by Eileen Weber
A friend of mine sent me a link for a product that was reviewed on IdealBite.com. It was a menstrual cup, a device meant to be 100% leak-proof during a woman’s period. While admittedly I felt a little squeamish, I was also intrigued.
With a list of reusable menstrual cups like DivaCup, MoonCup, MiaCup, Lunette, and The Keeper, there are plenty of options on the market. Using one of these cups stops the waste of tampons, pads, and liners from ending up in landfills. Many of the products we have grown up using don’t break down, especially those products that include a plastic backing.
For quite some time, tampons have been associated with toxic chemicals. Tampons have also been directly linked to Toxic Shock Syndrome, an illness caused by a bacterial infection from the use of hyper-absorbent tampons for an extended period of time. Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, a sunburn-like rash, fever, dizziness and possible fainting from a drop in blood pressure.
According to some estimates, the average woman in her lifetime can use enough feminine hygiene products to fill a dump truck. And that’s just one woman. Think of the millions of other women who are doing the same thing every month. Millions of non-biodegradable feminine products are thrown out in the garbage or flushed down the toilet causing residual plumbing problems. Suddenly a silly concept becomes an important environmental statement.
Based on the comments Ideal Bite received, there’s not a single woman who has used the product that gives it a negative review. Some have said it takes a few times to get used to it. But once you get the hang of it, it’s simple, easy, and leak-proof. What more could you want?
“I've been using the DivaCup now for three years and I'll never go back!” said Cecile Sheff. “My favorite thing is not having to worry about having tampons or pads in my purse all the time.”
Simply fold the flexible bell-shaped silicone rubber in half and insert it like a tampon. It collects the fluid rather than absorbing it in bleach-soaked cotton. When removing, you just pinch the base of the cup to pull it out. Et voilà!
For Alexandra Boyd, she loved her MoonCup so much she added a blog entry about it. On the Ideal Bite comments page, she said, “I love mine and it's paid for itself over and over. No more bleached cotton tampons—EVER!”
There are even YouTube videos discussing the benefits of the product as well as demonstrations on how to use it properly. (Although, one of them is in Italian. Not as helpful if you don’t speak the language. But, the visuals get the point across.)
One such video was from Lucy Johnson, a Scottish graduate student studying law in North Korea. She stated in her video clip that she was formerly a health teacher. Promoting the reusable menstrual cup, she not only cited the environmental benefits of it, but the economic ones as well.
“Each woman will spend about $3,000 in her lifetime on these things,” she said, holding up a sanitary napkin, “and they don’t really work.”
The cost of a reusable menstrual cup is around $30 to $40. According to MoonCup.com, if you factor that price over ten years, it will cost you less than 30 cents per month. If you consider that the average cost of using other feminine hygiene products is about $4 per month, then you have spent nearly $500 in that same ten-year time span.
Using it, however, may take some getting used to. Some women say it takes a while to figure out how to use it correctly. Every woman’s body is shaped just a bit differently. “The learning curve is a little steeper than a tampon,” said Johnson, “You need about three cycles to get used to the knack of taking it in and out. Once you do, very few women ever return to using tampons.”
While I don’t foresee menstrual cups being the favored topic of conversation at your next dinner party, I do see a growing interest in it if the comments on Ideal Bite are any indication. For those who find tampons or pads to be uncomfortable or organic cotton tampons just aren’t green enough, this seems like a great alternative.
Until then, I may have to get to work on my next big idea: the biodegradable vaginal catheter. For only $19.95, it comes with its own set of Ginsu knives.
Photo courtesy of Ideal Bite.
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