As of today, March 4 (the New Moon), I will hand over the GladRags keys to Tracy Puhl, the new owner.  Yay for me!  Yay for Tracy!  And yay for all of you smart and loyal customers who have supported us over the years because Tracy and her team will be doing great things with GladRags.

GladRags came into being when I first moved to Portland and needed a way to make money so I could be home with our 2-year-old daughter while my husband worked in Los Angeles.That WAHM business turned into a bigger enterprise than I imagined and now GladRags are found in nearly every natural product store in the U.S. It was a job that allowed me to stay available to Emma, who, by the way, is now in her third year of college – that’s how long I’ve been running GladRags.  And it allowed me the flexibility to go back to school for my BFA. Even my artwork owes a debt of gratitude to the ‘rags, because a lot of my work is created from scraps from the cutting room floor!

I feel very proud of my work at GladRags. Proud for all we’ve done for the environment and for what we’ve done for women. We have reached hundreds of thousands of women with messages of empowerment and respect for their bodies and their menstrual cycles. I hope we’ve made menstruation a little less of a taboo subject. With a name like GladRags, you know you are turning stereotypes on their head!

What an adventure it has been, meeting amazing people in the natural products industry – store buyers, brokers, fellow business people. Many thanks go to the spirited, committed staff who have worked with me at GladRags – I love these women! They helped me, they taught me, and they kept me hip – and most of them are still my friends. My loving husband, Bruce, deserves a shout–out, too, for all his support over the years. And especially to the wonderful, warm, progressive-thinking customers who have made it all possible, a great big thank you!

For the last few years, however, my focus has shifted more and more to my art career. It’s hard to do both jobs well at the same time. I need more time in the studio and GladRags deserves someone to give it full attention and fresh energy. Tracy has been working at GladRags for a few years and has proven to be creative, enterprising, and downright indispensable. I can already see that she will put herself into it with a commitment that perhaps it never got from me. I know she will promote the message of healthy bodies,  strong spirits, and a healthy environment in new and creative ways.

Watch out, world! GladRags has entered a new cycle!

- Brenda

PS: if you want to stay in touch with me personally, I’m over here:

www.brendamallory.com

(Sorry for the blurry photo — we’ve had a glass of champagne to celebrate!)

A note from Tracy:

Hello, GladRags Community!

I’m so excited to take this big new step in my life and to continue my journey with GladRags!  I can’t wait to make GladRags even stronger as both a company and a community, and I think we can (and will!) achieve some amazing things in the coming years.

You’ll continue to see the same quality of products and service you expect from GladRags, and I hope that together we can continue sharing the message of empowerment, sustainability, and health with even more women. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with your suggestions and ideas; I want to hear from YOU and learn about how GladRags can better serve its community — and the planet!

You can leave a comment here for Brenda to wish her well in her new endeavors.  She is an amazingly talented artist, and I expect we’ll see great things from her as she devotes more of her time to her art!

And of course, thank you for your continued support of GladRags.  We wouldn’t be here without you!

xoxo

Tracy

email me / Facebook me

Our recent post of a customer’s letter about her TSA pat down has gone completely viral. Most of the comments and repostings have been positive and brought further insights or experience to the issue. Our always eloquent buddies over at LunaPads had a great post and you can read it here.

However, a few commenters and blogs have taken issue because we didn’t post the airport and the identify of the letter writer. The thinking is that perhaps it is just a marketing ploy on our part. While that might be clever, it would be devious, and not really our style. Sure, we hope to spread the word about our products – that is why we have a blog.

We checked with our customer to get her permission before we posted her letter and we trust that she had the experience she related. She has witnesses in her fellow travelers and she did tell us the airport and her destination city. She has nothing to gain from sharing her experience except knowing she might prevent the same experience for other women. Only after I called her today did she learn that her story had gone viral.

So it was not a marketing ploy, but yes, we do want something  – we want women (and men) to be able to travel without their personal privacy being invaded because they are menstruating, or think they might start their period on the plane, or because they are incontinent and like the security of a pantyliner.

Anyone wanting further information about the validity of our post can contact us at info@gladrags.com.  We always welcome your comments and feedback.

Yesterday we received a letter from a customer who wore her GladRags Pantyliner through a security scanner and was so traumatized by her resulting TSA genital search that she wanted to warn other women. (Read her letter below). Her past history of sexual assault made this experience a nightmare for her. At first we thought yes, we will warn people not to put themselves through this risk.

But on second thought, we want to ask every willing woman, menstruating or not, to put a GladRags in her pants and go through the scanner.  Let the TSA learn to recognize that a menstruating woman is probably not a terrorist! (And, yes, we know myriad jokes can be made be about that statement).

The fact of the matter is, everyone is subject to an invasive search. For some women and men it causes great stress and perceived violation. If you can handle the experience fairly stress free, help clear the way for our menstruating sisters for whom a genital search by a group of strangers is a truly traumatizing experience.

So get your GladRags on and get to grandma's house! Over the river and thru the scannners!  

"This email isn't going to be as polished as I would normally send, but I'm upset and I don't want what happened to me to happen to anyone else (if I can stop it). I recently traveled via air, and was subjected to that new scanning device. "No problem," I thought. I was wearing jeans and a linen tanktop, bra, panties, and one camoflauge pantyliner. I'm a rule follower, so I never have any problems at the airport. Not this time. I was stopped, and then held for 15 mintues while they tried to find a female supervisor. I couldn't get to my bag, my shawl or my shoes; just standing there while the TSA agents kept me in one place. Now, I don't want this to be about bad TSA agents; they were doing their job, they were as delicate as they could be, etc., etc. But what ultimately happened is that I was subjected to search so invasive that I was left crying and dealing with memories that I thought had been dealt with years ago of prior sexual assualts. Why? Because of my flannel panty-liner. These new scans are so horrible that if you are wearing something unusual (like a piece of cloth on your panties) then you will be subjected to a search where a woman repeatedly has to check your "groin" while another woman watches on (two in my case – they were training in a new girl – awesome). So please, please, tell the ladies not to wear their liners at the airport (I didn't even have an insert in). I'm a strong, confident woman; I'm an Army vet (which is why those camo liners crack me up), I work full-time and go to graduate school full-time, I have a wonderful husband, and I don't take any nonsense from anyone. I don't dramatize, and I don't exaggerate. I'm trying to give you a sense of who I am so you won't think that this is a plea for attention, or a jumping on the bandwagon about the recent TSA proposed boycott. I just don't want another woman to have to go through the "patting down" because she didn't know that her glad-rag would be a matter of national security."

While we stand by our statement that GladRags are economical and money-saving, we know some people like to keep their purchasing and consuming as local as they can.  One way to reduce your environmental footprint to make your own menstrual pads.  Treehugger has a great article that includes links to sewing patterns for menstrual pads along with suggestions on how to be an effective menstrual activist.  Making your own pads can be especially eco-friendly if you use old towels or other discarded fabric – in fact, the prototype for GladRags was made with one of my old towels. And it worked great – I used it for years.

But of course we think you should spend your crafty skills on some making fun clothes and hats and just buy your GladRags from us!

Breastfeeding is a subject close to my heart. I loved nursing my daughter. While pregnancy was an amazing experience, it was sort of an invisible process. Sure, I got as big as a house growing my 9 pounder but I couldn't see her change from day to day – only my rounding body was visible. However, once she was out,  I watched her grow, change, and thrive before my very eyes while nourished on nothing but the milk from my breasts. The invisible magic became visible. Some of the most wonderful memories in my mind are her adoring eyes looking up at me while she was nourished and comforted.

Lucky for me, I had some strong role models in friends, family, and Mothering Magazine to tell me I was doing the right thing. But many women not only don't have that support, they are in fact discouraged from nursing, given outdated advice by medical professionals, undermined by free samples of formula, and stigmatized by a society that continues to consider the breast a sex symbol instead of an infant's best source of food delivery. (Don't forget the ongoing Hey Facebook, Breastfeeding is not Obscene campaign.)

It riles me that more women and babies don't get to experience the pleasure and good benefits of breastfeeding, because it is good for both – mothers also have lasting health benefits from nursing. And it is the rare instance where nursing doesn't really work. It is more often a choice arrived at by poor information, or economic and social situations that don't support children and mothers.  The first week of August was World Breastfeeding Week and the organization of the same name has lots of great info. There are breastmilk banks (this link is about the one in Portland)  where moms with extra milk (yes, most women do have extra) can donate to babies in need. And the La Leche League is a great support organization for women who are having difficulties with the process. I got some great advice from them when my daughter began to try out her sharp little teeth. The photo above is my baby about 18 years ago. Oh, how time does fly!

My friend Melody works for another great Portland company, Emerita . They make the healthy lube we sell as well as other great women's bodycare products. She travels all the time and recently had an encounter with a fellow air traveler who happened to be a Greenpeace employee. Thanks for spreading the word, Melody!

  –Brenda

The other day I educated a Greenpeace canvasser on the importance of reusable menstrual products. It was really a ‘preaching to the choir’ moment, but still something well worth documenting.

What started out as the Greenpeace canvasser’s pitch, (I’ll call him Greg), on the evils of Kimberly Clark cutting down old growth trees quickly extended into my diatribe on how we should all stop the use of paper towels, use hemp toilet paper despite the likely roughness we may experience and demand that Kimberly Clark seek sustainable supply chains or halt their paper business altogether. Greg was a taken back, but engaged in my oration.

The segue into reusable menstrual products came when I compared a local Portland company’s business model to Kimberly Clark’s agenda of waste and massive scale environmental destruction. I told Greg about GladRags, and how the company’s concept of using soft, washable, reusable cloth for a woman’s menstrual cycle is an idea that can bring us back to earth, to living more sustainably.

“Greg!” I excitedly exclaimed, “This is something every woman can do to cut down on her environmental impact! Does Greenpeace know about GladRags?!”

Greg nodded in agreement and appreciated that I was passionate about alternative menstrual options. He politely interrupted me as I started to give details about my GladRags pantyliner experience on a recent flight back East, by asking if would consider renewing my Greenpeace membership.

Noticing the wedding band on his ring finger I confirmed that Greg was indeed married and obliged to renew my Greenpeace membership on one condition, that he pledge to tell his wife and other women in his life about GladRags and we can use our menstrual cycles to save the planet, one GladRags at time.

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Hey GladRags Users,

We are having a kickass sale on all Color Day 3-packs, Color Pantyliner 3-packs and Color Nightpad 3-packs. Also all Moon Cup Kits and Keeper Cup Kits.

To take advantage of this sale,  just be our Facebook friend and you'll see the coupon code. Or you can follow us on twitter.com/GladRags and get the coupon there.  And tell your friends to follow and friend us  too, so they can start saving the world every 28 days.

Deals like this just don't come along very often. It ends Saturday night so jump on it now.

I'm doing a little horn-tooting here! My husband, Bruce Barrow, is an awesome film editor and just won his fifth NW regional Emmy for an Oregon Public Broadcasting documentary. This one was for Silent Invasion, a show about invasive non-native plants and animals that are changing Oregon's ecology. It's specific to Oregon but has national implications. They also set up website hotline for people to report when they see invasives. The show also won the prestigious duPont-Columbia University Award for broadcast journalism. Congrats, OBP.

It's a total advertising ploy by Madsen (post a link and enter to win) for this cargo bike, but I got suckered in because I think it would be so great to have this to haul stuff. I got groceries yesterday on my bike and could barely stuff everything in my 20-year-old paniers. The weather has been stunning in Portland the past week, and bikers have been out in droves. I'm loving it and vowing that I will stop being a fair-weather commuter and get serious this fall when rains come back. 

We were recently contacted by Srini Perera who asked us for donations of menstrual pads to help with aid efforts in Sri Lanka. Srini lives in California now, but she is from Sri Lanka. She, her husband, and family all work hard to help procure supplies to send there. Currently thousands of displaced families are living in temporary camps in northern Sri Lanka.  Rather than sending disposable pads to a community that is struggling with many basic needs and doesn’t have waste disposal systems to handle all of the trash created by such products, Srini is encouraging donations of GladRags for a long-term, sustainable solution. Srini and her family formed ECSWorld.com to inspire and coordinate donations.  GladRags is happy to support their work.  Purchase any number of GladRags Regular Day Pads 3packs (SL3) to donate and GladRags will donate two more pads! We have set up a special product page for her donors to use (and anyone else who wants to help). Srini has a shipment going to Sri Lanka on May 20.   Order quickly to make sure your donation makes the cut!  This donation would make an excellent Mother's Day present for the socially conscious mother. To purchase pads for women in Sri Lanka, click here. To read more about ECS World, click here.