My good friend Maria and I were chatting about our uteruses (uteri?) over lattes (as good friends often do), when she brought up her usage of menstrual cups. I’d heard a bit about them from other friends who had tried them out, but had never used one myself, so I was curious to know more about this pretty recent innovation of the period world.
Not familiar with the menstrual cup? It’s an alternative to pads and tampons, a small silicone cup that you insert as you would a tampon, but that collects blood instead of absorbing it. The great thing about these products is that they are reusable for up to 5-10 years, making them way more environmentally friendly than pads and tampons. That’s ideal for the college girl on a budget; for the cup you pay a one-time cost of $25-$40, instead of spending $60-$70 each year on pads and tampons. They’re also considered safer than tampons, because you can keep them in for hours and won’t risk any side effects or health complications.
There are different brands—DiveCup, MoonCup U.K., LadyCup, Lunette, etc.—that differ slightly by size, color, and shape that you choose depending on your body and your flow.
I had a lot of questions: Is it messy? Is it comfortable? How do you clean it? Luckily, Maria was more than happy to share the details of her experiences with the cup. Read more below!
Which brand did you use and why did you decide to start using it?
Maria: I used the MoonCup U.K. off and on for three years. I decided to start using it to be more environmentally conscious. Once I realized that pads and tampons are super wasteful, I googled more environmentally responsible products and found out about the period cup.
What did you think? Was it hard to use or did it gross you out?
Maria: My vagina doesn’t really gross me out, so when I read about how it works I was just like “cool!” But it was super hard to learn how to use. You have to pinch it and stick it up there as far as you can, so it was a difficult maneuver to get used to because I kept letting it go when I was trying to put it in, but once it was in I couldn’t feel it at all. Taking it out is a nightmare. Thankfully you can wear it for 8 hours and you’ll be fine, but it accumulates a ton of liquid, so it’s really hard not to spill it all over yourself when you take it out. The first few times I used it I dropped it and it spilled all over me.
Did you prefer it to pads or tampons?
Maria: Yeah, if it wasn’t weird to wash it in public places I would wear it all the time, because you only have to take it out once a day and then boil it after each one of your cycles to cleanse it. But you really have to be in the privacy of your own home to wash it cause it would be so gross to wash in a dorm bathroom. One day during my sophomore year I got walked in on washing it in my communal dorm bathroom, and the girl just stared at me as I tried to explain myself, then walked out. The next year, I was living in a house with other girls, and I bought a special pot to boil my period cup, but we didn’t have another other pots so we ended up using that one for cooking too—I know, I know—so then, obviously, I had to stop boiling my cup in it. But if I had my own bathroom I would wear it all the time. I definitely prefer it.
Any side effects?
Maria: No, I don’t think so! And like I said, you can leave it in longer than a tampon because you won’t risk getting toxic shock syndrome.
In this environmentally concerned age, are these cups the future of period products?
(You should also check out BuzzFeed’s 18 Reasons You Should Switch To The Menstrual Cup)
Sources:
http://divacup.com/about-us/our-story/
https://menstrualcups.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/ww-clothpads-org_0709_cupline4.jpg