December Monthly Friend: Michele A.

Age: 26

Current Location: Brooklyn, New York

What she does: She is a performative story teller and a kinesthetic monologist. “They don’t have words for what I am.” she says. And, oh yeah, she’s also a waiter.

Dreams: “I wanna have a dream!” She guesses that right now her dream is that her friend, who is due to give birth sometime next week, has a healthy baby. Another dream of hers is, “That someday I will chill out and realize that I am not in control of the whole universe, and to let things just happen to me.”

How long she has used menstrual alternatives: Probably for about 9 years, starting around the age of 17 or so. Michele said that she stopped using tampons and pads at this young age because she realized that conventional products were inconvenient, expensive and uncomfortable. Around that time she was validated in her ideas while reading the book Cunt by Inga Muscio and realized “Wow! Other people don’t like those either? Awesome!”

Reason for switching:  “Back then I wasn’t about to use a pad (they’re like diapers!), and just forget about tampons! So I just started to bleed all over myself.” Eventually she started innovating -  she would stick a sock in her underwear, or just whatever soft fabric was around. After a while it seemed right to do something more intentional, making her cycle more hers.  She started collecting rags for this purpose and after a while she had her “bag o’ rags”. In a culture such as ours where bleeding is hidden and forgotten, this enlightened young woman was celebrating hers.

Michele once had an assignment in her ritual dance class, in which she had to find something she did with intention, and create a dance about it. Her dance was about the ritual she had cultivated of “reading” the period blood on her rags. When she had to change or refold her rags she would ask ask the universe a question and then apply what she saw in her blood in whatever way seemed right.

As an ending note and as a great plug for us, Michele would also like to say how much she loves her GladRags, and how dainty and lady-like it makes her feel to use her beautiful, soft, lovely Rags.

October Monthly Friend: Rose

Hometown: Boulder, Colorado
Current Location: Los Angeles, California
Age: 21
What she does: New to the LA area, she is about to attend the second round of an intensive program of acting classes.

Interests: Her many interests include reading and crocheting. She loves to go out dancing and sometimes bowling with her friends. And of course, true to the California girl she is quickly becoming, she loves going to the beach and shopping.
Dreams: Rose dreams of being a successful actress, accepting roles in which she can express the deep passion she feels for life. She wants to be financially secure and looks forward to traveling as well as getting married and having kids. She also dreams of paying her parents back for all their help. Roses also has a personal goal of writing a book someday.

How long she has used menstrual alternatives: About six months.

Reason for switching: Upon hearing about the various options available for her, they sounded better for the earth and also more convenient. Rose religiously uses the Moon Cup, as she was a loyal tampon user. She found the Moon Cup really comfortable as well way more convenient than tampons. She also uses the GladRags Pantyliners on occasion, but finds that she hardly needs to use them except for at the end of her cycle because her Moon Cup doesn’t leak or give her any reason to need a back-up.

Rose was so smitten with her menstrual cup at first use that she has recommended them to many of her friends. She says that not one of her friends had heard about menstrual alternatives, in fact many of them thought it was super weird. In the past few months she has convinced three people to try menstrual cups and they have all love them and would never go back to conventional menstrual solutions.

Jennifer!
Sign Language Interpreter
Age 32 (soon)

Born in Hayward, CA now living in San Francisco, CA

I am a student in the Women’s Spirituality Master’s program at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology .  Personal empowerment, particularly for women, is my main passion.  Currently I express this through what I’m calling “craft therapy” that includes such things as making goddess rosaries, doing SoulCollage, and any other crafty types of things that catch my interest.  I have begun to speak on crafts as a way to access Divine, and to lead workshops to that end.  For the past 5 years, I have co-presented with my partner of 7 years on trans issues and on my experience as a partner of a transman.  I am passionate about my sweet puppy, Magnus, and love spending time outdoors and especially near the ocean with him and my wonderful partner, Drago.

I have been using alternative menstrual products for about 8 months now, and originally made the switch as an effort to be more green and gentler to Mother Earth.  I tried several different products, but found GladRags to be the absolute best for my body and lifestyle.  I love them so much I will never use anything else!

Other than the tremendous reduction in plastics clogging landfills, what I love the most about using GladRags is the feeling of the soft fabric on my skin.  I have always known I am sensitive about what clothing and things touch my skin, but I hadn’t realized how grouchy plastic rubbing on me was making me! I am finding GladRags to be not only kinder and gentler on Mother Earth’s body, but on mine!

As a woman who is recovering from absolutely detesting my period, it was a big step for me to use pads I had to wash out with my own hands.  But doing so has somehow made me less bothered by my blood, more accepting of it.  Perhaps because of the attitude shift, I am finding my cramps and general discomfort much relieved.  The white plastic of disposable pads always seems to me to be “soiled” as soon as it is bled on. But the various designs and colors of GladRags don’t have that same feeling.  Instead they help me remind myself that menstrual blood is not excrement.  Rinsing them out with my own hands also drives this lesson home.