I was over in Adelaide a few weeks ago, and while I was there, my mother gave me some tampons she had received as a free sample.
Being a sort of not-want-to-wastey kind of gal, when my period came around, I decided to use them.
So instead of getting my Diva Cup out (more on this later), I opened the packet of tampons.
Like - ugh!
Problems with tampons
Apart from the fact that it took me a full minute to figure out how to open the plastic packaging, which has changed a bit since I last used tampons, they were next to useless.
I had to change the tampon within a couple of hours. Then I forgot with the second one, and it soaked through and the blood (sorry male readers and squeamish peoples!) messed up my underwear within about three hours.
Not good.
Night time was worse. Yep, I know you're not supposed to use tampons at night but I was experimenting, right!
Anyway, I kept on waking up, and two pair of stained undies later, I threw the rest of the tampons in the bin, and hauled out my beloved Cup.
The next day I had a lot of soaking and washing to do.
When you're used to a terrific product, you really notice how much a sucky one sucks
Yep. Tampons suck.
Even apart from the fact that they also have a weird sort of smell to them (I'm talking the new, unused ones here), they're just useless. But that smell. It's a weird, paper-factory smell that ain't good.
Tampon users out there - have you ever noticed the smell? It made me shudder to think I was putting that inside my body!
The yayness of Menstrual Cups
By comparison, my cup can go a full six to eight hours before it "runneth over" on day one of my period. It copes overnight, no worries, maaaate!
I'd like to think it was a contest between products, but - honestly - those tampons weren't even in the game.
Then there is the issue of what to do with tampons once they're...ummm...soiled.
We're on a septic system here and I didn't want to flush them.
With the cup, of course, I'm just emptying liquid. You take it out, empty it into the toilet or a sink, rinse it or wipe if you want, then pop it back in. Too easy!
At the end of your cycle, you sterilise the cup in boiling water. That takes a few minutes, then you put it away in its bag and you're done until next month.
But dumped tampons are well-known for blocking drains and causing septic problems.
In this instance, I wrapped them in toilet paper and put them in the bin. But like...ugh! Messy!
Who would use these things on a regular basis? You'd have to be off your head!
Tampon sales and other details
Saying that, a quick inspection of supermarket shelves and the trolleys of shoppers (yeah, I peek!) tells me that tampons are big sellers. Just about every non-menopausal woman seems to buy them. They're not cheap, either.
A box of 32 tampons, enough to last through one period, will set you back $9.79 at my local supermarket.
By comparison, my new reusable Diva Cup cost me $33.58. And considering that my last Cup lasted me 5 years (I bought it in 2006), that works out a whole lot cheaper.
- Five years worth of tampons = $587.40 approximately.
- One reusable Diva Cup used for five years = $33.58.
The maths isn't hard! But if you're like me, apart from the fact that the Cup works a whole lot better, I can think of a lot of better things to spend money on than "sanitary products".
BTW, just five years of periods, at 32 tampons per cycle, adds up to 1920 tampons in landfill, or in our waterways or oceans, which is where a lot of those tampons end up. Yuck!
So why do most women use tampons?
I reckon most women use tampons because they don't know any better.
They've not heard of Menstrual Cups like the Diva Cup, or they've been conditioned by advertising to think that little wads of cotton shoved into their bodies are somehow cleaner than a medical-grade silicone cup that you sterilise by boiling every month.
And tampons are really heavily advertised. They're marketed a LOT, and marketed well, with images of women in bathing suits and white trousers, all espousing freedom and liberty and other ideals.
None of the ads ever mention sewer blockages or icky little plastic wrappers or the cost of the things or the fact that they only work for two to three hours at a time. And none of the images of freedom are ever images of a used tampon floating freely in the Caribbean, after being dumped there. Or the millions of stinky used tampons taking years to break down freely in landfill.
And they certainly never mention toxic shock syndrome, which can kill you, and which is associated with tampon use but not cup use.
Cups, on the other hand, are not advertised in the mass media, mainly because their manufacture doesn't earn the makers enough to give a big profit with which to advertise.
(This is why, by the way, the products you see advertised most often on TV will always be those with large profit margins. They will not be products that are actually really good value or the best way to spend your money.)
My verdict
I never ended up using the rest of those tampons. I threw most of them out, but a few are still in my bedroom drawer - i need to toss those too. I'd rather chuck them than use such a useless product again.
I suppose the last thing I should probably do is talk about what a menstrual cup is. But I'm not going to. Instead, I'll just provide links to a few websites and you can surf and explore if you want.
As for me, mine is a Diva Cup Size 2. I bought my second one after five years hard service on my first, simply because the first was getting a bit stained.
I don't think it matters which brand you buy - several brands are available, and as long as you buy one that is medical grade silicone, you'll be fine. It's what works for you.
So here's the info. May your cup never runneth over!
- Wikipedia - menstrual cups
- Menstrual cups information community and website
- Diva Cup
- Lunette
- Moon Cup
- MiaCup
- Toxic Shock Syndrome
Have a lovely day!
37 comments:
http://www.mooncup.co.uk/
I heard about these from a sticker stuck to the back of a university loo door. :)
Yay for cup love =) Haven't used a tampon since I got my Lunette, and I don't plan to. I pass along tampon freebies to my somewhat more squeamish sister (she's had kids, you'd think she'd have gotten over the whole "my body is icky" thing, but nooooo. She thinks I'm crazy).
Thanks for this really interesting post. I'm definitely going to try the cup - I hadn't heard of them before. I will be sure to share your post.
I'm fortunate to not be menstruating at the moment - extended breastfeeding, cosleeping, night feeding keeps mine at bay for ages (around 15 months post partum with my first 2 children and I've just reached 15 months with my third).
Hi Megan Leslianne - Yeah, I remember seeing ads for them in Uni too.
I don't know where I first heard about them though - probably one of my hippy chick friends.
I probably thought about getting one for years before actually doing so, because I guess I figured that no way could something be as good as it claimed to be in the ads, and yet not be the most common way of dealing with periods. The old "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" thing.
I wish I'd been game to give it a go. I could have saved thousands in my struggling student years, instead of only cluing on to the Cup as an older earner in her early 30s.
Ooo, I forgot about the aspects of tampons that you mentioned here. When I first started wearing my diva cup, I was so wrapped up in the learning curve of putting it in properly, that I didn't really notice the advantages. Now that you remind me, I was changing my tampons an awful lot, and I had to buy them each month too. What a pain! I would sometimes forget, and would find myself without any. Now there's no issues. I only need to change my cup once every 12 hours, and only then because of hygeine reasons. Don't try this yourself, but I have on occasions forgotten it was in, and left it for a couple of days without it overflowing. In fact, I have never had it overflow.
Hi Fragmentary Green - But, like, tampons are waaaay icky, I reckon! They're just gross. The only thing grosser than tampons is disposable pads, IMO. So what's with the cup fear? I don't geddit.
Of course the marketing on tampons is very slick and domestos-bleach-white, with a lemon scent, if you get my drift, so maybe that's what the issue is.
I used to snicker at those pad ads soaking up the blue liquid. Are they still on TV? I used to wonder wryly what sort of blue blooded alien (or Royal Being) they were referring to! I mean, the last thing you could do is actually use something that looked *real*!
But I digress.
Boy, I bet any guys reading this are really off their dinner now, hey! ;-)
Yep, love the cup. If I were Prime Minister I would give every woman a free Cup on her 10th birthday, and a congratulatory email, plus an explanation showing how she has just been given a terrific 21st century product, so she won't ever have to use those antiquated, disgusting "disposables" like her mother did!
Hi Sarah - I bought my first cup in 2006, and never looked back, so definitely give it a go.
There were a group of friends of mine and me who all gave it a go together at the same time (Diva Cup had a money-back guarantee, so we had nothing to lose!), and as far as I know we're all still Cup Converts :-)
The only one of the brands to be wary, in my opinion, is the original The Keeper if they still manufacture it) if you have a latex sensitivity, as it is / was made of latex. All the others, as far as I know, are made of medical grade silicone, and therefore have no allergic problems.
If you look after your cup and clean it properly, there's no reason why you can't get at least five years out of it. I know of people who have been using the same cup for nearly a decade now, with no problems, so its a real winner.
The only person I know who HAD to replace her cup was a friend of mine who, when boiling it to sterilise it, accidentally melted it because she forgot to watch the pan! But thats the only one I know of that's had to be replaced through damage / destruction.
Hi Pennie - Oh yeah, now you remind me, I'd forgotten about the having to buy the dratted things every month! Grrr.
And every fricking music camp in the dorms the call would go around from some chick who'd stuffed up her dates:"Hey, has anyone got a tampon?"
These days, I just pack my Diva, and that's all I have to pack, no matter how many months I'm travelling or where to! :-)
Hehe, I'd totally forgotten about the melting incident until you mentioned it...
I worry that I'm being gross somehow, but I only empty it every 24hrs - is this wrong? I guess I don't bleed heavily enough to worry about it any more frequently.
I told D and E about period the other day - they were quite alarmed at the idea of bleeding from their "girly bits". I wonder how young you can be to use a Diva Cup? It's something I'm going to have to work out in the next couple of years, now that I have an 8yo daughter!
I bought a Keeper cup about three years ago, they had both rubber and medical grade silicone options, best $35 I ever spent, never overflowed even with pre-menopause flooding.
Maybe I just have a weird body, but I need to empty my cup every hour or so on the first few days (really heavy flow). So while I use it, I'm not as in love with this wonder product as everyone else. But tampons also need frequent changing, and there's that whole cost thing, so I keep using it. And after the first few days I can be more relaxed about it.
I can understand why they aren't popular - none of my friends got my using cloth nappies & said that it was really gross to have to rinse the poo, instead of just throwing it all away like they did. I can extrapolate to cups & know they would have similar issues with emptying a cup & reusing it.
Lots of people just can't deal with normal body functions.
Hi Pyrrha - Hehe, melted cups! An expensive mistake. Oh well.
Yeeks, I haven't even thought about telling D Minor about periods yet, but she is only four. I think I'll wait off a bit! But yep, Miss Eight might start needing to know - years go by so quickly. BTW, HB to D and there is a parcel on its way :-)
Hi Pip - I don't think mine has ever overflowed either, although it has come close when I've been out all day and haven't bothered emptying it.
These days I tend to do the routine thing - wakeup, lunchtime, bedtime. Seems to be enough for any day.
Is this whole post and comments an "overshare"? LOL
Hi Toria - I think it just shows how everyone is different. But if you need to empty the cup every hour or so, I don't even want to THINK how often you'd be changing tampons! Like, once every 15 minutes!
I think I worked out at same stage that one cup load (ful?) was equivalent to about 4 tampons (for me anyway). Cups do differ a bit in size, but I think the Diva size 2 takes about 30 mls.
I was always intending to work out how much I actually bleed in any given cycle, but never bothered to find out. I might actually do that, one of these days before I reach menopause! LOL.
Hi Pip (again) - I should probably comment on The Keeper re the whole latex thing.
I have a mild latex allergy, so I'm not keen on the latex cups, of which The Keeper is the most well-known brand.
However, a friend commented privately in a Facebook comment that she's had 2 Keepers over the past 10 years and been really pleased with both of them.
So it really is "whatever works for you".
I also remember reading somewhere that the Keeper was the cup on which the modern cups are all based. It was certainly the first cup to become a big seller in modern times, AFAIK.
And, as Pip points out, The Keeper makes a latex version and a silicone version now - which is the Mooncup I linked to in the blog post.
The Keeper website is here: The Keeper.
those stickers on the loo doors at uni are obviously a brilliant marketing ploy! That's were i first learned about MoonCup's too.
I've been thinking about switching to cups for awhile but have been hesitant about the effectness/efficientness since I've heard they can be hard to get used to at first. but your post has convinced me!! I'm getting a Moon Cup! :)
Hi Marino - The main difficulty women have that I know of, and also I had the same difficulty, was getting used to placing it lower, and learning where your cervix is.
Fact is, most women really don't have a clue about their anatomy, which is pretty awful. We don't know what we look like down there, and consequently don't know what is normal, what's not, and often miss warning signs for illness and disease that we would possibly be more aware of if we knew our own bodies better.
I could rant a bit about the misogynistic source of this fear and ignorance in our culture for several hours / days / weeks! But I won't, because there are heaps of sites on the web that do a better job for me! ;-)
Give a cup a try, and just take your time getting used to it. On the blog post I linked to a community that has been going for years and helping every newbie out with every possible cup Q & A I reckon there is! If you have any difficulties, persevere, and go to the community with your questions and problem - someone is sure to help you.
I totally agree, I just heard about mooncups this year, by accident, I thought the only options were tampons and pads, I think You have convinced they're a better option, but the thing is can a virgin use a moon cup? *shame*
Hi Tamara - AFAIK, if you've used tampons before and had no problems with them, you can use a cup.
Here are some links on the issue:
Menstrual cups and virginity tag at community
Menstrual cup Q & A includes info on virginity and cup use
Awesome Post!
I swapped over to a cup last year. Best decision ever. Along with the financial and environmental positives I've also noticed a few others. No more irritation from panty liners, no more pain and discomfort from using the tampons and strangely enough no more backaches. I was beginning to question if I had developed a chemical sensitivity to pads and tampons.
When I sat down and did some reading on tampons and cups I was left cringing at the thought I'd been using a bleached, perfumed and chemically riddled product in the most sensitive part of my body.
The fact that Menstrual cups are listed as a medical product doesn't help it's case against tampons. You seriously have to question the thinking behind that one.
Maybe I should change brands then, I currently have a lunette (I think, need to go look & confirm that), & I think it is smaller capacity than your diva. Could reduce my aggravation if I can leave it in longer.
Someone else commmented on the learning curve for using them - it did take me a few months to get the hang of using mine & feeling comfortable. But now it's fine & I can insert it into the right spot quickly. But any new thing takes a bit of getting used to.
Hi Nevyn - I know. More than anything, I wish I'd changed over to a cup earlier because I know I was duped by the advertising into thinking that tampons were the best way of dealing with periods. I was sucked in, and just didn't even feel game to try anything different. Dumb dumb dumb!
Hi Toria - Environmenstruals.co.nz has a chart listing cup sizes and capacities. The chart is located here [Environmenstrals Link]. Before you change over, have a look at it.
In capacity size, according to their chart, the largest is the large miacup (29 mls), followed by the large fleurcup and large yuuki cup, both at 29 mls. The large diva (mine) has 26 mls.
By comparison, a regular tampon has 9 mls capacity, and a super plus tampon has capacity of 12 mls. So you can see why there are far fewer changes with the larger cups than with tampons.
Even the smallest capacity cup, the small Keeper and Mooncup, are better than a tampon, ranking in with a 10 mls capacity.
There seems to be quite a difference in cup sizes and capacities, so I think it's a matter of doing some research and then just going with what works for you.
If you're going to buy a few different ones, definitely shop around for prices. I got my new cup for nearly $20 less than the retail price, by hunting around and using an online coupon offered by Gladrags. It was much cheaper to buy from the US and get the free postage coupon than to buy here in NZ.
Excellent topic! A couple of my friends (aged mid-30s) only recently discovered menstrual cups and have been raving about them on Facebook. Cups seem to be gaining serious amounts of publicity via word of mouth recently - and deservedly so.
I've been using a Keeper for about 5 years now, and I think it's fantastic (and it's still as good as new), although mine tends to overflow two nights per period.
I remember reading that the average menstrual flow is 10-35 ml per month. I was surprised that the average amount was so low, so I measured my Keeper output in an old glass jar one month, and hit the 85 ml mark, which technically puts me into the category of having menorrhagia (heavy flow).
I find everything about menstruation pretty gross (even the word menstruation) - but it's even worse with tampons, so, Long Live the Cup!
Those numbers just don't make sense - 10-35mL per month? It must be per day!
If the Diva capacity is 29mL and we're talking overflow, then that's almost the monthly quota in a day/half a day.
From the anecdotal evidence here, I bleed much lighter than others, and I would quite easily pass the 35mL mark per month.
I've been using a Lunette for about 9 months, and like most others here, I find tampons messy, wasteful, expensive & not pleasant for your body. It took me a couple of cycles to get it right (inserting it correctly, removing it without tensing) but it was well worth the effort.
Hi Samantha, Pyrrha - I reckon those figures (10 - 35 mls) must be per day, because AFAIK I'm totally normal and average and stuff, and I reckon I'd bleed about 20-25 mls per 24 hours on the first day, then dropping significantly after that, if I were going to estimate.
If those figures were for per month, that would mean your typical woman wold only need 2-4 tampons for her whole cycle (regular tampons having a capacity of 9 mls), and there would never be any sales of super tampons!
Hi Stitchybritt - The thing I hate about tampons is that weirdo smell they come with. I think the companies must add some chemical fragrance to them or something, because cotton shouldn't smell like that.
A cup just makes more sense in so many ways, even without the whole fact that it works so much better. The only problem I tend to have with my cup is I forget I have my period, because I don't have to find a bathroom every 2-3 hours like I did when I used tampons.
Hi again Leanne,
I've heard you mention a couple of times now about the "weird" smell tampons have. Companies actually bleach tampons to make them white, otherwise they'd be off-colour. There's no need for them to do this - they only do it for uniformity and appearance. I've always assumed that this would cause the weird chemical smell tampons have.
Thanks for your feedback, ladies. It's very interesting to hear other women's first-hand experiences. Prior to this discussion, I've only had my own experience (including occasional gushes of blood at *extremely* inconvenient times), and what I've read online as references. Here's one reference, which is clearly talking about blood loss per cycle, not per day:
"The usual amount of blood loss per period is 10 to 35 ml."
http://www.cemcor.ubc.ca/help_yourself/articles/very_heavy_menstrual_flow
And:
"Clinically, menorrhagia [excessive flow] is defined as total blood loss exceeding 80 mL per cycle"
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/255540-overview
But, given your comments above, I went digging a bit deeper into Google's vaults, and found this overview, which is quite detailed and enlightening, from an Aussie professor of Gynaecology (the source page is well worth taking a look at, because it includes an illuminating bar chart of "the distribution of menstrual blood loss in a population sample". Riveting stuff!). Anyway, Professor Healy says:
"excellent studies by Scandinavian workers over several years have confirmed that normal menstrual blood loss has a mean volume of 30-40 mL. The range of normal menstrual blood loss is typically 10-80 mL. Most authorities would accept that regular menses in excess of a measured menstrual blood loss of 80 mL of bleed each month will inevitably lead to anaemia."
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/ob-gyn/research/menorr.html
Hi again Leanne. Working on the assumption that, in a discussion like this, too much information is never enough, I thought I'd chime in yet again.
I've done a bit more reading, and discovered that there's a lot of confusion online (even amongst doctors) about the definitions of "menstrual blood" and menorrhagia.
Some sources (such as the Monash Institute of Medical Research) state that "women suffering from menorrhagia can pass up to 80ml of menstrual fluid" - but other sources (such as Prof Healy, who I quoted earlier) specifically define menorrhagia as the loss of >80ml of "blood" (where the amount of actual blood is determined using a laboratory test known as the alkaline hematin technique).
As most women undoubtedly know, menstrual fluid (MF) is not 100% blood. Scientists have actually found that the percentage of blood in MF can range from a minuscule 1.6% to a high of 99.8%. The average percentage of blood in MF is about 36% - but the percentage of blood in MF typically increases as the total quantity of MF per period increases (in other words, women with heavy periods tend to have MF with relatively high percentages of blood).
Refering back to Prof Healy, assuming an average monthly blood loss of 35ml, and an average of 36% blood in MF, this implies that the average woman loses roughly 100ml of MF per month. I wonder if this sounds about right to other readers?
Hi Samantha - I don't know, but I know that I wouldn't lose anything like 100 mls per cycle.
Now all this discussion has me really curious, and I'm actually going to measure!
One thing I would comment on is that a lot of these estimates are probably bunk, and estimated by men! And I can *guess* how accurate they'd be! *LOL*
Also, I'd be curious to know how they did the estimation, because there's no way you could except with a cup, I reckon.
It all boils down to the old question of "what is normal?" My view is that anything that isn't associated with disease or illness is normal. There is huge variance on everything from height and weight to hair and skin colour among women, so why not menstrual flow?
Diet also plays a BIG role. I remember noticing when I stopped eating meat that my bleeding reduced significantly, and it's a lot lighter when I don't eat dairy. I also remember a discussion on a vegan website somewhere that other women had noticed when they went vego it reduced their bleeding a lot, and that going vegan reduced it even more.
These days I eat a vego diet, with some dairy and eggs (but not much), and notice on the cycles when I am primarily vegan my blood loss is a lot lower.
Can anyone else comment on this?
Hi Leanne. This discussion is beginning to feel a bit like the Menstruation Olympics!
The studies I've read are often led by female scientists. Here's one example of the typical methodology, from a study by the Sydney Centre for Reproductive Health Research (this study was led by Ian Fraser):
Estimating menstrual blood loss in women with normal and excessive menstrual fluid volume: "Fifty-three women were studied over two menstrual periods each. Hemoglobin in menstrual pads and tampons was measured using the alkaline hematin technique; total menstrual fluid volume was simultaneously measured using a weighing technique and meticulous care to avoid evaporation."
Regarding the question of what's normal: menstrual flow is considered to be excessive (and may therefore be considered a medical problem) if it has a serious negative impact on your health (by causing anemia) or on your quality of life. Whether this is the case or not often comes down to the opinion of the woman in question.
I read one very interesting discussion here about what really constitutes menorrhagia, where more than a quarter of the women routinely lost >120ml of MF per month. But very few of those women had been diagnosed with, or considered themselves to have, menorrhagia, and at least a few of them resented the suggestion that their periods were abnormal, let alone pathological.
But, personally, I've had numerous memorable and exceedingly unpleasant experiences when my "excessive flow" has had a serious negative impact on my life - typically in situations where I was unable to plan ahead for a variety of reasons. This has made me very reluctant to make plans for the future when I *might* find myself, for example, sleeping in someone's guest bed at the wrong time of the month (and it doesn't help that my cycle can't be predicted with pinpoint accuracy). It's a minor inconvenience to have a flood overnight when it's your own bed, but it's a whole different ball game when it's someone else's crisp white linen.
Another example: as a 19 year old uni student (when, BTW, I was a strict vegetarian, and had been for 3 years), I was given about 30 seconds to decide whether to accept a surprise offer to assist in some surgery (on livestock). I felt the opportunity was too good to miss - but by the time the surgery was over, my jeans were soaked with blood which was running down into my boots. The experience was absolutely awful, and very embarrassing - but there simply hadn't been the opportunity to duck out to the toilet every 45 minutes or so to change tampons (that was years before I discovered cups). And I hadn't been able to get emergency pads, because there was simply no time, and I was out in the bush.
Another memorable experience was being delayed in the customs queue at an international airport in South America with blood streaming down my legs. I don't know how other women deal with these kinds of situations, but I find them distressing enough to try to be at home for the first few days of my period (which, incidentally, arrives on average every 26 days).
I must admit I've always been surprised that more women don't seem to find menstruation to be a serious problem in their careers. Surely I'm not the only woman who's found myself in situations where there's either no opportunity to duck to a toilet - or, indeed, where there's actually no toilet, and no privacy - for a number of consecutive hours? I've occasionally wondered how female brain surgeons cope? Or, maybe I am actually more abnormal than I thought.
I bought a Diva Cup five or six years ago, and I'll never go back to tampons! For all the reasons others have listed, but also because they make my skin very very itchy - they are sucking up ALL the moisture, not just menstrual flow, so they're very drying.
I wish I'd found the cup earlier in life - I never even heard of it until I was about 45, and when I think of all the discomfort and expense I could have saved! I bought mine when I realized that 90% of the inconvenience of menstruation was related entirely to sanitary products!
About the occasional overflow situation: most of the commenters here look to be fairly young. As you begin menopause, very heavy flow is common, and that affects how often you need to empty the cup. I generally don't make it entirely through the night on the first day of my period. However, I suspect that if one has to empty it every hour, the problem may be in the way it's fitting, not in the actual cup capacity. It can be a little tricky to learn exactly how to seat it, and "almost" is definitely not good enough!
gingersnapper wrote: "I suspect that if one has to empty it every hour, the problem may be in the way it's fitting, not in the actual cup capacity."
I think most women are clever enough to have a look and see if their cup is at full capacity when it's removed; and the cups are very well designed, so getting a good seal is very easy for most women.
Also, keep in mind that some women (myself included) pass large clots which will fill up a menstrual cup almost instantaneously.
BTW, I've noticed that my Keeper, which has a relatively small "official" capacity of 15ml (that is, up to the air holes), will usually not leak (or, rather, overflow) until it's full to the brim, which means it has an effective capacity of about 30ml.
yes, more cup love from this direction as well! i got my diva cup at least five years ago and it still looks and works great! mind, my method of sterilization is to place it in a cup of hydrogen peroxide (yes, checked with diva, it's ok) overnight. since starting with the cup i have noticed a few things... yup, spending less money on 'supplies', lighter/faster period - used to be 7+ days, now 3-4 days, fewer 'hell' periods. and under the TMI listing, nope, i leave it in through the entire period, just insert finger and squeeze to expunge fluid, then wipe finger along with everything else. definitely do not have to worry about typical clumsiness i.e. dropping it on the floor! my great-niece is 10 this year, i expect to get her a diva sometime in the next year or so. never could convince her mom to switch.
Hi Elizabeth - Do you dilute the hydrogen peroxide, or use it neat (undiluted)?
I've never thought of using this method of sterilisation before, and it would be easier and quicker than boiling it, which is what I currently do, so I wouldn't mind trying it.
Yep, cups are great :-)
Hi Leanne!
The peroxide I use is the standard 'buy the bottle at the drug store' concentration, so 3% according to the bottle info. I do rinse the cup under the tap before putting it away, and the peroxide goes down the sink. I called the company when I first got it because I KNEW I would have melted a couple of them with no effort trying the boiling sterilization technique :-)
Hope this helps.
Great post! I use a moon cup and I agree with you, tampons were useless, love the cup, would never go back!
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