“Experts do recommend checking these products before you use them to make sure that none of them are defective, and always store them in a dry place.”
Related Posts:
Moldy Tampon Turmoil
The Tale of the Moldy Tampon
“Eww”; it’s a reaction we hear a lot from people who are learning about the concept of reusable menstrual products for the first time. Frankly, we aren’t surprised that people are uncomfortable with the idea, given the amount of fear and shame that has followed menstruation around, pretty much since the dawn of humanity. With all the negative advertising used to sell conventional menstrual products, the culture of silence surrounding menstruation, and the apparent lack of interest from the scientific and medical community in regards to menstrual issues, there’s a lot of baggage and misinformation to overcome in order for people to get comfortable with their reproductive systems and their byproducts. I’m frankly encouraged and impressed by the amount of people who DO use reusable menstrual products!
And yet the “Eww” factor always manages to baffle me. We hear it from all kinds of people; tampon users, disposable pad users, cloth diapering moms, feminists, environmentalists, young and old. The reason is always the same, “You want me to wash my pads/cup and use them again!? Isn’t that unsanitary?”
Well guess what, folks? I am here to tell you that the disposable products you may currently be using might not be as “sanitary” as you think.
The clock is ticking and the countdown is on for Lunapads’ owners Madeleine and Suzanne to wing their way over to Uganda as part of Shanti Uganda’s Yoga & Seva Journey. As part of their contribution, we are raising funds to enroll 300 teenage girls in Shanti Uganda’s At Risk Girls Program, a health and wellness program focused on inspiring futures for girls and teen mothers in Kasana Town Uganda. As part of the workshop, each girl will receive AFRIpads (Ugandan-made cloth pads based on Lunapads) and a health education manual.
Thanks to generous donations from our customers and friends we have raised enough so far to sponsor 124 girls to attend. We’re almost half way there but we need your help to get us to our goal! For only $15 you can sponsor a girl to attend the workshop where she will receive life altering health education and washable menstrual products that will last her years and ensure that she can get the most out of her education. In case your not already aware of the immense impact that getting an education can have for a girl (not to mention her family and her entire country) in the developing world, check out this wicked video from The Girl Effect.
Now, thanks to our generous sponsors DivaCup International your donation of $15 or more will enter you in a contest to win 1 of 5 DivaCup menstrual cups!
With all the sweating and walking (the longest day was nine miles, which was also my day of heaviest bleeding), I’m sure I would have been chafed and in pain if I were still using disposables (not to mention probably picking up a pretty bad yeast infection from the lack of breathability).
To say that we were blown away by the response to our LunaRevolution Video Festival & Contest is a seismic understatement – it was literally one “WOW” after another at yesterday’s staff viewing. Thank you so much to all of you who participated; we are deeply honored by your efforts.
The overall experience has been more complex than “WOW” suggests, however, and I want to address that it was not as easy as sitting down with a bowl of popcorn and basking in the Luna-love. I cannot go any further without first acknowledging the efforts of Nancee, our Video Intern (here for her second summer, woot!) and our IT wonder Lisa. Nancee is a fabulous tech-geek workaholic super-smart/nice person who is constantly seeking more ways to be helpful (if you can’t think of them, she will!) and then executing them with dizzying speed and efficiency. With equal dedication the perennially brilliant Lisa waded through the maze of technical issues with her consistently calm and sensible demeanor.
Clever Lunagals and all, were there flaws? Oh yeah! We have not had a video contest in years, and naturally technology has advanced a notch or two. We decided to go with a Facebook application called Wildfire, which involved a bit of a learning curve and proved to have its shortcomings. Thank you to all of you who were smart enough to point out the not-totally-clear bits and have been patient enough to bear with us while we worked it out.
We received 21 (TWENTY ONE!!!) submissions, which we considered to be totally amazing. Twenty-one Lunagals felt inspired enough to take the time to tell us how our products have changed your lives: how incredible is that?!?
It was a massive challenge to choose the top picks, and if we have any regrets it’s that we didn’t create more categories and/or Honorable Mention spots in the first place (it would have looked pretty silly if we had created a dozen categories and only had three submissions, for example). Finally, we didn’t all agree about, for example, what made a video particularly “creative”, and so I want to highlight what we felt was uniquely awesome about the videos that may not have fit into a particular category.
Our 5 Honorable Mention Prizes:
another drum roll, please…
Struggling to learn how to use the DivaCup? Hang in there and keep trying. Its all perfectly normal! In the mean time, read how our guest blogger Avigayil finally got past this eco-positive learning curve.
So I wasn’t exactly stranded, but New Zealand is certainly an island (two islands, to be exact) and it is very tropical. I was there for my belated honeymoon, nearly a year in the waiting. I am a new wife, a full time student, part time writer for The Bargain Moose, and a part time caregiver for an adult lady in a wheelchair. This trip was well deserved!
While in the packing stages of the trip I knew that from counting my birth control pills, my period would come smack dab in the middle of my honeymoon. We were going to be staying in little vacation houses and I had no idea as to access to laundry facilities so I decided to forgo the usual Lunapanties and Pads: instead opting to throw the Divacup into my bag.
The Divacup and I have had an unkind history: I wanted to love it and it hated me. It popped open before I insert, it hurt going in, and it hurt coming out. Lets just say I ignored my past history when I made my ‘crash course in using a Divacup’ decision. I was determined to learn how to use it. VERY determined. At home I could cheat and if it hurt, switch over to the pads: but not this time… I was stranded!
Name: Laura
Age: 28
How did you hear about reusable menstrual products?
Eco Friendly Website
Please describe your monthly needs:
2 days and nights light flow, 2 days and nights heavy flow and 1 day and night spotting.
What reusable menstrual products do you currently use?
Lunapads- long pads, liners, and panty liner.
Why do you want to switch to reusable menstrual products?
I switched because I didn’t like the number of pads I was using. I calculated over 4,000 pads by the time I am 35!!!
Anything else you would like to share about yourself?
I love to cook, I love to sing and going green!
Based on your own experience, what message do you have for other women who might be thinking about reusable menstrual products?
It’s much more comfortable then wearing plastic!!!
Our recommendations for this musical cook!
With Madeleine and Suzanne’s trip to Portland this week for the World Domination Summit, travel and adventure are naturally on our minds. We have been meaning to write an updated post about the whats, hows and benefits of traveling with our products (see previous posts here and here), and this seems like a great opportunity to do just that.
Who wants to waste valuable luggage space on boxes of disposable pads and tampons, or risk running out where supplies may not be available? Read on for our top tips for easy, waste-free ways to manage your period while traveling, with bonus video from Suzanne about how to clean your DivaCup while you’re on the road.
We often get asked what the difference is between The DivaCup and tampons. As is the case with disposable pads and Lunapads, it really is a bit of an apples and oranges situation, however this video answers some important questions about differences in size and respective amounts of waste generated.
Name: Avigayil
What is your age? 24
How did you hear about reusable menstrual products?
Lunapads.
Please describe your monthly needs:
Unpredictable. Usually my period starts early, despite being on birth control, and it starts with shedding which is so annoying. That can go on for 2 days. Other times it just starts heavy for 2 days, then light for the rest. I have severe cramps the first 3 days, and I toss and turn all night.. sleep, whats that?
If you are currently using disposable products, which ones do you use, and for what needs?
I currently only use disposable products for swimming. I really hate staying out of the pool when I have my period, and tampons just work for that. However, I haven’t done that for 4 months now. . . I just hate the waste and worry about what they do to my body!
