We love getting feedback from our customers! Here is an email we recently received:

“I just wanted to take a moment to express my appreciation for your products. I’m a new user of the GladRags cloth pads and love them. I’ll never go back to disposable pads again! I saw the cloth pads on sale at my local Whole Foods and, being more earth-conscious, decided to give it a shot.

I admit, at first I was rather squeamish at the idea of a reusable pad, but I think that was more because our society has conditioned women to think that their menstrual cycle is disgusting and should be disposed of without any evidence, thus the disposable products advertised and sold to women.

My period is more pleasant (which I hadn’t thought possible) and more comfortable using the cloth pads. The oilcloth travel bag is great, and the waterproof wet bag works like a charm when I’m away from my home. The cloth pads clean very well with minimal, if any, staining, and with proper care I can see them lasting for many, many years. The up-front cost is a little overwhelming, but each cycle I use them, I’m happily reminded that I will never have to purchase disposable products ever again.

I only wish I had known about GladRags years ago! I had no idea such products were available. Thank you for such a fantastic quality product. I love that it’s sustainable and made in America. Please extend my appreciation to all your staff.” - Jennifer G.

Eastern Washington University’s student newspaper reported that over 40% of the feminine hygiene machines were broken on their campus, and it reminded me of an experience I had with feminine hygiene machines. 

It happened to me in high school.

I had just started my period and wasn’t very good at keeping extra supplies in my backpack or locker. I found a quarter in one of those obscure backpack pockets, ever so slyly slipped it into my pocket, and prayed to the gods that no one would be in the bathroom so I could buy my tampon in peace and no one would have to know I was on my period.

But of course, I was not alone, and I had to buy my tampon with another girl in the bathroom, who probably didn’t even notice me.

It was one of the most mortifying moments of my life, and became even worse when the machine didn’t work. I left the bathroom and found one of my friends in the hall, who in fact did have an extra tampon on her, as she was on her period, too.

Knowing that my friend was on her period at the same time as me was oddly comforting. Shocking, I know, that it took a fourteen year old almost a year into her period to come to terms with the fact that she couldn’t possibly be the only girl in the world on her period at any given moment. But that’s what got me through that week, and now I’m thinking that’s all that matters. Although I never did get that quarter back.

It’s these kind of moments where I wish I had known about GladRags. Before this semester at school, I didn’t even know that there were alternatives to disposable tampons and pads. I had asked my friend if she had an extra tampon (I’m sensing a trend here about myself) and she told me she had never used a tampon. She had only used a menstrual cup since she started her period. I started doing some research, and was considering trying out a menstrual cup. I was also looking for a summer job at the time and Bitch magazine shared a summer internship opportunity, and I found GladRags.

My period is nothing to be shameful about, and now I think it’s more embarrassing that it took me years of being on my period to figure this out. The experience illustrates something that I think needs to change, and that’s how we talk about, or more likely not talk about, our periods. Finding GladRags and its community of followers helped me find that period positivity. It’s an empowering feeling that is central to the GladRags mission, and I am proud to be a part of that.

About the author of this post:
Bronte Dod is the summer intern at GladRags and attends Willamette University, studying politics, history, and women’s and gender studies. She is passionate about education, dance, and hiking with her dog.

Confession: I cropped my underwear out of this photo… OF MY MENSTRUAL PADS.

I’m writing this post in Puerto Rico (for a wedding and family festivities) and am enjoying the sunshine and the ability to dry clothes outdoors! Last week as I was drying my pantyliners on the clothesline I started thinking about all the places my cloth pads have traveled with me.

As far as I can remember, my stash of GladRags and my menstrual cup have gone with me from my home in Portland, Oregon to the following places:

• The Bay Area & Los Angeles, California
• Seattle, Washington
• Bremen & Berlin, Germany
• Greece & Turkey
• All over Puerto Rico

That’s quite a list! In addition, they’ve tagged along on countless camping trips or weekends at the Oregon coast. I’d be hard pressed to find another item in my life that’s so well-traveled. Even my phone or shoes wear out and have to be replaced long before they make it on this many trips!

Just sun-drying my pantyliners next to Paquita the parrot and the Puerto Rican jungle, no big deal.

If my GladRags have traveled this far, what  interesting places have your cloth pads visited? Comment with the interesting and unique places you’ve brought your cloth pads or menstrual cup. Bonus points for photos!

About the author of this post:
Tracy Puhl is the owner of GladRags and is passionate about period positivity and empowering women everywhere. In her free time, she likes to volunteer, run around her neighborhood, and cuddle with her favorite cat.

Childhood days

I grew up in a very small semi urban town called Garhwa in the state of Jharkhand in India. I come from a conservative middle class society where menstruation is still a taboo. As a child I remember, I would get curious about sanitary napkins while watching advertisements on TV. My mother would get embarrassed and try to avoid the subject. When I explicitly asked her about it, she told “you would know about it once you grow up”.

At the age of 11, I met with a serious accident and was totally bed ridden for months. My mother would fix a narrow pipe to my urinary tract to help me with urination. One day while fixing the pipe my mother saw some traces of blood in my vagina which was actually due to a minor cut received earlier while fixing the pipe. She thought I have started my periods and she told me about periods for the first time. She said that all girls and women get it. I was the youngest among my cousins and they had already started getting their periods. I realized why suddenly all my elder cousin sisters had started their private conversations and wouldn’t let me be a part of it.

First period and the burden of myths

I got my first period when I was 12 years old. I informed about it to my mother and she made me bathe with 2 and half mug of water. By doing so, she believed my flow would last only for 2 and half days. Nevertheless, I was a heavy bleeder like my mother and my flow would last for at least 7 days if not more. I started off with using old discarded cotton cloth folded in the shape of a pad to absorb the flow. I used to get debilitating cramps and my daily routine would go for a toss. Things became worse when restrictions arising from age old myths were thrust upon me during my periods. I wasn’t allowed to sit on other’s bed but just mine. I wasn’t allowed to touch the place of worship or anything holy in the house. I had to wash and dry my cloths separately. During periods I wasn’t allowed to eat or touch pickle as it was believed that they would get spoilt if I touched them. After my periods would get over, I had to wash the bed sheet whether it’s stained or not. In short, I was treated as impure or polluted and I was expected to have become “pure” only after the 7^th day when I had taken a bath and washed my hair.

I was strictly told by my mother to not let my father or brothers get even a hint of my periods. Since menstrual blood is considered impure, I and mom used to store the used and washed cloth pads in a very dark, damp and not so clean corner of the bathroom. Even today I feel sorry for the 12 year old me. My parents are well educated and were financially well off. We could have easily afforded sanitary pads but the question was who would go to buy them and risk their and the family’s dignity. Back in 1992 and even today in many societies menstruation is an unspeakable curse.

I got my first period when I was in class 7^th, and many of my friends did too. But the subject of menstruation was not introduced in our textbooks well until we were in class 9^th. Our biology teacher was a male and he asked us to go through the chapter on our own and ask him in case we had any doubts about it. The teacher was quite friendly to us and obviously his skipping the chapter made the whole subject of menstruation and child-birth a taboo for us. We learnt to deny our own body, our own self right from the time we start growing up and then everything surrounding it, be it child molestation, rape, periods, pregnancy, intercourse, even touching and hugging becomes shameful and embarrassing.

All this while I only knew that period were important so that I can have a baby some day in future. Becoming a mother is a big deal and a very important aspect of women in our societies. Woman who can’t bear child are considered unfortunate, unlucky and have no respect within the family or in the society.

Goodbye rags

Due to lack of better education I took admission in a school in a different city away from my home. I had to stay in a hostel. There was only one bathroom for every 10 girls. Washing and drying cloth pads was not possible there. I saw my roommate using whisper napkin. She told that one can easily buy them at the medical stores. So I went to the medical shop and very shyly asked for the brand name, the shop keeper wrapped the packet with paper and then put it in a black poly bag and gave it to me. I was using sanitary napkins for the first time at the age of 15. It was so much dry, less messy and comfortable as compared to using cloth pieces as pads. Over the next 12 years I had tried, testing and using napkins of various brands and absorbencies.

During my post graduation days, I got into a relationship with one of my batch mates, Tuhin. Tuhin was an activity partner and we often worked on projects together. We are now happily married. Tuhin has only one sibling, a younger brother, so he never got a chance to know about periods beyond what’s taught in the biology textbooks in the schools. After knowing about the inconvenience that I went through every month, Tuhin started to search for more information on menstruation and different ways to manage it in the hope that he could be of some help during those days of the month. He told me many things that I myself did not know about periods. It occurred to us that if there are so many essential things about menstruation that’s unknown to me even after having periods for past several years and in spite of being well educated, there must be millions others who might be ignorant about menstrual management. So I took up a yearlong project on menstrual awareness. This research project had laid the grounds for Menstrupedia.

Tampons

While working in Mumbai, I had joined swimming classes. I enjoyed swimming a lot and wondered how am I going to continue during my periods? That’s when I learnt about tampons and started using them but was always wary about TSS. Every time I used them I had to keep track of time to change them.

Menstrual cups

It was during late last year that I and Tuhin started our initiative Menstrupedia with the hope of sharing our knowledge and experiences about menstruation. While researching about the subject I came across menstrual cups many times but never felt a need to dig enough to know about them or maybe I was too comfortable and structured to try anything other than pad or tampon. While researching about various menstrual products, Tuhin found that the benefits of menstrual cup along with the overtly positive user testimonials made it definitely worth a try. So we bought a menstrual cup. Since then I have been using it without complaint. It has not only saved me money but also the trouble of buying fresh supply of pads or tampons every period and I don’t have to worry about waste disposal anymore and I would never like to go back to using pads and tampons anymore. That leaves me wondering, had I known about these different, better ways to manage periods, I wouldn’t have had to bear the agony of being a girl every month.

 Aditi Gupta is the founder of Menstrupedia. She believes in spreading awareness about menstruation in a fun and entertaining manner. In her free time she blogs about crafts made from common household waste along with the DIY tutorials.

This is Rebecca H.’s story of her second year presenting reusable menstrual options to women at her university. We love that she’s continuing to help others make informed choices about their bodies — you rock, Rebecca!

I just wanted to thank you again for sending me some GladRags coupons and information a while back for the program that I was putting on about green feminine products. I had my program tonight at seven, and it went over really well.

I started by telling the girls my thoughts when I first heard about reusable menstrual products and how disgusting I thought they sounded but that after looking into the products more, I realized they weren’t so nasty after all. On that note, I asked that the girls keep an open mind going into the program and said that they could judge the crap out of me at the end—after they had the information. That got a chuckle. I followed that by talking about the amount of waste generated by disposable products and then talked about the cost and savings of using green products.

I had samples from three different companies, so I told my residents about the different brands and how they differ slightly in their construction and absorption. I know a lot of my residents use tampons and are also extremely active in the outdoors, so I spent the next half of the program telling the girls about menstrual cups and how convenient they can be because you don’t have to worry if you packed enough tampons for your trip and there is no waste to pack out when camping. That’s one thing I love about menstrual cups; it takes the guess work out of how much “supplies” I need to bring on trips!

The group of girls that came was really open to the concept of reusable products and that made the program run very smoothly. They were very interactive, and I discovered that two of the girls already use cloth pads and love them. That was awesome to know because they were willing to share with the group their experience with cloth pads.

I bought snacks and some organic tampons from our local Co-Op and at the end of the program I had a raffle drawing with the tampons and cloth pad donations that I received. Most of the girls seemed genuinely excited to try cloth pads, and I urged them to at least try them before they make their decision on if cloth pads are a good alternative for them.

I will be returning to UW-Stevens Point and will be working in the residence halls this fall for one more semester before I transfer to begin in a nursing program. I sincerely hope to put this program on one more time before I leave UW-Stevens Point. This was my second year doing the program, and I honestly love doing it. I feel like when my residents actually have a chance to see and feel green alternatives, their perceptions about the products change.

I realize not everyone I spoke with tonight will switch to cloth, but last year after my program two girls did. It was such a rewarding feeling when they told me they switched because of the information I provided them. I hope this year’s program also opened some eyes and more women will make the switch.

Tons of you took our survey last month (thank you!!) and we learned that the vast majority of you regretted not hearing about GladRags sooner. It’s our mission to make sure no more women have to spend years hating their periods and the disposable products they use, but we need your help!

To sweeten the deal and show how much we appreciate your efforts, we’re giving away $200 worth of GladRags gift certificates. You could be the winner of either $100, $50, or one of two $25 gift certificates — not too shabby!

Entering is easy: just follow the instructions in the entry form below to win. You can choose to do just one entry, or do them all! The more you share the giveaway — and spread the word about reusables — the more chances you’ll have to win.

GladRags wouldn’t be here without YOU, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for everything you do to support healthy, sustainable menstrual supplies!
Read More »

We love seeing videos from GladRags fans, and getting a glimpse of the diverse types of women who swear by reusables. In this post you’ll find a few of our favorite YouTube videos sharing information about GladRags products.

We hope you enjoy watching, and encourage you to leave comments for the awesome women who made them!

In this super informative video, Dalene from The Natural Fertility Shop explains how to use GladRags Day Pads and the Moon Cup. We love how professional her video is!

In this video, the Patriot Nurse explains why reusables are a necessary preparation for when “the poop hits the fan.” Whether or not you’re part of the preparationist movement, you’ll learn a lot from the Patriot Nurse!

Tarot Lady Lissa shares her review of GladRags pads in this video. Best part? Her young daughter helps out, too! Way to start promoting period positivity early!

Taylor may be young, but she knows her stuff! She’s part of The Girl Gurus channel on YouTube that provides info on important topics like how to deal with your period at school or how to tell your parents that you’ve started. In this video, Taylor reviews the Day Pad and Pantyliner and gives you a peek at our zine, Menstruation Sensation.

Have you made a video about GladRags? Send us a link!

“After the birth of my second child, I bled very heavily. The extra thick, extra long disposable pads kept the bleeding contained but they were very uncomfortable and caused major chafing. I started using folded hand towels in my underwear at night and around the house because the material felt better and I noticed that when I used the cotton towels, there was no funky odor.

One day while shopping at Whole Foods I happened by the women’s section and saw GladRags. I bought a 3-pack of regular pads and a night pad. I was instantly pleased! I had the same results as using the towels – but without the extra bulk and with even more comfort – and I could wear GladRags out and about. My cycles have always been heavy and I have always needed the extra length of overnight style disposables. The daytime pads weren’t long enough for my cycle needs, so now that I’m a GladRags user, I only use the night time pads because I need the extra coverage. I am so very pleased with this product!!” — Keely

“I have had trouble for 19 years and just was told I was allergic to sanitary napkins and tampons and was told to order the organic sanitary napkins from GladRags. I ended up ordering the napkins and the DIVA! My life has completely changed! I have to say I was pretty angry that I was unaware of any other option to manage my cycle. I want to shout from the rooftops to everyone about how wonderful these products are. I have now used them for 3 months and will never turn back. Even if you are hesitant to try a menstruation cup – TRY IT! Keep in mind it took time to get used to a tampon. The DIVA took some time and figuring out but it was all worth it.” — Laura

We love to hear from you! Send your GladRags story to orders@gladrags.com.

Rebecca H., a Community Advisor at the University of Stevens Point, recently led a program for her female residents on eco-friendly menstrual products. We think she was super brave to organize and lead this program, and we hope she’ll inspire you to do the same! Here’s her story:

I had my program on green feminine products last night at seven, and it went over really well. I spent the first half talking about the benefits of reusable cloth pads and talking about a few different brands that differ slightly in their construction and absorption.

I know a lot of my residents use tampons and are also extremely active in the outdoors, so I spent the next half of the program telling the girls about menstrual cups and how convenient they can be because you don’t have to worry if you packed enough tampons for your trip and there is no waste to pack out when camping.

I was a bit nervous going into the program because I didn’t know how my residents would react, but they asked tons of questions and were very responsive. I had given my friend John who is a nursing major a booklet to be funny and he ended up reading it all. Before the program HE was telling ME all the benefits and money you can save from using cloth pads. A lot of people know John and love him, so he actually sat in during the program and when I was done talking, he filled in areas I forgot about! The girls thought it was great to see a guy their age actually taking an interest in their health.

I bought some organic tampons and a few cloth pads at our local Co-Op and had a raffle drawing at the end for all who attended. The girls who won were really excited to try cloth pads. Two of the girls even asked me if I would please do the program again next year! It was great and I am so glad it went over well.

I’m in China, where no one leaves home without their own small package of toilet paper because it is not supplied in public toilets anywhere, and where most of the toilets are the hole-in-the-floor Asian kind. I’m also in my 60s, so squatting to go is not something I can do very well. That’s where my GladRags pads come into play. Just like the Chinese don’t leave home without their toilet paper, I never leave home without wearing my GladRag to keep leaks from ruining my long days teaching and standing on my feet, and to keep me from having to run up and down five flights of stairs (no elevators in my school) between the ten-minute class breaks. GladRags are indispensible to my life here in China!

Thanks to Linda C. for sharing her GladRags story! Send us yours at orders@gladrags.com.