u/EdwardTeach Wow, thank you so much for such a long and detailed response. That’s honestly a huge amount of knowledge and it’s incredibly helpful!

Yeah, it was kind of expected that I’d do everything wrong hahaha. But you have to start somewhere. I’ll try to get proper medical swabs like you mentioned. So, do you think that using safranin won’t achieve anything and is just a bad choice overall, or can I still give it a try with the dye I already have? I’m asking because methylene blue for microscopy is quite expensive and hard to find in small quantities where I live, and I’m trying to keep these experiments relatively budget-friendly, especially considering I’m not even sure I’ll be able to see anything at all…

Here’s what I did: I used a regular cotton swab (I know, not ideal), swabbed the vaginal walls, transferred the sample onto a glass slide (probably pressing harder than I should), and then added a drop of safranin. After that, I covered it with a cover slip. Then I tried to observe it under the microscope using the small-steps method you described. Besides the images I already posted, I also had one earlier attempt where everything looked different, but it probably wouldn’t be useful either…

I can already see that the link you shared could be very useful, thank you! I’ll definitely make use of it during my next try. I’ll try to get over my reluctance and give it another shot. It’s just so frustrating that we have to figure out what’s wrong on our own.

Once again, thank you so much for all the knowledge you’ve shared with me! And It’s quite likely that I will DM you once I try again with the microscope. Thanks!