dealing with periods, eco style

This is a post I've been meaning to make for ages, a follow-up to my post about cloth menstrual pads, which included an interview with the owner of Naturally Hip, a handmade cloth pad seller. If you don't know much about cloth pads I recommend you give the post a read because going cloth has both environmental and health benefits. (Disclaimer: If you are a boy, and/or squirmish about such things, this may be the point where you should click away.)


I bought pads from the lovely Lindsay of Naturally Hip several months ago. These are my thoughts:

• I was quite flawed by how much they absorb. They're like Mary Poppins' bag. I have no fears of leakage overnight, or any other time.
• They're made from a really soft flannel on the outside. Regular pads aren't uncomfortable, but you can generally feel them being all plasticky down there. These cloth pads are much nicer to wear.
• They're easy to wash. I'm a bit crap at getting housework done, and if I can manage, so can you. I mostly only use them when I'm at home, so I rinse them well as soon as I change them, then either put them straight into the wash (with other laundry), or put them in a bucket filled with some water until I put the next load on. There's also wet bags you can buy for storing used ones that have been changed while you're out.
• The only problem I had was that the liners without wings ended up where they shouldn't be. They don't have a sticky section like store bought ones and the listing says that they should stay in place with snug-fitting undies. A lot of my undies were one or two sizes too big (in terms of dress size), so I actually went out and bought more of my size undies, and the wingless liners still moved around as I walked. I'm not sure if it's because I'm small or something else, but I recommend you get the liners with wings. Trying to figure out how best to sew in wings so the ones I have don't go to waste.

Overall, totally star quality from Naturally Hip. Lindsay is easily contactable and more than happy to answer questions or make custom ones. Plus she's passionate about being eco-friendly - a total plus in my book.

After I made the initial blog post about cloth pads, I started a thread on the Etsy forums about it which got a lot more attention than I was expecting. Lots of responses were about the Diva Cup, an alternative to tampons and a new idea to me. At first I thought it was a gross idea: basically it's a reusable little cup that 'catches' your blood, and then you empty it periodically. As I read on further, I realised it's not much more gross than tampons and, really, that perspective was just because I wasn't used to the idea yet. If everybody was doing it I wouldn't give it a second thought.

Here are the benefits:

• You can leave it in for up 12 hours, so you can change it twice a day and not have to think about your period the rest of the time, because if it's in properly you can't feel it.
  
• It's reusable so you don't need to send tampons to landfill all the time.
• None of this toxic shock syndrome stuff to worry about.
• It makes activities like hiking, swimming, yoga or whatever else easy while you're perioding.
  

So I bought one. I've tried to use it a few times. More often than not, unsuccessfully. It's apparently something you need to get the hang of doing, and also, some people find certain brands don't work for them - everybody's shape is a bit different. I'm not sure what the others are called, but the Diva is the original, I believe. I know it does work for some, because of all the raving testimonials on the Etsy forum. I suppose I will keep trying, because if it works it would be an ideal option for me, combined with cloth liners and overnight pads.