If menstrual cups are cost-effective, eco-friendly, and comfortable, why have people been so reluctant to use them?
Photo: Volanthevist/Getty Images Last month, Alison Green of the popular Ask a Manager advice column got a question from a reader about a boss who’d been urging her female staff members to switch to menstrual cups, going so far as to bring cups into the office. “Her drive to be eco-friendly has gone off the deep end,” the person wrote.
There is evidence that cup-makers are finally profiting, too — although cups have been around since the 1930s and people who try them tend to love them , the fact that cups last so long has been something of a kiss of death for manufacturers, since it results in fewer return customers. But the company that makes the world’s most successful menstrual cup, the DivaCup, has found a way around this, growing 639 percent in the past five years.
Asking people why they weren’t interested in menstrual cups, I kept hearing the same thing: It’s gross, they said. And so I wondered what “gross” meant. Gross for oneself, or gross for others? At first I thought it was because menstrual fluid might be a vector for disease. Is menstrual fluid unusually gross? We don’t go around handling other bodily fluids with pride, so it stands to reason that we wouldn’t naturally make an exception for this one.
But maybe cups seem gross for the user, rather than for others, which honestly didn’t occur to me until I was weeks deep into this story . Which is to say, maybe it’s not the menstrual fluid that seems gross, maybe it’s the cup itself that seems gross. Maybe it’s instinctively gross to repeatedly put something up into one’s own vagina, with one’s own hand. Hm. I suddenly feel like I’ve had something in my teeth this whole time.
Tierno said that until menstrual cup companies could prove with data that every possible kind of vaginal bacteria that might over time create a biofilm on the surface of a cup would be eliminated by boiling, “If you’re going to use a cup, don’t use it for a year.” Instead, he recommends something more like four months, which most cups’ price point — around $30 — would make prohibitive. “A lot of women have opted to use pads,” he said. Next best, in his opinion, are 100 percent cotton tampons .
I asked DivaCup representative Sophie Zivku for her take on what it meant for Tampax to be entering the reusables field, and she also said that it opened up opportunity. Tampax is their competitor, she noted, “but it’s exciting.” That such a large brand was getting into reusables “gives additional credibility to the category,” she told me. “It’s also really flattering for us.” She said the DivaCup expected to remain the industry leader and frontrunner.
Deutschland Neuesten Nachrichten, Deutschland Schlagzeilen
Similar News:Sie können auch ähnliche Nachrichten wie diese lesen, die wir aus anderen Nachrichtenquellen gesammelt haben.
Reflections on Work-Life Balance *I talk to women all over the world each day and almost all of them wonder about how they are doing with the work/life balance act.
Weiterlesen »
3,600-year-old disposable cup shows even our ancestors hated doing dishesA disposable cup sits in a museum gallery, fully intact even after being cast aside thousands of years ago. The handleless clay cup was made by the Minoans -- one of the first advanced European civilizations -- between 1700 and 1600 BC on the Greek island of Crete.
Weiterlesen »
'Let's get this done': US special envoy urges North Korea to restart nuclear talksThe United States' special representative to North Korea has urged Pyongyang to resume stalled denuclearization talks, as tensions continue to rise between the two countries.
Weiterlesen »
How Taylor Swift Celebrated Her 30th Birthday: Cake, Performing, and an After Party With Friends'I’m having the most happy, lovely, wonderful day.'
Weiterlesen »
How Taylor Swift Celebrated Her 30th Birthday: Cake, Performing, and an After Party With Friends'I’m having the most happy, lovely, wonderful day.'
Weiterlesen »
Sturgeon cites ‘mandate’ for Scottish referendumThursday’s U.K. election gave Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon a “mandate” for another independence referendum
Weiterlesen »