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What About Hygiene?

Some women think that using cloth re-usable pads is not hygienic - that its unclean, dirty and gross!

Most women have been taught that having periods is shameful. We have indirectly (if not directly) absorbed the messages that menstrual blood is dirty, smelly, unhygienic and unclean.

This message is often perpetuated by the advertisers of menstrual products or rather "femimine hygiene" products. Even the term "feminine hygiene" implies that we need help with our hygiene.

With all these negative messages it is natural for women to want to hide their blood and throw it away as garbage. To do otherwise is to go against what we have been taught as women.

But menstruation is a natural physical process. It is not a sickness. Our blood is not diseased and dirty. It is a harmless byproduct of a biological event.

The vagina itself is perfectly hygienic - in fact it is constantly self-cleaning without any help from deodorants, douches or pills.

 

Your monthly period is a cyclic cleanse, giving you a chance to get rid of physical and emotional rubbish you don't need - renewing yourself each cycle. After that - how can you still be dirty?

While it is true that washing your pads may take a couple of extra minutes out of your day, it is not true that using cloth pads is less hygienic than using disposables. In fact, creating piles of used plastic pads that won't break down in the environment is much less hygienic than washing your pads each cycle.

If you can wear normal cloth underwear - washing and re-using them time and time again without affecting your health- then why is using cloth pads any different?

In fact by using cloth pads, it is much easier to always have enough clean pads on hand to change your pads frequently. You don't have to worry about the cost of wasting your disposables. By changing your pads frequently (and this applies to disposables too) hygiene and personal comfort are improved, and odour is reduced.

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