Don’t Forget the Spite: How Menstrual Products Are Still Missing the Mark

Graphic by Agnes Lee.

You wake up. It’s day three of your period. The towel you put on your bed to sleep on — just in case — has blood all over it because your pad wasn’t thick enough. You start the cleaning process: stain remover, cold water and spite. Lots of spite.

Today, there are more options than just pads and tampons. There are multiple brands of the menstrual cup, disposable discs and, now, period underwear. These underwear aren’t your usual worn and torn spandex undies you bought on sale at Target, dedicated to getting ruined by your uterus. These underwear are meant to replace pads and tampons for a more sustainable and affordable choice. A popular brand of period underwear, Thinx, has accumulated almost 380k followers on Instagram and promotes body positivity and women’s health education on its social media.

According to its website, Thinx seeks to make periods a lot easier, claiming that its products “look and feel just like your regular undies — but better.” But how do they work? Thinx says its underwear is stretchy, odor-controlling, moisture-wicking and leak-preventing. With five different absorbency levels, you can select from a range of lightest to super. A handy introduction video on their website explains how super-level underwear can absorb up to 36 milliliters of blood, which equates to two pads or four tampons. Washing is also incredibly simple. The used underwear won’t stain other clothes — it just needs to be washed with cold water and air-dried. Thinx can be used in addition to pads, tampons and the cup too. Because each woman is different, there are three different videos of women on their website describing how they use their period underwear.

One woman, named Alina, wears the Boyshort style and notes how she has painful and inconsistent periods, so she uses Thinx in addition to tampons. She talks about how she doesn’t have to be “cautious of how [she moves]” and feels secure with her pair. Another woman, named Karen, wears the Sport style and has a light flow, so she only wears Thinx. Karen doesn’t like pads because of how much they move around, and Thinx allows her to be ready to go without having to worry about if her pad is in the right place.

So let’s break it down.

As someone who is already wary of trusting only underwear to save my light blue sheets every month, the price didn’t make the product any more appealing. Underwear prices range from $32 to $42 per pair of underwear, depending on which kind you need. But under the “save $$$” section, there are options to save money by referring a friend, looking at the “last call” selection or buying a bundle. While these underwear are a bit pricier, what is the actual monetary difference between Thinx, pads, tampons and the cup?

Thinx highlights how important sustainability and quality are, which is part of the reason why its prices are so high. If I were to buy three pairs of underwear in a bundle, the total price would come out to $97.20 (but I saved $10.80, or 10%). Say I don’t have an in-unit washing machine (which many college students don’t), so I have to wait longer to machine-wash my underwear and have to buy more to last me through the week. Five pairs (one for each day) would cost about $150 (but I saved about $26). The more I add to my bundle, the higher the percentage I save. At five or more pairs, I save 15%, and at seven or more pairs, I save 20%. I admit it’s tempting to keep adding to my bundle after seeing how much I save. And according to Thinx (BTWN), period underwear made for tweens and teens, the underwear can last up to two years.

In the United States, people have their period for an average of 40 years! If I had to buy three pairs of period underwear every 2 years for 40 years, that would approximately amount to $2000 spent on period products. This doesn’t include postpartum products and other additional period products.

On the other hand, the menstrual cup, sold by multiple companies like Keeper Cup, Moon Cup, Lunette Menstrual Cup, DivaCup, Lena Cup and Lily Cup, ranges from about $20 to $40, depending on the brand and your flow. The cup is also sustainable but involves a more hands-on application process, similar to that of the Nuva Ring. Those who find tampons uncomfortable probably feel similarly about the cup, especially since the cup takes a bit more squatting and ‘relaxation’ during insertion. According to DivaCup, their cup can last up to several years, depending on how well a user has cleaned and taken care of it. This, of course, varies because each vagina is different.

Say you replace your cup every four years (give or take). If you had to buy a $40 cup every four years for 40 years, that would approximately amount to $400 on period products in a lifetime. Again, this only takes the cup into account and no additional period product usage.

While pads and tampons can often feel like the ol’ reliable choice, they’re actually incredibly unsustainable and expensive compared to other period products. According to National Geographic, “over the course of a lifetime, a single menstruator will use somewhere between 5 and 15 thousand pads and tampons, the vast majority of which will wind up in landfills as plastic waste.” And while the plastic applicators of tampons are recyclable, they tend to not be accepted for sanitary reasons.

A HuffPost article did the math (thank you) for how much a period would cost in a lifetime and concluded that tampons would cost $1,773.33 (if you’re using 20 tampons per cycle) and pads would cost $443.33 (if you’re using 5 pads per cycle — which is a little skimpy, in my opinion). While these numbers vary by the products, flow and amount needed, pads and tampons prove to be both expensive and really harmful to the environment.

Graphic by Agnes Lee.

So after doing all of this math, what of it? I find that even after comparing the pros, cons and numbers, it all comes down to personal choice regarding expenses, sustainability and overall comfort. But between the endless cold washes, spot checks, hidden pads up my sleeve so no one sees and “Shit I think I bled through,” I’ve also just had enough. I think it’s time to turn the spite from my own flow back out to the industry that overcharges and capitalizes on it. With the pink tax, cheery women on period product commercials and the half-assed women’s empowerment messages these companies attempt to portray through their advertisements, I’ve had enough.

Periods are messy, ugly, inconvenient, but also exciting, and sometimes, very welcome. I want menstrual product companies to be real for a moment; it’s not just the cramps that are painful, but the fact that we have to spend so much money in our lifetimes on necessary products. It’s comforting knowing that more products aim to make periods easier and want to embrace body-positivity, but at that price? How much am I paying for a company to catch my blood and tell me that I’m strong? Too much.