Homegrown feminine hygiene alternatives take pride in being eco-friendly

When Gurugram-based yoga practitioner and teacher Sakshi Gupta took to her Instagram platform (@sakshiguptayoga) some time ago to talk about how she had moved to using menstrual cups, she was taken aback at the number of questions that landed in her inbox. They ranged from which brands to choose to how to use these cups. “I was surprised till I remembered how much research I had to do before making the switch,” says Gupta.

The quest to understand what’s best for one’s body is a great learning in itself. “Women aren’t encouraged to be aware of their bodies, but that’s changing,” she says.   

The shift in how we perceive menstruation is a long-standing challenge. And while women — and some men — have been patiently schooling period-shamers on why we need to talk about menstruation, several innovative and eco-friendly period-management options have found their way from online shopping sites into our drawers and handbags. These homegrown brands have done their best to shun plastic — either completely or largely. Instead, various combinations of banana fibre and bamboo fibre, along with cornstarch, have emerged as the mainstay for these brands.

 

The Clean India Journal, an online resource and monthly magazine on cleanliness and sanitation, estimates that India uses 432 million sanitary napkins annually, generating 9,000 tonnes of waste. Owing to the plastic component in them, each of these napkins takes 500 to 800 years to decompose. Besides been unhealthy for the environment, they are also bad for your health.

“Disposable sanitary napkins contain quite a lot of things that are injurious to health,” says Bengaluru-based gynaecologist Meenakshi Bharath. The bleached, sterile look of sanitary napkins comes from using chemicals that produce dioxins and furans. And rashes aren’t all that they cause.

 

According to the World Health Organization, dioxins, besides being an environmental pollutant, “are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer”.

Dioxins and furans, counted among the 10 most common causes of cancer, make cervical cells susceptible to infections from viruses, especially the human papillomavirus, adds Bharath. This particular family of viruses can lead to a variety of conditions, including warts.

This is where a few brands have stepped in. Some options in the biodegradable lot include pads made out of cornstarch and bamboo fibre, like the ones from Carmesi and Heyday. While Purganics and Azah use organic cotton in their pads, Saathi uses banana fibre. And Saukhyam uses banana fibre and fine quality cotton to ensure the pads are reusable. EcoFemme makes reusable cloth pads, too.

Then there are tampons by Floh, and menstrual cups by Boondh, Shecup, TruCup and Sirona. Just browsing through all the choices can make one dizzy, especially when one combines them with all the pre-existing permutations and combinations of personal choices and needs.

“We started with biodegradable pads in 2016, but then moved to make them reusable and, therefore, more sustainable in 2017,” says Anju Bist of Saukhyam (Sanskrit for “happiness and well-being”). The banana fibre and cotton-based pads by Saukhyam are part of initiatives undertaken by the Mata Amritanandamayi Math, a charitable organisation based in Amritapuri, Kerala. “One has to cut down the banana plant once it flowers and produces fruit. So, by using the super-absorbent banana fibre to make pads, we are ensuring that there’s no waste,” says Bist, who was formerly with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the US. Saukhyam works with women’s self-help groups in 20 states.

Genuine heath scares with plastic-using disposable pads aside, there’s always the need to stay exceedingly alert with napkins: bomb-detecting dogs have more relaxed days than a woman worried about leakage. This is where tampons and menstrual cups come in.  

For Delhi-based Deep Bajaj, menstrual cups were an obvious next step after his company came out with “PeeBuddy”, an innovation that helps women stand and pee — a blessing when you have to use public washrooms. “We had menstrual cups on our platform, Sirona, as early as 2016, but it was only towards the end of 2017 that we started seeing a lot of traction for it,” recalls Bajaj.

When Gupta talked about menstrual cups on Instagram, a good number of women wanted to know if using them would affect their status as “virgins”. “A lot of women said they wanted to switch over, but their family members were against the idea because these women were unmarried and these cups have to be inserted into the body,” says Gupta. For Floh’s tampons, too, these questions continue to come up, though not as frequently as earlier, says Gauri Singhal, the company’s Delhi-based founder. 

Today, about 50 per cent of Floh’s tampons are ordered by young women in India’s non-metros such as Hoshiarpur, Jamshedpur, Patna, Lucknow, Kota, Gohana and Raipur. That these women were choosing to ditch napkins for tampons surprised Singhal because when she did a market research survey, only a negligible number of students from her alma mater, Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi, was aware of how tampons worked. “Their experience was mostly limited to the mention of tampons in Western sitcoms,” she recalls.

Sales from the past year have shown Singhal that “as girls become independent, they are no longer being influenced by their elders.”

According to research firm Allied Market Research, the global feminine hygiene market is predicted to reach $42.7 billion in revenue in 2022. In India alone, according to the World Health Organization, there were 355 million menstruating women last year. By 2020, says Bajaj, the dramatically evolving feminine hygiene space is going to be very different as people continue to explore alternatives.

Bharath’s personal and professional recommendation is to use menstrual cups. Better for your health, for the pocket, and the environment, she says. Menstrual cups are priced between Rs 300 and Rs 1,000. One cup can last eight to 10 years. 

“Quality menstrual cups are made from medical grade silicone which is used in catheters, breast implants and stents, so they are 100 per cent safe,” says Bharath, who often gives out menstrual cups as wedding gifts. 

The upsides to using cups over napkins (biodegradable and disposable) and tampons are many, she says. “They are so comfortable that sometimes people forget to remove them. That’s why I recommend that mothers ensure that their under-18 daughters periodically remove the cups, clean them with water and then reuse them,” says Bharath. As yoga expert Gupta posted on Instagram, it does take a few cycles to get the hang of using a cup. But it may be worth the effort.

Sirona’s mentrual cups; Saukhyam’s banana-fibre resusable napkins