You want to look after our gorgeous environment but you bleed every cycle, so What are the most environmentally friendly period products out there?

You find one, try it out but bleed through and leak all over the place. You then try another and find it’s made of plastic. Is this ok because you can re-use it? But what is its lifetime and where does it go then? It’s so hard to navigate and feel ok about yourself and how you impact this precious earth of ours.

In this blog post, I’ll share my experience with sustainable alternatives to pads and tampons and draw it to a surprising conclusion!

In this article
*My journey begins

*Cloth pads

*The Cup

*The Undies

*The Surprising Conclusion :)

My journey begins
When I was in my period bleeding prime, I really wanted to do the right thing and look after our beautiful environment. I remember going to St Andrews market outside of Melbourne and seeing for the first time, cloth period pads. Rad Pads. There began my journey with Eco friendly period products.

I bought the colourful rad pads and soon found that I needed a whole lot more as I bled through them in under half an hour. I doubled up on the insert, I bought more, I bled through. It was awkward putting these blood soaked pieces of cloth in my handbag when out for the day so I tried the plastic backed cloth pads. These were slightly better in that I didn’t stain so many pants, cushions, skirts and undies but I still bled through so I bought more…and more… and more and stayed home more and more during my period.

Fast forward a bit and a friend comes to visit and sees my collection of cloth pads lined up on the clothes line, seemingly going on forever. She exclaimed ‘god, I knew you had bad period pains but I didn’t know you needed all THAT. Is that for one period?’. It was perhaps the first time I realised I bled more than the usual person.

The Cup

The next time I thought maybe I bleed more than others was when I tried the cup.

I remember the first time trying it out and visiting a dear relative in the country. I went to the loo and freaked the f out because I couldn’t get the cup out of me! I pulled and freaked and pulled again and pfoop! Out it comes, spreading blood everywhere in the toilet bowl. I’m sure I didn’t clean it all up as I was so young and didn’t really know how to clean a toilet properly… but I cleaned the cup and reinserted it as I didn’t have anything else. I washed my hands and went back to having a cuppa, trying to act normal after such a horrendous experience.

After I got through that awful stage of trying to get the damn thing out of me (it suctions in place) I worked out how to break the seal i.e. to how to use it properly to get it out. The cup collects your blood and you supposedly empty it into the loo, rinse and re-use. Sounds so easy and clean and clear. Maybe it is if you don’t have clots that fill the thing up in one go. Or flooding before passing clots that fills up the cup to maximum in a matter of seconds. I got sick of leaking all over the place so my journey with the cup ended quickly in a pool of blood.

By that time my cloth pads had beed added to the ever increasing landfill and I was choosing pads. Tampons had long gone in my repertoire as I had been told by someone wise that the body needs the blood out of it, not held in place. They didn’t work for me anyway as they leaked through too. A tampon and pad combo worked ok but I got sick of the blood on my hands when inserting them.

So it was organic pads for a while, in any combination of one to three. Three at night…one in the ‘right’ place, one in the front, one in the back and a towel. I still would have blood on the sheets but not as much.

Then came the period undies.

The Undies
This was a bit of a clincher for me as when they said that the undies last the whole day, I was like ‘in what universe? How gross, sloshing around in your blood for a whole day.’

But I did love them for the support they gave my pads. I would still bleed through the pads and the period undies would catch the overflow. This meant that at night I still had my construction of three pads, which still needed changing in a foggy dreamscape during the night, and still bled through onto the sheets… but not as much. Things were looking good!

After about 20 years of exploring period products, I finally came across the most environmentally friendly period products for my body.

The Surprising Conclusion
My steam seat and steam herbs.

Have you heard of V-Steaming? It’s also called Yoni steaming or pelvic saunas and this is the short version of what happened with me after I tried it.

After following the correct steaming protocol for my cycle and body, I didn’t experience a period for at least 90 days. I checked my period app and saw that in the previous 4 months, I had recorded 4 days of fresh red spotting every 27 days.

During those spotting days, I wore period undies or one of my cloth pads that hadn’t made it to landfill, comfortably for the whole day. I changed to fresh ones overnight. I barely noticed a thing, not a twinge, not a leakage, absolutely nothing. According to what I had experienced MY WHOLE LIFE, that was spotting. After looking at the period app…

That’s when I realised that I had finally experience a ‘normal’ period.

I was amazed, overjoyed. My whole world changed.

Then I got pissed off.

Someone in history had decided that steaming my own vagina was dangerous, illegal, not effective….you get the picture! and I had missed out on this incredible home remedy. FOR 20 YEARS. It not only stopped my period pains but significantly reduced my blood loss.

This is what fuels me to keep getting the message out there. It’s possible, it’s simple and it’s low cost.

It also meant I didn’t have to buy any more pads! I could use the original Rad Pads after all. So it’s environmentally a bit more friendly.

If you are interested in more information, visit me here happyflow.com.au or have a look at the free e-book

With warmth,

Katrina