![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird1Non-menstruating people, you should feel free to skip this entry. Menstruating people, read on...
I'm hoping that if I get this out of my system in one fell swoop by blogging about it here, I'll stop randomly ambushing every woman I know to prosthelytise to them. Possibly - but possibly not, because really, these products are very cool and I remain excited, even after five months.
So...
The Mooncup, and Lunapads
These are basically re-usable substitutes for tampons and pads, respectively.
The Mooncup is a "menstrual cup", which is basically a silicon cup that you insert into your vagina to collect menstrual blood - and then empty it out and re-insert it, twice a day for the duration of your period.
It's awesome.
Reasons why menstrual cups are better than tampons:
1) They're re-usable. And hence, cheaper than continually buying tampons, and also environmentally friendly.
2) They're much more comfortable. And easy to forget about.
3) You can insert them before your period starts, without having that gross harsh-cotton-grating-against-skin feeling when you pull out a non-blood-soaked tampon. Hence no need to keep track of exactly the moment when you start menstruating - you can just go "eh, it might be today", and put it in pre-emptively.
4) You can use them overnight! No leaking all over the bed! No needing to wear really thick undies stuffed with pads and extra toilet paper! No wearing undies at all! It's like a miracle!
Problems:
1) They take practice. It'll probably take you about a week to get used to how they are supposed to be inserted and removed.
2) While you're still unused to insertion/removal, there's every chance that you'll remove it improperly, splatter blood all over your bathroom, and end up with your house looking like the set from Psycho.
Lunapads are "cloth pads", which are basically absorbent cloth that you wear like a disposable pad, and then rewash.
They are EVEN MORE AWESOME than menstrual cups.
Reasons why cloth pads are better than disposable ones:
1) Once again: re-usable. Cheap. Environmentally friendly.
2) Comfy. Comfy beyond belief. Seriously - you know how one of your friends will discover a really comfy brand of pad and tell you to switch because it's better than your normal ones and you can almost forget they're there? THESE ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT.
3) They don't scrunch up in the centre of your undies so that all the blood runs over the wing bits and then starts rubbing crusty blood against your legs and when you take the pad off you find out that the centre bit's still untouched because of all the scrunching. Instead, they actually stay spread out properly. And the wing bits are just as absorbent as the rest of the pad, so even if you do have blood reaching that bit, it's still not as annoying as with disposable pads.
4) It doesn't smell gross and stale! It really doesn't smell! I think this might be something to do with extra air-flow? Maybe? At any rate, it's all non-smelly and wonderful.
5) Funky variety! You know how people make pad packets with the colourful wrappers so you feel all Hip And With It? Well, my pads don't have colourful wrappers; they have colourful pads. I currently have purple liners, purple-with-patterns winged pads, pink undie-insert liners...
Also, the different kinds of pads are quite fun. I'm currently trying out my new undies-with-liner-inserts, which are really fun.
Problems:
1) Yes, they are re-usable. Yes, you do have to wash them. This is not as gross as it sounds.
I have a bucket in my bathroom (with a lid) that I put used pads in, with soapy water. And the next time I do a load of laundry, I fish them out of the bucket, and put them in with the rest of my washing.
2) Portability. Also not as bad as it sounds. I can carry a spare liner in my handbag, and it's in a two-sided bag that's designed to have clean pads in one side and dirty in the other side, so that if I need to swap I have somewhere to put my used liner until I get it home.
And did I mention? THESE THINGS ARE AWESOME. AND WONDERFUL. YOU SHOULD BUY THEM.
I'm going to stop being a walking advertisement now...
I'm hoping that if I get this out of my system in one fell swoop by blogging about it here, I'll stop randomly ambushing every woman I know to prosthelytise to them. Possibly - but possibly not, because really, these products are very cool and I remain excited, even after five months.
So...
The Mooncup, and Lunapads
These are basically re-usable substitutes for tampons and pads, respectively.
The Mooncup is a "menstrual cup", which is basically a silicon cup that you insert into your vagina to collect menstrual blood - and then empty it out and re-insert it, twice a day for the duration of your period.
It's awesome.
Reasons why menstrual cups are better than tampons:
1) They're re-usable. And hence, cheaper than continually buying tampons, and also environmentally friendly.
2) They're much more comfortable. And easy to forget about.
3) You can insert them before your period starts, without having that gross harsh-cotton-grating-against-skin feeling when you pull out a non-blood-soaked tampon. Hence no need to keep track of exactly the moment when you start menstruating - you can just go "eh, it might be today", and put it in pre-emptively.
4) You can use them overnight! No leaking all over the bed! No needing to wear really thick undies stuffed with pads and extra toilet paper! No wearing undies at all! It's like a miracle!
Problems:
1) They take practice. It'll probably take you about a week to get used to how they are supposed to be inserted and removed.
2) While you're still unused to insertion/removal, there's every chance that you'll remove it improperly, splatter blood all over your bathroom, and end up with your house looking like the set from Psycho.
Lunapads are "cloth pads", which are basically absorbent cloth that you wear like a disposable pad, and then rewash.
They are EVEN MORE AWESOME than menstrual cups.
Reasons why cloth pads are better than disposable ones:
1) Once again: re-usable. Cheap. Environmentally friendly.
2) Comfy. Comfy beyond belief. Seriously - you know how one of your friends will discover a really comfy brand of pad and tell you to switch because it's better than your normal ones and you can almost forget they're there? THESE ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT.
3) They don't scrunch up in the centre of your undies so that all the blood runs over the wing bits and then starts rubbing crusty blood against your legs and when you take the pad off you find out that the centre bit's still untouched because of all the scrunching. Instead, they actually stay spread out properly. And the wing bits are just as absorbent as the rest of the pad, so even if you do have blood reaching that bit, it's still not as annoying as with disposable pads.
4) It doesn't smell gross and stale! It really doesn't smell! I think this might be something to do with extra air-flow? Maybe? At any rate, it's all non-smelly and wonderful.
5) Funky variety! You know how people make pad packets with the colourful wrappers so you feel all Hip And With It? Well, my pads don't have colourful wrappers; they have colourful pads. I currently have purple liners, purple-with-patterns winged pads, pink undie-insert liners...
Also, the different kinds of pads are quite fun. I'm currently trying out my new undies-with-liner-inserts, which are really fun.
Problems:
1) Yes, they are re-usable. Yes, you do have to wash them. This is not as gross as it sounds.
I have a bucket in my bathroom (with a lid) that I put used pads in, with soapy water. And the next time I do a load of laundry, I fish them out of the bucket, and put them in with the rest of my washing.
2) Portability. Also not as bad as it sounds. I can carry a spare liner in my handbag, and it's in a two-sided bag that's designed to have clean pads in one side and dirty in the other side, so that if I need to swap I have somewhere to put my used liner until I get it home.
And did I mention? THESE THINGS ARE AWESOME. AND WONDERFUL. YOU SHOULD BUY THEM.
I'm going to stop being a walking advertisement now...