Let’s talk Period.
Charlene Lizette
Do you prefer to eat clean and healthy? Are you particular about the products you feed your babe? What about the products you use in your house to clean?
I care about all that stuff, I make sure I eat clean. I buy organic when I can, use natural products to clean the house, my skin, my hair. I make sure every product I buy for Charlie is natural and as pure as possible. But what I had failed to notice is I never paid attention to the type of feminine hygiene products I was using. I’d just hit up a local pharmacy grab some pads and tampons and off I went to pick up organic chocolate at my local health food store ‘cause I needed to be prepared for the coming week, obviously.
Miss monthly would roll around and I’d wear pads and wonder why things weren’t as fresh in that area. I’m super clean so I didn’t get why I wasn’t feeling so fresh and so clean clean. I’d used tampons and constantly feel icky. I could tell something foreign was inside of me. I’d get headaches, feel lethargic and feel like I was getting sick. I used to chalk it up to being on my period, but as I’ve recently discovered I was wrong.
Listen I’m not dissing all the big brands out there that provide feminine hygiene products Im just saying after all the stuff I read and after switching over to organic tampons and pads it’s kinda hard for me not to to believe the studies. There’s been a direct correlation with me actually enjoying my periods and me making me the switch. Yup, that’s right ladies my period don’t suck as much anymore now that I use organic feminine hygiene products.
So here’s what I researched and learned.
K, so #1 our skin is the largest organism in our body. WTF. It’s also the thinnest (this means it absorbs more) Whatever touches our skin eventually ends up in our bloodstream and then makes its way all over our body and into our organs!
Here’s where sh*t gets crazy! Pad and tampon manufacturers don’t have to list all the ingredients used to manufacturer feminine hygiene products. Why? Because FHP’s (feminine hygiene products) are considered “medical devices”. What.In.The.Actual.Hell? It all seems a bit fishy to me. Andrea Donsky who I had the pleasure of meeting (she’s a total doll and brilliant) is the founder of Naturally Savy and co-author of Label Lessons-Your Guide to a Healthy Shopping Cart. HuffPost featured her research in an article you can find here. They break down what Andrea found out about pads and tampons and it’s pretty f’d up.
So basically non organic pads are made of a bunch of mysterious ingredients including polyethylene, fragrances, propylene glycol and a bunch of other garbage ingredients that are linked to hormone disruption, cancer, birth defects, dryness and infertility. Wanna know what’s even more f’d up Andrea, in her research, found out that 10 years ago a woman introduced legislation requiring research into the potential harmful effects of our FHP’s. Take a wild guess what happened, the bill was not passed. ACCESS DENIED. SURPRISE SURPRISE. And so, the plot thickens.
Now let’s talk about tampons. Did you know females will insert between 10,000-13,000 tampons in their lifetime. That’s a lot. These tampons go inside of us and therefore we are basically injecting ourselves with whatever ingredients they are made of. What’s even more f’d up is that there are no long term studies to show what kind of side effects us females have from prolonged use. SOUND THE ALARM. Pesticides, chlorine, dioxin, rayon, fragrance and BPAs are basically injected into our bodies and run through our bloodstream into our organs just like the pads. Oh and FYI in case you hadn’t noticed, tampons chill right by our baby making machines. I’m not trying to be some conspiracy theorist (lets get real I live for them) but think about how many women have fertility issues and how many of those same women use pads and tampons… Just sayin’…
So there I was deep in the rabbit hole reading website after website after having spoken to Elaine founder of Lilli Pads trying to confirm everything she had told me. Elaine started Lilli Pads after having a Toxic Shock Syndrome situation. I was mind blown. Everything she had shared could be verified through article after article. Ohh and the icing on the cake, non organic pads are not biodegradable, they are just garbage. Those wrapped up used thingy ma jigs just chill in landfills polluting our air. Ohh samesies with those tampons. I’m officially grossed out on multiple levels here.
So what the hell was I gonna do?! Easy, I switched over to organic feminine hygiene products. Full transparency when I opened up the box of Lilli Pads I received from Elaine I was all like “these pads are basically paper thin, no way in hell these bad boys are holding up on heavy flow days.” They did. Added bonus, I had no leakage and even though miss monthly was paying me a visit I was still smelling so fresh and so clean clean.
I tried them a second month, because you know, I was still skeptical and this time I moved over to organic tampons as well. Lilli Pads is only currently selling their tampons in the US at the moment. I went to my local health food store and picked up another organic brand but you bet I’ll be switching to Lilli Pads when they come to Canada.
Now I’m in month 2, organic pads and tampons and here’s what I have to report:
I stayed smelling so fresh and so clean clean all 7 days.
I never felt like I was wearing a diaper when I wore pads to sleep.
I experienced zero leakage. Even on my heavier days.
I loved Lilli Pads packaging. Minimal, pretty and totally environmentally friendly.
Those weird feelings I used to get with regular tampons, gone. Like don’t get my wrong, my ovaries hurt, cause you know our bodies are doing its thing. But that ill, lethargic, gross feeling, was gone and has been gone.
Organic pads and tampons are environmentally friendly and biodegradable so now not only am I taking care of what I’m putting into my body, I’m also being conscious of what I’m putting back into our environment.
If you are like me and care about what you eat, what you clean with, what you use on your child. I’m telling you, do your own research clink on the hyperlinks above. Go down that rabbit hole because you will be converted.
Listen are organic FHP’s more expensive?
Yes a little, but I’d rather pay the extra bucks to protect my health and our environment vs using plastic pads with a multitude of unknown ingredients while miss monthly is here.
When it comes to feminine Hygiene products, organic beats plastic. Period.
xo. C.