Tucked in the city's Strawbery Banke Museum — a collection of antique houses showcasing four centuries of history — Helen Rollins is selling, of all things, vaginal lubricants and vibrators.

Rollins' personal lubricant, moisturizing oil and "female rejuvenation formula," have been the subject of snickers and whispers around the historic neighborhood. Some have questioned the appropriateness of her selling "massagers" in a historic museum, though none will be quoted by name.

To them, Rollins asks, "Do you take Viagra?"

Or, she said she might respond, "Did you have cancer?"

"People do not snicker to me," she said. "People who think my business is risque are very small-minded people. Plus, we're in Puritan New England."

Rollins said it was after she was diagnosed with breast cancer that she brainstormed the plan for her business, Women's Intimate Solutions. Post-menopausal, she was advised not to take hormone replacement therapy because it could feed cancer cells, and the combination led to pain when she should've been experiencing pleasure, she said.

"I thought my intimate life was over forever," Rollins wrote on her Web site, www.womensintimatesolutions.com. "I knew I did not want to live without the closeness and comfort of intimacy, so I went hunting for information."

She also hunted down creams, oils and salves, which she now sells and said are herbal-based, organic and help women "feel like themselves." The "massagers," she said, help restore women back to good sexual health.

"I also use them to prove to myself that I actually still 'work,' which is not only fun, but a great relief," Rollins wrote on her Web site.

She said the products are based on herbal remedies dating back to the 1600s, so her proximity to Strawbery Banke's herb garden is relevant. The business was launched three years ago in the Rollinsford Mills and in March 2011, she was one of the first to rent commercial space at Strawbery Banke Museum through its Heritage Houses program.

The program involves funding the museum through rents paid by residential and commercial tenants.

Rollins runs a retail business from a shop in the Hough House, an 1800s-era wood home built by ship carpenter Thomas Hough.

And while visitors to the museum can browse and shop there, Rollins said most of her sales are through the Internet.

She said she has customers "in 40 states including Alaska."

"I get calls from women who are crying because their marriages are going away," she said. "Every time I think about closing my business, I get a call."

Sole owner of the business, Rollins said she's part of the cancer-survivor community and regularly attends survivor support group meetings. She said she's also part of a circle of people with a common interest in herbal remedies.

"Those are my people," she said.

To critics of her adult business in a historic museum, Rollins said, "Well it does involve sex, but because of very special reasons."