How much knowledge do men have about the P-word that some still cringe at? Why do we feel awkward talking about periods, especially with men?
Period is a natural phenomenon, and our world was peopled by periods. To put an end to the menstrual taboo and shame, Rael created this funny yet eye-opening series with 6 men, who were brave enough to share what they knew and didn't know about periods and pads.
Subscribe to this email list to watch our upcoming videos and receive exclusive offers from Rael. We make organic and natural feminine care products that actually work and are committed to making each cycle better than the last!
We launched in 2017 with a mission to provide natural and organic feminine care products that don’t sacrifice comfort or functionality. As a company, we are centered around quality, performance and convenience, and as a brand, our vision is to empower and inform women with safer, healthier alternatives for their bodies.
Rael was founded in Southern California by entrepreneurs with distinct backgrounds: Aness, a journalist and bestselling author; Yanghee, an international movie distributor at The Walt Disney Studios with a Harvard MBA; and Binna, an architect-turned-art director. We were created for women, by women who are committed to sourcing the highest quality ingredients, continuing product innovation and offering easy access around the world.
RESEARCH, DEVELOP, REPEAT.
Our R&D Team spends a lot of time sourcing the right ingredients and studying the best technologies to produce the highest-quality products with only the best materials. We take pride in manufacturing in small batches so we can continuously listen to feedback, make improvements as needed and ensure our products are kept up to date.
Menstrual cups are the ultimate eco-friendly period product. They’ve been around for decades, but the newer ones made from medical grade silicone became popular only in the last 10 years or so.
They can potentially replace hundreds or even thousands of tampons because they usually last for around five years. When they wear out, they can often be recycled, depending on where you live.
There are a few other benefits beyond the environmental ones:
Menstrual cups don’t contain toxic chemicals in them, unlike some brands of tampons.
Jumbo tampons hold 10 ml of fluid, while the average period cup holds 30. This means less period hassle.
You can lower your risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome with menstrual cups, when compared to tampons.
Savings of potentially thousands of dollars over a lifetime.
Which menstrual cup to buy? A good starting point is the Diva Cup. It’s one of the most popular menstrual cup in the world for good reason! It’s a top-quality cup that’s made in Canada. Other great options are the Lunette Cup, Organicup, the Mooncup and the Lily Menstrual Cup.
2. Period Panties
If you use pantyliners for spotting, discharge, as a backup to a menstrual cup or tampon, or for light incontinence, then consider making the switch to period panties. They’re not just dark-coloured, regular underwear!
There are a two kinds of menstrual underwear. The first option is just a leak-proof layer, while the second has some absorbent padding, plus a leak-proof barrier.
Which option you choose is up to you, but they often make a better choice than pantyliners or light pads if you’re going to wear them on a regular basis.
These days, there are lots of companies making premium menstrual underwear.
One of our best options is Modibodi Period Panties. They’re an Australian company who makes some seriously nice menstrual underwear that is extremely comfortable! They have a huge range of styles, sizes, and absorbency levels. Shipping is free to the USA and Canada with a minimum order.
Some of the other good ones you may want to consider include Thinx, Dear Kate and LunaPads. The first two are the expensive, premium options.
3. The Ziggy Cup
You’ve maybe used Soft Cups (or Flex Discs) before if you wanted to have non-messy period sex. They’re flat, flexible discs that fit right below your cervix. They work great for that purpose, but the major negative is that they’re a disposable product.
In the past few months, Intimina (makers of the Lily Menstrual Cup) have come out with the Ziggy Cup. It has much the same design as the Soft Cup but it’s made from the same material as most menstrual cups. This makes it reusable for a few years.
Finally, an eco-friendly period sex option! It’s what many people have been waiting years for.
4. Reusable Cloth Pads
Next up for eco-friendly period products are reusable cloth pads. If you use disposables, then consider making the switch. Like menstrual cups, they can last for around 5 years if you care for them properly.
Disposable pads are a bit of an environmental disaster. They contain large amounts of plastic,which is non-biodegradable. Some brands contain trace amounts of toxic chemicals in them from the pesticides used on the cotton, as well as the bleaching process. This stuff isn’t good for your health, or the environment.
Top-quality cloth pads are made from natural, biodegradable materials so they’re great for our Earth. Beyond that, you’re not exposing yourself to toxins, and you can also save a bit of money over the medium to long-term.
There are a number of cloth pad options on Etsy. Or, if you’re handy with the sewing machine you can make your own. Look on Pinterest for patterns.
5. Organic Pads or Tampons
The final eco-friendly period option to consider are organic pads or tampons, instead of regular ones. They’re better for your health, as well as the environment. Most of these products contain no plastic, including the wrapping. This makes them 100% biodegradable.
What they’re not better for is your bank account balance! One of the more affordable brands is Rael. They’re a new company, but they make some excellent organic products. (editor’s note: we highly recommend checking their P Word Series if you’ve got a minute!) Rael currently only delivers in the U.S.. Other organic pads or tampons options are OHNE (U.K.), Flo(Europe), SHE (U.S.) or TOM(Australia).
1. Check out the Women's Environmental Network. It supports the use of healthier and more sustainable alternatives to conventional sanitary products, from reusable menstrual cups to organic cotton tampons. It seeks to educate and inform people about menstrual health, and has successfully campaigned to change the way conventional products are made and sold in the UK.
2. Try a menstrual cup like the Mooncup (£21.99, Boots). It's both greener and cheaper than monthly disposables. Made of silicone, it's said to hold hold three times as much as a tampon can absorb. You can use it overnight as well as when travelling, swimming, exercising. Other options include the foldable RubyCup, Fleurcup or the Organicup.
3. Buy yourself a pair of period pants to try on for size. Dear Kate, Pretty Clever Pants and WUKA are brands which have created knickers which double up as a sanitary pad.
4. Have a go at using a reusable pad. Lunapads can be washed in the washing machine and are stocked at Eco Menstrual. Alternatively, No More Taboo specialises in reusable menstrual hygiene products and is based in Bristol. It poses the question: why should your period cost the earth?
5. Switch to organic, biodegradable, 100% cotton tampons. Try TOTM, which is certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard and urges you to "be kinder to your vagina."
Did you know that a staggering 4.3 billion disposable menstrual products are used in the UK every year? This creates a huge amount of avoidable waste with much of it being plastic!
A ‘conventional’ menstrual pad contains around the same amount of plastic as four carrier bags. Depending on where it ends up as waste, it could have a longer life-span than the woman who uses it! What’s more, although NO period products should go down the loo, it’s estimated that every single day in the UK about 700,000 panty liners, 2.5 million tampons and 1.4 million pads are flushed down the toilet – many of which block our sewer systems and escape into our rivers and seas…
Flushed plastics make up around 8% of beach litter in the UK and that figure keeps on climbing each year. Plastic debris kills more than a million seabirds and over 100,000 marine mammals every year.
How many women actually know their tampons and pads may have plastic in them? Unlike food products, there is no legal compulsion to list ingredients on their packaging, although most of this information is available online.
Pads, the product favoured around the world, can in some cases be made up of about 90% plastic - containing as much as four supermarket bags. Tampons are predominantly cotton and rayon but have components made up of polyester materials. Many come individually wrapped with plastic applicators.
The average woman is estimated to use, and throw away, in excess of 10,000 of these in her menstrual lifetime.
During its annual clean-up weekend in 2017, the Marine Conservation Society found a large increase in sewage-related debris on British beaches - including hundreds of menstrual pads, tampons and applicators. The problem inspired City to Sea, a group fighting ocean pollution, to start a #PlasticFreePeriod campaign.
Despite warnings on packaging that products like wipes and tampons aren't flushable, women continue to dispose of them this way, forcing water companies to spend huge amounts of money clearing blockages.
In countries without stringent disposal systems in place, these products can be found in the streets or on rubbish dumps being hand-sorted, leaving poor workers at huge health risk.
But through woman-to-woman advocacy and word of mouth, reusable products like cups, sponges and absorbent pants are growing in popularity around the world. Once a fringe choice, these environmentally friendlier options are being popularised by the internet.
How do cups work?
Two women helping to push the movement online are Kim Rosas and Amanda Hearn from YouTube channel Put A Cup In It. Based in the US, they aim to break down taboos with frank and open discussion about reusable products.
Media captionKim and Amanda explain menstrual cups
Menstrual cups, typically made of medical-grade silicone, are inserted into the vagina and collect, not absorb, menstrual blood. Their contents are periodically dumped, the cup cleaned, and the product reused. They may cost $30-40 (£20-30) but can be used for 10 years.
The idea of being that close with your own menstrual blood may make some women feel squeamish.
Activists believe a large part of this comes from exposure to marketing which characterises periods as a sanitary issue.
The devices can be a life-changing solution in developing countries where deep cultural taboos and lack of sanitation access remains a major obstacle to women's education.
Ruby Cup, one brand, has spearheaded a "buy one, give one" programme that has provided sustainable options to more than 50,000 women in 10 countries with high levels of poverty.
Image copyrightTHE RUBY CUP Image captionThe cups are distributed to girls in countries such as Malawi, Uganda and Nepal
"Initially when people see the cup you get some very surprised faces - like is this going to go inside of me?" brand co-founder Julie Weigaard Kjaer says.
"But you'll get a few brave girls try it. They'll have a good experience and tell their peers."
Kenyan actress and model Ebby Weyime has developed a cup of her own which she now produces and sells locally.
"The majority of us live below the poverty line, so basic things like sanitary napkins are looked at as a luxury for most people," she says.
"Yes I can help a girl for January and February but what happens in March or April? After I found the cup I knew it was a long-time solution that could help girls for years."
She has found the lack of female sexual health awareness and enduring cultural taboos big hurdles to cup popularity in Africa.
"It's amazing how many women have no idea about their anatomy," she says.
"They've never seen how their vagina looks. Insertion is the main problem, so you just need girls to get past the worry and fear of that."
Similar barriers exist all around the world. While tampons are preferred in the US and Western Europe, they're actually culturally niche and menstrual pads overwhelmingly dominate the global market.
In India, Komal Khulbe, known online as the Delhi Fashion Blogger, has been praised by her fan base for breaking taboos by making a YouTube video about menstrual cups.
Image copyrightTHE DELHI FASHION BLOGGER Image captionIn India, women typically use pads or washable cloths and tampon use isn't widespread
"Most of the comments I get on the video are 'I'm not sexually active', 'does it mess up the hymen or not?'
"It's the same with tampons not being pushed in the media because they're worn in the body. It's a lot of word-of-mouth negative impression."
But environmentally friendly and culturally sensitive options are being developed there too - one brand, Saathi, has developed pads made from fully biodegradable plant-based fibres.
Image copyrigh
What other solutions are there?
Historically, a lot of women have used washable cloths to absorb blood.
Refined versions of this, in the form of reusable pads, have actually taken off as a plastic-free solution and are now being sold by retailers online.
Their products are designed to absorb menstrual flow on light to medium days or act as a back-up method.
Maria Molland Selby, the company's CEO, said the idea had been born out of the developmental stagnation of disposable retail giants.
"They haven't innovated in decades. They're big, corporate. They've been around a while and have never had to have it at the top of their minds to figure out better products for women and as a result you have products that aren't best for the body."
For those who want to help reduce their period's environmental impact but still feel squeamish about washable options, there are alternatives.
Dame, a British organic menstrual product company, received an overwhelming response to an online Kickstarter campaign they launched earlier this year to develop their reusable tampon applicator.
"We love cups, we love washable pads but sadly they're not being used a lot," says one of brand's founders, Celia Pool.
"We saw an opportunity to allow women to use a product they feel comfortable with but in a much more sustainable way."
Image copyrightDAMEImage captionDame's product spurred millions of social media reactions
"Every month, like clockwork, women come back. They may not even know the product's name, they just know if it's blue or green.
"You can understand why they [big brands] are not changing - so it's up to small businesses to offer people another option."
The company ended up overfunding their online campaign by almost 300% as videos about their product went viral.
Alec Mills, co-founder, says the pair were blown away by the online reaction - especially for an "unsexy tampon" product.
"It's a really good yardstick for the progression on our ability to talk about periods," he says.
"Now talking about the environment and their impact - it's been a big double step."
Alec and I used to sell period products to women around the UK. The more we sold, the more we realised the enormous waste coming from these small everyday items. We were selling reusable alternatives on our site but no one was buying them. Why not? We dug deeper and discovered that the habit change was one of the biggest barriers to women switching to more sustainable alternatives. We wanted to make it easy.
So we stopped selling tampons, took a deep breath, and decided to tackle the problem ourselves. This is our story so far, and we'd love Indiegogo's help bringing D to life.
·100 billion menstrual products are thrown away every year. Most of which contain plastic. This amount of menstrual products would circle our planet 250 times.
·Each item takes 500 years to degrade. Because they cannot be recycled they end up in the landfill and our oceans.
·The average woman uses 11,000 menstrual products during her reproductive lifetime. This creates 200,000 tonnes of waste PER YEAR!
·All menstrual products contain plastics- pads are made of 90% plastic!
·Many disposable pads and tampons contain bleaches, dyes, and cotton that has been sprayed with pesticides.
Plastic from tampons:
The applicator (2 parts) and the wrapper
The thin fabric around the absorbent core- Polyester and polypropylene.
String- A made of Polyester and polypropylene. Polypropylene is a thermoplastic Polymer.
Thread- Used to attach the thread to the core. That is made of cotton wrapped polyester.
Plastic from pads:
Wrapper for the main pack
Wrapper for the individual pad
Top sheet- Polyolefin
Core- Absorbent wood cellulose, absorbent gel, rayon or polyester.
Back sheet- Polyolefin http://www.thenewhousefamily.co.uk/frugal-family/how-much-plastic-is-really-in-your-period/
