Lunapads Blog

Lunapads was so proud to host this year’s LunaRevolution Video Festival and Contest! The contest was a highlight of our summer and we hope you all enjoyed it just as much as we did.

Since the voting period ended, we have been busy in the office watching (and re-watching!) all the videos and trying to pick out the winners. We felt every video was superb in its own way and deserved recognition. You all did an amazing job, and made it extremely difficult for us to choose the winning submissions – more on that in our next post!

Alas, winners had to be selected – and so without further ado *drum roll please*

To be clear about how the winners were chosen: the People’s Choice awards were based solely on the number of votes through Wildfire. The Most Creative, Staff Pick and Honorable Mentions were chosen based on lengthy conversation and general consensus between the Lunagals. That said, as the song goes, “Everyone’s a winner, Baby” (didn’t take 1 of the top 8 prize-winning spots? keep reading!) – please check out all of the entries, and share your favorites with your friends!

The fact that Ashley’s video got so many votes speaks for itself – she was the hands down People’s Choice winner. Our Staff Pick went to Carla. We loved her funky editing style, amazing facial expressions and irresistible enthusiasm and charisma. Top it off with a wonderful musical choice at the end, and you’ve got a winner. DIVA!!! We chose Nicole’s video as Most Creative due to her choice of a multiple interview style, great music, and totally authentic girlfriend conversation about all the stuff us Lunagals dislike about disposables. A little something awesome for everyone!

Aside from announcing the top winners, we would really like to give a shout out to our People’s Choice runners-up. In fact, the top 3 contenders were so close in votes we couldn’t believe it! Coming in with the 2nd most votes was long-time Lunapads fan Holly Pluchinski, followed very closely behind by Kendra Gabert. Excellent work, ladies!

Stay tuned for Madeleine’s follow-up blog post naming our 5 honorable mention prize winners, as well as special mentions for everyone else who participated! For those who did not win, keep an eye on your mailboxes for a thank you treat from all of us here at Lunapads! Please send your mailing address tous at info@lunapads.com (use the subject “Lunapads Video Contest: My Address!”)

Everyone give a final round applause for these lovely ladies and their video creations – and don’t forget to share your favorites with your friends.

Want more video fun? We got you covered. Subscribe to our Lunapads YouTube Channel today for videos on reusable menstrual products, women in business and how-to’s. Thanks again so much from all of us at Lunapads!

We received a tonne of great name suggestions for our new fabric print. We’ve managed to narrow it down to the top 6 and now we want you to tell us your favourite! Head on over to our Facebook page and cast your ballot! Here’s a reminder in case your forgot what it looks like:

We’re working on sewing up Pads and Pantyliners in this new print as we speak. Watch out for it in our July newsletter! Sign up here if you’re not already on our mailing list.

I don’t normally like to indulge in schadenfreude, but I need to admit to a teeny-tiny bit of gloating as we watch the saga of the missing o.b. tampons unfold.

I was just surfing the o.b. Facebook “fan” (not so much these days) page and found this comment to be representative of the trend: “I ordered my Divacup after learning about it from other women on this and other sites. Hopefully I won’t have to buy tampons anymore. I am sooo disappointed with J&J about how they handled this situation. No more Ultras? bye bye o.b.s!”

The good (no, make that excellent) news is that we are getting a ton of traffic and new customers as a result: so much so, that we made this little video to say hello! Welcome, new Lunagals! We think that you will find both our products as well as our customer service to be a welcome change. Let us know if you have any questions, and be sure to let us know how your new DivaCups and Lunapads work out. Oh, and for those of you who are still on the fence, use promo code “obwtf” to receive $5 off a DivaCup!

As someone who has dabbled in Twitter for almost two years, a person I started following early on was @unmarketing (aka Scott Stratten). I was particularly attracted to his Twitter name, as it implied someone who was unconventional and forward thinking. His posts did not disappoint me. After meeting Scott in person at a trade show in Las Vegas last October, Madeleine and I quickly realized why Scott is a such a highly regarded social media expert and sought after keynote speaker.

Knowing that Scott was going to be speaking in Vancouver to promote his new book “UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging” (a national best-seller and must read book that we are giving away below!) we invited him to Lunapads HQ to consult with us about our website & conduct an “un-audit”. (As a former auditor of the accounting variety, I was rather nervous but excited to be sitting on the other side of the table and learn what the expert thought about our efforts.)

So, what did he think? Well, this autographed copy of his book sums it up.

Please also check out the impromptu interview I did with Scott and hear what he has to say about social media and some of the new tools and apps he finds interesting. Bonus info: find out what Scott and Justin Beiber have in common!

Scott, thanks for your stamp of approval. We love your motto: “Be Awesome”. (And Scott, I thought you’d appreciate this quote from Jack Black’s Kung Fu Panda character that I over heard while my boys were watching TV… “There is no charge for awesomeness or attractiveness!”)

Our social media endeavors are definitely a team effort here at Lunapads. Morgan and Lisa deserve most of the credit being the voices of Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis. Madeleine and I (aka Luna_gal) tweet about Lunapads and our personal accounts. Our YouTube channel has several thousand views.

Social media is work, for sure — but it’s really never been a chore for us. In fact, we consider ourselves lucky because we get to talk to tons of interesting people who genuinely inspire and challenge us. And, as a way of thanks, we’re giving away an autographed copy of Scott’s book to one of our readers. To enter, simply comment below about where and/or why you enjoy engaging in conversations online (ie: social media!)

PS: A big shout out of thanks to Marc Smith of Amuse Consulting and his team for bringing Scott to Vancouver in December 2010!

The end of the year is always a good time for reflection on the past, and this year is particularly meaningful to us: 10 years ago, Lunapads became an incorporated company!

As some of you may know, I started developing Lunapads and Lunapanties in 1993, and also operated a fashion boutique and artisanal garment factory from 1995-1998. At the end of 1998 I closed the store and factory and set myself to the solo task of building Lunapads: to be honest, it was a lonely struggle.

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Before we ring in some news about what’s new for 2010, we wanted to reflect upon 2009, and how it brought Lunapads some great new people, products and inspiration.  Here are a some of the highlights:

Pads4Girls expands:  During 2009, we expanded our Pads4Girls program by eagerly partnering with new groups that reached out to communities in Cuba, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia.  Thanks to customer support and the work of courageous individuals and NGOs, hundreds of girls and women are now able to stay at work or school while menstruating, and deal with their periods safely and with minimal environmental impact.

Recognizing there are practical solutions closer to home, we created our  “Make your own cloth menstrual pads” video series that has been viewed by thousands. These videos are regularly used by women in Africa (and here in North America) to make their own cloth pads. And in December 2009, Lunapads partnered with Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) by donating 20% of holiday sales for 2 of our top-selling gift items to their program, which makes biodegradable disposable pads from agricultural waste in Rwanda.

Fabulous folks and adventures abroad: One of the perks of our work is choosing to take some strategic business trips and while doing so, connecting with some truly amazing people.  During 2009, we had the good fortune to meet some real treasures and leaders in our community: In March 2009, we attended the always mindboggling Expo West Natural Products Trade Show in Anaheim CA and reconnected with our friends Francine and Carinne Chamers, founders of the DivaCup and also met Sarah Kraft, founder of the online Mindful Mama community.

While walking the trade show, we spotted Mothering Magazine Founder, Editor and Publisher Peggy O’Mara and couldn’t miss the opportunity to stop and tell her how much we adored her.  This conversation led to the plans for a personal visit from Peggy right here at Lunapads the following month.  Leveraging off of Peggy’s rock star status as a natural parenting pioneer and leader, we brought together a group of friends and colleagues to hear Peggy speak at a warm and inspiring tea party benefiting Pads4Girls.

In September 2009, I took a first-time trip to the ABC kids expo in Las Vegas, where I also had an insightful visit to Zappos.com‘s headquarters.  Meanwhile Suzanne had yet another transcendent experience at the Social Venture Institute (SVI) at Hollyhock, BC.  In November 2009, we both attended the Green America Business Conference and Green Festival in San Francisco.  While we were there, we had the great fortune to meet up with  SHE founder Elizabeth Scharpf and one of our business heroes, Reusablebags.com founder Vincent Cobb.

New products and fabrics: We expanded the Lunapads collection with several new products and fabrics: the P-style, Wysi-wipes, Cloth Wipes (which elicited one of our most discussed blog posts of the year) and our first-ever custom 100% organic cotton print, Magenta Mandala.

Lunapanties, our very own period underwear, made a long awaited comeback in November 2009, with the introduction of our new Hipster style and magenta colored organic cotton.

Staff changes: We bid a tearful and fond farewell to Sandra, one of our longest-term employees, as she moved on to continue her work as a bicycle safety educator. While it is hard to replicate Sandra’s incredible personal flair for customer service, Sara, the newest addition to the Lunapads team, is doing a fantastic job!

Media and accolades: In the summer of 2009, we learned that Lunapads and the DivaCup were featured in an entertaining and informative book by Canadian journalist Vanessa Farquharson called “Sleeping Naked is Green“.  At the end of 2009 Lunapads was profiled in our of our local papers, featuring a funny photo of Suzanne and I having a “tug-of-war” with a clothesline of Lunapads and Lunapanties.

By far the biggest highlight of the year was being voted into the top 10 of Green America’s People Choice Awards and so you can imagine our reaction when we found out that we had placed in the top 3 and received the newly-minted Shining Light award.

While Suzanne and I celebrated our award San Francisco, we never lost sight of the unsung heroes in the exercise: staffers Lisa and Morgan (whose idea it was in the first place), Facebook and Twitter (follow us! @Lunapads, @Luna_Diva (me) and @Luna_gal (Suzanne)) for providing the forums to drum up votes, and last but far from least, YOU, our awesome customers, for taking the time to cast your votes – it couldn’t have happened with you.

On that note, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for a great 2009, and wish you all the best for 2010 from the Lunagals!

A friend sent me a link to this article by feminist author Katie Roiphe a couple of weeks ago, entitled “Get your kid off your Facebook page” and as a feminist, Mom and Facebook user it caught my attention. When I first glanced at it I thought that it was going to be about the risks of posting photos of your kids on the internet in general, for fear of pedophiles viewing them. Was I ever wrong.

Roiphe’s premise is essentially that the phenomena of women posting images of their children as their personal profile photos, rather than being a simple, benign, loving act, is in fact indicative of a far larger problem of women choosing to “hide” behind their children, intentionally abnegating their pre-Motherhood accomplishments and independent identities. And to think that I have been interpreting this as “hey, look how cute my kid is”, or “I just had a baby”, when in fact these women are actually opting out of the effort of “the whole excruciating business of being yourself” – whoa!

I should admit in fairness that Facebook has long intrigued me from a sociological  perspective – how is it redefining the meaning of friendship, and what does how we use it say about our identities and how we choose to express them to others?  The friend issue has interested me in particular, as prior to Facebook I would not have thought of people that I have never met or even had much contact with as capital-F Friends, in the way one does about those with whom we have shared major life experiences, or even just a regular cup of coffee and pleasant chat.  And yet here I am, and grateful for it, appreciating the insights into wider lives than just the typically professional connection that we had previously shared.  I have a lot more friends out there than I realized, awesome!

Friends (at least those who become Moms) in Roiphe’s world, however, become almost unbearably tedious in their maternal transformation, with their endless discussions of infantile bodily fluids and obsession with keeping up an incessant flow of attention towards their irritating offspring. Heck, even women who once had interesting and meaningful things to talk about like their careers and current events are now reduced to pandering, unkempt bores whose company is shunned by men at dinner parties.  The shame, the shame!

I have several friends, including men, on Facebook who have chosen a multitude of images of things and people other than themselves (including, but not limited to: Harvey Milk, a Sri Lankan beach, an assortment of superheroes, movie stars, household pets, random objects, and yes, their kids) to represent them on Facebook and elsewhere.  These images can be humorous, or indicating a milestone, such as the cover of a recently published book – not them, and yet clearly part of their message or one of their accomplishments.  How many readers out there “donated” their profile picture space or status updates to show their support for Barack Obama in the last US election? I myself am guilty, having posted images of myself with both my daughter and husband. Is this all I am? Not so much. Does it convey a crucial aspect of who I am in the world of which I am extremely proud? You bet.

I think that’s what saddened me the most about the article – an unwillingness to honor, or encourage being proud of something about ourselves other than what our resumes say.  It always wounds me a bit when feminists take aim at other women in this way, particularly using such gross exaggerations (Roiphe apparently doesn’t know any men who do the kid Facebook thing, or attend dinner parties where parents may happen to discuss something other than their kids.)  Why is it such a bad thing in Roiphe’s eyes to be proud to be a Mom in this way?

And last but not least, rather than remaining cognizant that hey, after all it’s just internet social networking (what your Mom would say, am I right?) she makes it sound like some rampant social pandemic.  Drivers licenses and passports might be next, so don’t go playing around with your Facebook image too much, or you might wake up one of these days not even knowing who you are anymore.

We love Facebook for a ton of reasons: connecting with customers and friends chief among them.  That said, it’s long been a bone of contention for us as well as the thousands of breastfeeding moms and their supporters that photos of nursing moms and their babies are removed by Facebook, particularly since there is no shortage of busty gals being featured in the advertising.  Suzanne is already an accomplished lactivist: check out her post about a nurse-in that she attended earlier this year.

There are some groups that you can join to protest this sad reality – “Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!” being the most popular.  Today, December 27th, has been designated by Facebook lactivists as Mothers International Lactation Campaign.  Any Facebook users who also support breastfeeding can either post their own photos or choose from thousands that have been posted in these groups, as well as “donate” their status update spaces to read “Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!” for the day.  Please join us in this virtual protest!

Here is a great list of resources for those who would like to learn more about the importance of breastfeeding.  On a personal note, I could never have succeeded in nursing my daughter (let’s just say that it can be harder than it looks!) without the support of everyone from La Leche League volunteers to my husband, midwife, doula and business partner.  The long-term value of this early attachment, not to mention the nutrition, is priceless.  We need to do everything we can to support it, including normalizing images of breasts doing what they’re designed for.�

On top of our good ol’ Myspace page and our new-fangled Facebook group we now have a Twitter feed! It’s great for keeping up on all kinds of stuff happening ’round here. Whether you’re waiting for new Moon Pad Bags to come in, or you want to know the latest sales or bonus offers or what our newest fabric will be, it will all be announced on twitter!

Oh and did I mention that you can now listen to Lunapads radio on Last.fm? Well you can! We tend to get bored with the CD collection here at the office, and commercial radio just doesn’t cut it – now we can add songs we like to our Last.fm library, and have a never-ending supply of music to listen to while we work. You can even log-in and listen along with us, like a little virtual dance-party! Listen here.If you’re looking for more in depth conversation about Lunapads products and want to connect with other users, I highly recommend our Facebook group. The gals always have helpful tips and tricks for fellow members.

There’s a little somethin’ for every Luna-gal out there in Electro-lady-land!

Calling all Facebook fans…
Most of us here at Lunapads enjoy using Facebook.com as a way to stay connected with current friends, not to mention finding long-lost old ones, joining groups that matter to us or that just make us laugh – in short, it’s fun. So much fun that we decided to make our very own “I heart my Lunapads” group!
My personal favorite thing about it so far is simply seeing the photos of our sister Lunagals, but we’re also excited about its other applications: activist alerts, talking with other Lunapads and DivaCup users to share tips and suggest new products, and best of all getting access to Facebook friends special deals at lunapads.com!
So if you’re not already on Facebook, check it out. And for all you Facebooking gals out there, join us: we’ll be sending out our first Facebook-only special offer before the end of October!