Our Own Period Underwear Experience - by Anya Woron
The first time I tried a pair of period panties, I must admit I was sceptical.
Why?
It was just years of being used to the regular sanitary pad and thinking that period panties couldn’t possibly be the most effortless and comfiest option available.
“Guess again”, I was forced to say.
It was a very pleasant surprise to try a pair of period panties for the first time.
Btw, I’m not saying this now, just because we ended up offering period panties on our web shop, as a sales pitch.
It’s rather the other way around.
We ended up offering period panties to our customers, because they were such a positive experience in an otherwise not so pleasant ordeal time of month.
We wanted our friends, our community, and our customers to have the same feeling as we suddenly did, 35 and 38 years into our lives. 10-15 years before it would start being irrelevant ;)
Experiencing my period without feeling less than, or icky, or as if it’s just supposed to be over, sooner rather than later? It being just another chore to get through?
I wasn’t sure that was even possible.
I had resigned myself to the disposable sanitary pads for the foreseeable future, up until we received our first sample from our supplier. Arina and our supplier had been working on getting the layers right, the design etc. and all along we where both not sure, if period panties would be the thing for us to replace our sanitary pads all in all.
But they got it right.
A NEW EXPEREINCE
My experience is, that the period panties feel like regular comfy panties, they give full coverage and they actually keep the blood sealed in the inner liner. Who would have thunk it!
I felt it to be a fresh, breathable and easy experience as well as quite liberating not having to open up another sanitary pad and having to adjust it again and again.
When changing from the morning pair to the afternoon pair, I easily and swiftly washed the panties in cold water under the faucet and hung them to dry, to make ready for the next day.
There are several options for women with periods on the market and I have tried most of them, but none seem to have been as comfy as the period panties for me, as well as feeling the most natural.
I feel connected to my period in a new way, washing my own panties during the cycle, before putting them to machine washing after the bleed.
And nothing goes to waste either!
EMBRACING THE CYCLE ITSELF
Our period seems to have become this thing we rarely talk about, but it’s a huge part of our lives in being women.
The fact that I don’t discard the panties like I do a regular sanitary pad every time I have my bleed, almost felt symbolic of me embracing the cycle itself.
It might sound funny, but there is a connectedness to my own body that surprised me.
TRANSITIONING FROM SANITARY PADS TO PERIOD UNDERWEAR
Most women have experienced that the conventional sanitary pad has its downfalls;
Like moving its position in your panties, making you pull at your undies all hours of the day, often in the most unlucky time, just when another person is watching you, to adjust the pad back in to place.
You have to check whether you’ve leaked through, that classical looking behind yourself in the mirror.
Sometimes the less than breathable materials of pads can make for an uncomfortable smell that’s distinctly period-related.
Not to mention the fact that conventional sanitary pads are full of plastics and 1 liner is the equivalent of plastic… …
For anyone having been to eg. India in the poorer areas, you will probably have noticed the big garbage dumping grounds of trash, where sanitary pads are one of the many culprits, just lying there, waiting to disintegrate, but not being able to, cause there’s just too darn much plastic in it.
So considering the above, I was already very aware that there had to be a change and Arina and I had to find other solutions for ourselves.
But until the period pantie came into our line of sight, I just wasn’t that taken to change from the regular pad, even though it was so not the comfort I didn’t know I deserved.
I had gotten used to dealing with being uncomfortable during this part of the month.
Simply used to it. How depressing!
The Cup had been there for a while, but it hadn’t been my cup of tea (pun intended;).
It is a smart solution as there is no one-time use like a pad, but I feel the blood should be flowing naturally out of the body, instead of having a plug in the one area where everything wants to flow out. But again, to each her own.
REALISATION
For me it was important to create this solution for ourselves not only due to the reasons above, but most importantly, because I made a wonderful discovery while testing them.
I didn’t feel like I was compromising on comfort and quality 3-5 days out of the month.
I felt like it wasn’t a downgrade in the days of my bleed, but rather that there’s wasn’t much of a difference between how I felt quality and fabric wise at all. The panties weren’t that different than wearing my regular comfy panties and somehow this gave me a confidence booster just knowing this was possible.
That yucky feeling that can sometimes arise during one’s period simply wasn’t there and boy, was that a relief to discover!
A relief I didn’t even know I had been longing for.
Rather than feeling unsexy in these days, I actually feel an inner power in my body, cause there’s no added discomfort.
The 3-5 days of the months where we bleed could (and maybe even should) be the most loved, celebrated and respected. By ourselves I mean.
Our intuition is heightened at this time, our feelings are raw and out on our sleeve, our capacity for empathy soars markedly.
We can actually make this a time of inner connectedness rather than responding with irritation at our body every time it comes around.
Yes, yes, we do have all the other ‘stuff’ to deal with too of course. The anger, pms, binge-eating, pains and cramps and the show goes on.
But all that is imbalance. It’s not the period itself.
The period itself is a chance to connect to our inner being, to tune in to our own radar and listen to whether everything is going as we wish it to, or whether changes should be made for us to get back on the happiness track.
It’s a perfect opportunity (which should be taken each and every month!) to pamper our body, make love to it through good rest and sleep, lounging and decompressing, eating light and hydrating properly, instead of rushing from task to task all day long, as many of us do on a daily basis.
It’s a time to unwind. To press the pause button.
We are fully entitled to do so. (we hope to one day its possible to see it being a common experience that women have a day off from work on their first day of the bleed; we practice this in our own company)!
We simply have to get used to feeling first, after being wound up like a tightly-woven spring for a long period of time 😉
It’s wonderful to feel connected to my period, so much so, that I can actually look forward to it, instead of dreading it.
I hadn’t imagined that a pair of period panties would set me on the track of getting closer to the goal of having a loving relationship with myself.
That the period itself was the key to embracing a deeper part of the feminine within me, not the culprit.
With love,
Anya Woron