Word of mouth - making it work!
If you look around these days, mainstream consumers are slowly starting to get it about the environment: hybrid cars, getting rid of plastic water and baby bottles, bringing reusable grocery bags to the checkout line, etc. But what about using reusable cloth pads and menstrual cups? When I was recently talking to Suzanne at Birthfest about how reusable pads and cups might be on the cusp of a mainstream breakthrough, she asked me to write a post about it.
There is evidence all over the Internet that women are increasingly discovering the comfort and convenience of reusable menstrual products. I haven’t seen any significant coverage of this issue in the mainstream media, but even if there were I’m not all that confident such stories would have much effect. Instead, it’s going to take women themselves to bring the issue to the forefront, spreading the news by word of mouth. We women have a natural talent for creating networks which function as very effective vehicles for the dissemination of information.
And the Internet provides the perfect medium for this. For example, when I was pregnant with my first child, I joined the Natural Family Living discussion board at Mothering.com. It was here I learned about cloth diapering. After switching to cloth for my own baby it was an easy next step to try out Lunapads. After all, if putting cloth against my baby’s skin, instead of paper and plastic, could feel so good then why not do the same for myself? Lunapads were just as fun to buy and use as cloth diapers (who’d have thought I’d actually enjoy getting my period?) and it felt good to reduce our household waste. I couldn’t wait to spread the word!
And I’m not the only one: more and more bloggers are writing about reusable menstrual products like the DivaCup. In my local community of mama friends we organized an online Buying Club with the support of Lunapads. The first one was such a success, and the women so happy with their products, that we organized a second one. And now that Lunapads has an official buying club policy on its website, you can easily put one together and take action on the power of word of mouth.
There is one small problem with all this enthusiasm, however.
I think we converts may be so enamoured with using our cups and cloth pads that we forget to talk about the health benefits. Sadly, the comfort and convenience factors seem lost on some women who can’t get past the idea of having to empty a DivaCup, or having to put soiled cloth pads in the washing machine. Conversations like this one demonstrate that some women may see reusable menstrual products as environmentalism gone too far. But note that, in all the negative comments ascribed to that post, not one addressed the health concerns of using disposable pads and tampons.
I was around in the eighties when Toxic Shock Syndrome received wide coverage in the mainstream media, being linked to tampon use in hundreds of affected females. These days the only place TSS is mentioned is in the product information leaflet found in each box of tampons. And despite recent media attention concerning the safety of plastics in everday items, it is rarely mentioned that tampons (and pads) contain plastics, not just in the form of applicators but also, in the case of tampons, in the absorbent material (rayon, for example). I wonder if women would be more likely to try alternative products if they saw it as an issue of better health (after becoming aware of the dioxins in pads and tampons for example) rather than simply a boon to the environment. Maybe those of us who are swooning over the lovely fabrics, the comfort and convenience, should make an effort to talk to our girlfriends about the health benefits of switching to reusable menstrual products.
When spreading the word, we also have another obstacle to overcome: our society’s addiction to disposable products. We’ve become so used to the idea of throwing things away, associating it with the notion of convenience, but we don’t give much thought to where those products end up. Women who claim to be turned off by the idea of handling their own menstrual fluids don’t seem to give a second thought about where the fluids from millions of tossed-away pads end up. Alternatively, many people can’t imagine that reusable products could also be convenient. The DivaCup is far more convenient than tampons: you can wear it when you are expecting your period, rather than having to wait until it’s already started, and most women find they don’t have to empty it as often as they would have to change a tampon. You don’t need three or more different absorbancy levels as you do with tampons. And with cloth pads you never have to worry about running out to the drugstore to buy more, or dealing with the unpleasantness of the public washroom feminine hygiene disposal unit.
Will we ever reach the point where reusable menstrual products find their way into mainstream consciousness? When will we start hearing about them in the women’s locker room? at Girl’s Night Out? on Oprah? I believe that day is coming soon. Women do seem to love their Lunapads and when women find a Good Thing they want to share it with other women. That’s a powerful force for change! So get out there ladies and tell your friends and help make that mainstream breakthrough happen.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:36 am
[…] products as a way to live healthy and sustainably. In fact, I was recently invited to be a Guest Blogger over at the Lunapads Blog. So, in honour of the Challenge I thought I would write a list of reasons […]