packs are not unique. They sit within a well-documented pattern of dietary supplements marketed for sexual enhancement that turn out to contain undeclared pharmaceuticals. The FDA maintains a running list of tainted products, and the sexual enhancement category is one of the most frequently flagged. What makes honey packs distinctive is their branding as “natural” or “traditional,” leaning on honey’s cultural associations with health and vitality. The packaging often avoids explicit drug claims while using suggestive language and imagery that leaves little ambiguity about intended use.

PDE-5 inhibitors were identified as the second most common chemical hazard in honey-based products over a recent six-year surveillance period, behind only veterinary medicinal product residues.² The consistency of this finding across different countries and brands suggests that adulteration is not accidental contamination but a deliberate formulation choice. The herbs on the label may be real, but they serve primarily as cover for the active pharmaceutical ingredient doing the heavy lifting.

For women, this creates an especially frustrating situation. The legitimate research into PDE-5 inhibitors for female arousal disorder is ongoing and has produced real, if modest, results. A topical sildenafil cream showed enough promise in a recent randomized trial that further development seems warranted.⁸ But that research involves known doses, screened patients, and medical oversight. A honey pack from a gas station counter offers none of those safeguards while delivering the same class of drug. The gap between the science and the product could hardly be wider.

1
Misurata Medical Sciences Journal. DETECTION OF SILDENAFIL AND TADALAFIL IN HERBAL HONEY MIXTURES IN LIBYAN MARKET
2
PubMed Central. Phosphodiesterase Type 5 Inhibitors as Chemical Hazards in Honey and Honey-Based Products
3
The Journal of Men’s Health & Gender. Sexual arousal: similarities and differences between men and women
4
PubMed Central. The Effect of Sildenafil Citrate on Uterine and Clitoral Arterial Blood Flow in Postmenopausal Women
5
International Journal of Impotence Research. Sildenafil augments pelvic nerve‐mediated female genital sexual arousal in the anesthetized rabbit
6
PubMed. Changes in clitoral blood flow in premenopausal women affected by type 1 diabetes after single 100-mg administration of sildenafil
7
PubMed. Safety and efficacy of sildenafil citrate for the treatment of female sexual arousal disorder: a double-blind, placebo controlled study
8
PubMed Central. Preliminary Efficacy of Topical Sildenafil Cream for the Treatment of Female Sexual Arousal Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial
9
PubMed. Female Sexual Dysfunction and the Placebo Effect: A Meta-analysis
10
PubMed Central. Correlates of Placebo Response in the Treatment of Sexual Dysfunction in Women: A Preliminary Report
11
PubMed Central. Time-dependent interactions of the hypotensive effects of sildenafil citrate and sublingual glyceryl trinitrate
12
PubMed. Sildenafil citrate and blood-pressure-lowering drugs: results of drug interaction studies with an organic nitrate and a calcium antagonist
13
PubMed Central. Sildenafil (viagra) and the heart
14
PubMed Central. Effect of Tongkat Ali on stress hormones and psychological mood state in moderately stressed subjects
15
PubMed Central. Effect of Eurycoma longifolia water extract (Physta®) on menopausal quality of life and mood states
16
PubMed Central. Composition of Royal Jelly (RJ) and Its Anti-Androgenic Effect on Reproductive Parameters in a Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) Animal Model
17
PubMed Central. Improved hormonal and oxidative changes by Royal Jelly in the rat model of PCOS: An experimental study
18
PubMed. Beneficial effects of natural products on female sexual dysfunction: A systematic review and meta-analysis
19
PubMed. Effects of Korean red ginseng on sexual arousal in menopausal women: placebo-controlled, double-blind crossover clinical study
20
PubMed Central. The Effect of Korean Red Ginseng on Sexual Function in Premenopausal Women: Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind, Crossover Clinical Trial
21
PubMed Central. The effects of sildenafil in maternal and fetal outcomes in pregnancy: A systematic review and meta-analysis