Me & LENA

Scrolling through my twitter feed last month, I came across this post by UN Women on eco-friendly menstrual products. It talks about cloth pads made by women in India. They're reusable and part of a Pad-for-Pad program where every cloth pad you buy gives one to a girl in rural India. Cloth pads aren't new, really. If anything, plastic pads are new. As recently as 40 years ago, my mother was using cloth to handle Aunt Flo. With disposable pads & tampons came unprecedented convenience.. And unprecedented increase in plastic in landfills.

I've been trying to live a more eco-friendly life myself. And so took on the challenge of switching from disposables to reusables. Researching cloth pads led me to menstrual cups.

This is Eco Femme's cloth pad - it's really cute (and pink) and pretty and so easy to carry around because it balls up. I used it last month on Day 1. Yes, it is icky to deal with your own blood and washing it off etc but... it's your own blood. Deal with it. Plus, when you think about the benefits to the planet, that should really outweigh any second thoughts you might have on buying some!

LENA are menstrual cup manufacturers. I'll let you read up on their product & leave this blog to my experience with it. I started using this cup last month and I'll tell you one thing fosho - I ain't going back to disposables!

Again, it's super icky dealing with emptying your cup and being up close and personal with your blood and mucous. No way around it - it is gross. But I've never felt so at ease on my period before. I don't cramp so my problem with periods has always been the sick feeling I get when the blood leaves my body. I thought I'd solved that with my discovery of tampons. I was never bold enough to just walk around with only a tampon though, so I always had a pad as my safety net (and thank goodness for that, amirite). With LENA though, I've had 0 leaks. I have to empty my cup twice a day, I sleep peacefully, I don't have a safety net.. It's literally the happiest period I've ever had. PLUS, environmentally friendly yo!

Bloodiest,

Niharika