@aph-japan / aph-japan.tumblr.com
Such a fun, fun thing being allergic to my own menstrual cycle.
Love that for me.
I’d just like to ask folks to have a little more sensitivity about the “Tampon Tim” stuff—the way Donald Trump and U.S. conservatives are making fun of the democratic vice presidential candidate for putting free tampons in boys’ bathrooms. My girlfriend broke the news to me as though I was supposed to laugh, and it wasn’t until she saw the look on my face that she realized how personal this was to me as someone who’s advocated for menstrual products in men’s restrooms at my school and lobbied for access in prisons in my state. This is about trans guys and I want people to remember that.
I remember seeing a Kaitlin Bennet video where she went around smugly asking people if they thought tampons should be in men’s restrooms, with the obvious intended answer being of course not. We’re a joke to them; being connected to menstruation and menstrual products is already considered embarrassing for women, but for men, it’s downright humiliating and disgusting. As people who need tampons, who can get pregnant, who have breasts, but claim to be men, we are considered a perversion of the sex-gender binary. We cannot exist, and they make that clear. When you leave trans men and mascs out of these conversations, such as by pivoting to jokes about fictional cis men, you are contributing to our erasure. Please just remember who is actually harmed by these sentiments, and listen to our perspectives on it. Thank you.
my therapist was a bit shook by how much i detest my period, and i was shocked to find out out not everyone does....
i learned that with the passage of the CARES Act, menstrual products are now considered eligible expenses for your health insurance, FSA, HSA, and HRA funds. (x)
invest in yourself by buying chemical-free and eco-friendly menstrual products! just show a screenshot of your order confirmation and you will be reimbursed for your period-related purchases!
check out these pads to start your switch from disposable to reusable:
inclusivity: if you need help with sizes or you want a specific style or color, reach out to us through email or facebook so we can provide the best pad for you!
i know it seems like reusable menstrual pads = big investment since theyre costlier than disposable pads but trust me, its worth it. ive been using cloth pads for over a year now and i no longer get any rashes nor feel any discomfort down there. moreover, i only end up using one pad for the whole day and one pad for the whole night. its the best thing you can do for yourself and the planet!
reusable pads are honestly life changing. when im about to have my period and im going out, i just use cloth pads and i feel confident, comfortable and secure knowing that im period ready
idk if other companies do this but i also want to share that if you email cariona to ask for their current patterns, they’ll send it and you can pick your patterns. here’s my liner stash:
Seriously get these it’s so worth it
i was so envious of people who could use menstrual cups because they are such a good investment and it cuts down on waste but like, i can’t use them because i get such bad vaginal pain and a lot of tampons make my cramps worse so even the thought of trying a cup was impossible. and the reusable pads just seemed so expensive. and what if i didn’t like them??? well, i found some that were on sale (a set of 6, i don’t remember the price a the time) and i figured it wasn’t that much and if i didn’t like them i didn’t like them. i fucking love them! i actually just bought a second set of 6 because i was still using a couple of disposable pads. yes, it is a lot of money UP FRONT for them, but they will very quickly pay for themselves within the first year of use. and there is always the option to do what i do and just watch for sales and slowly build your supply up. and they last for like 5 years, in which time you could spend way more on disposable products. things i love about them 1)they hold so much more than i thought they would! even with my last two periods being heavier than normal i still only had to use two or three disposable pads, and i probably didn’t even need that last one 2) they don’t fold over on me and then stick to my skin/hair and therefore not being affective and also kinda painful when i try to fix it 3) i can reposition them if they are too far back!!! a problem i have always had is i tend to put pads on too far back for whatever reason, but with these and i can just pull them into place if they aren’t quite where i want it. 4) rinsing them out by hand feels powerful for some reason. nothing like seeing the water run red with blood to make me feel like i’m cleaning up from some epic battle i’m winning. 5) my cramps aren’t as bad? don’t know if this is because of the pads themselves, or if it’s because of my weird periods lately, but i swear my killer cramps have not been as bad and i feel like i can actually function. i really think that they are worth every penny (for me) and i think that if you are thinking about it then you should at least get a few and try them out, you can always stock up on more later.
Yeah, actually… my period pain got milder. There’s been some research about the absorption of the chemicals in plastic pads making periods worse
Gonna chip in here with I swapped to reusable pads during lockdown cause I bleed a lot and get through a lot of pads. (You know how there’s like “night time” pads? I used 4 of those a day, for 5 days, for a cost of like, £8?)
I took the plunge and got a pack which had like, 1 ‘light’ 1 ‘normal’ and 1 ‘night’, and ok I had to go back to their website and buy 5 ‘night’ ones.
But I only use those 5 night ones for my entire period. There’s a bit of washing involved but I was spending like £100 on sanitary pads a year (minimum) and I spent £50 once over a year ago and that’s it.
I don’t get the chafing I used to, cramps aren’t as bad and I swear I can’t smell it anywhere near as much. Also no ‘crinkle crinkle’ of wrappers, no trying to find a bin… If you can’t take the plunge on a cup (I tried, did not work for me) then reusable pads are fantastic.
Seriously though, I can’t use a cup but reusable pads are a game changer!!
I have tried cups, a no go for me, but I love the reusable pads! They are so comfortable.
Seriously. Cloth pads are the single most comfortable way to handle menses. Usually the top layer is way softer than disposables and you literally just chuck it in the wash when you need to clean them. Usually my cycle is heavy, painful to the point of vomiting, and tampons and cups just make all that nonsense way worse. I started using the reusable pads years ago and honestly it changed everything. My cycles are lighter, less painful, and I don’t fly through my supplies like I used to! If you menstruate definitely give them a try.
Apart from all of the above, the (lack of) smell! I started to use cloth pads because of many reasons, but one of the biggest perks for me is that I don’t get nauseated by the sickly smell of the perfume they put in the disposables, every time I go to the toilet. Blood doesn’t have much of a scent, it’s the chemicals in the disposable pads that make them smell bad and the perfume, in my opinion, just makes it so much worse. All of that is gone if you use cloth.
I feel like I should try this now cuz cups are….. Not working.
Another vote for these!! My periods used to be so damn MESSY and since I started using reusable pads, they’ve been mostly mess-free.
Hey by the way, that “they last for five years”?
I made the switch to reusable pads in 2012-2013 cuz I got a Bartholin cyst (lube gland, sucks ass) and had to use pads every single day cuz of the Juices™️
I still have more than half of the pads I bought 12 years ago (the company has vanished forever) and the ones I don’t have are because I, a dumbass, lost them
I literally used and hand washed about six pads every day for four years. (1-2 per day, a day and a half to air dry) They are a little worse for wear now; the snaps on two have pulled out of the fabric, but still slide back into place so I haven’t bothered replacing them or fixing them with 30 seconds of sewing
Two of the very oldest and thinnest now have small holes fraying in the material at one end, because of heavy hand scrubbing
5 years is an extremely conservative estimate for these puppies, I have continued to acquire more because hey you know what’s not fun? Daily handwashing with arthritis
(I do tend to double-cycle them through the laundry machine but it’s mainly because all my old ones are white and uuuuuh stains collect over time)
I got some Carionas (3 of the babies and 3 mediums) to try because the second company who did pads I like and got some from also went out of business
(Absolutely no one is doing just the cotton padding of the first set that I really really prefer, but they’re also not doing the I-Swear-To-God-3cm-Pile-Fake-Fur which was the Worst Thing Ever to put down there it was genuinely upsetting
The kinda fleecy thing they’re all doing now is inoffensive so I’m not mad and I haven’t had any of those get holes yet, but they are all at least 6 years younger than my cotton buddies)
Also, fun fact: before the Carionas, you could buy these pads in pairs. Sometimes three in a set.
I do not know why, and more than once suffered from a company going bust before I could get up to 6 pads
Please keep the Carionas in business, they have enough in a set you can just machine wash them with the laundry instead of having to constantly hand wash the bastards
For sizing, the Medium Cariona is a little bigger than the largest of any other brand I’ve seen; their little Pantyliners are the same size but a little broader than the smallest I’ve seen
I used to bleed like a stuck pig for 3 days, and have never needed anything larger than the Medium for the full day (and honestly remain conflicted on larger pads cuz these already feel real big on me? Yet also the sheer coverage is juicy 👀)
Oldest to youngest for both sizes I have, with the very oldest being that lil top left guy (grabbed you the fraying one, this sucker is 12 years old and saw much hard labour), then bottom left, bottom middle, and the two grey ones are the Carionas
I’m not sure what will happen to the Carionas over 5 years, since they’re grey because they contain charcoal to remove any trace of scent. That might leech out I guess? But they’re still going to trap your blood and still be way better than disposables, so when you decide it’s time to retire them is up to you
Important note: do not wash them with fabric softener. They’ll be less absorbent, and much more likely to feel really really weird. You’ve got a lot of nerves down there. You will feel it more than you think.
(You might like it? Ymmv)
why is it that whenever I see reusable pads mentioned on Tumblr, (1) the only brand mentioned is Cariona, and (2) there’s absolutely no mention of how they include Bible verses when they send out orders? sorry, I am not in their target market. if they wanted me to be in their target market, they wouldn’t proselytize.
I used cloth pads for a good while before switching to the cup, and even then I kept a few extra around for extra heavy days when I would bleed so much the cup would overflow. I’ve since moved on to an IUD, but I have lots of lingering affection for cloth pads.
Probably the only “problem” I had with cloth pads was what I call “The Lucky Rocketship Underpants Problem”.
See, there’s this Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin is standing proudly and waiting for someone to notice something about him, but no one notices at all. He concludes the strip by remarking, “The problem with wearing your lucky rocketship underpants is that no one ever wants to see them.”
I had cloth pads with such fun patterns, but I could never show them to anyone. I was real bummed out about it.
Anyway, I got all of my cloth pads from Party In My Pants; IIRC, the first one I ever got from them was a free promotional liner that came with also free (possibly domestic only) shipping when I ordered it on Earth Day. I don’t know if Party In My Pants still does that, but it might be worth a look when the next Earth Day rolls around! I never got any bible verses from their stuff either, though the free liner did come with a piece of dark chocolate 😉
Get familiar with the abortion laws in your state if you aren’t already. Find out if your state has a trigger ban and when that will take effect, get online and find out what your representatives, state attorney general, and governor are up to, follow the social media pages for your local abortion fund.
Abortion is still currently still legal in South Carolina and Virginia. In Missouri, the trigger ban has been enacted and abortion has been outlawed. Other states like Tennessee have a 30 day waiting period before their trigger bans can take effect.
A lot is going to happen very quickly in the next few days. Look to reliable sources to stay informed.
If you currently have any appointments made for abortion care, keep them. Go until you are told otherwise.
