The fact that personal care products like lotion, deodorant, and cosmetics often contain toxic ingredients is becoming more common knowledge. As a result, many men and women alike have chosen to opt for natural alternatives and some companies have even removed questionable ingredients.

The same cannot be said, however, for most feminine hygiene products, including tampons and pads. Classified as medical devices instead of personal care products by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), companies do not have to disclose the ingredients they contain.

Most tampons, for instance, are made from cotton, rayon, or another pulp fiber, but these materials may contain toxic disinfection byproducts from the chlorine bleaching process, including dioxins and furans, as well as pesticides from non-organic, often genetically modified (GM) cotton.

Meanwhile, from a sustainability perspective, disposable tampons and pads are far from being environmentally friendly, but available alternatives have not been widely accepted into the mainstream…

It May Take Centuries or More for a Tampon to Degrade in a Landfill

Feminine hygiene pads alone are a multi-billion dollar industry. Another 100 million women use tampons globally, and it’s estimated that one woman uses 11,000 tampons in her lifetime. Each of those tampons, along with pads, can take centuries to break down in a landfill, especially if they’re wrapped in plastic before being thrown away.¹

While many municipalities are discussing methods to discourage the use of plastic bags, plastic-laden feminine hygiene products “add the equivalent of 180 billion bags to our waste stream,” according to Naturally Savvy.² Alternative reusable options include silicone menstrual cups and cloth pads and liners. Sophie Zivku, communications and education director for DivaCup, told The Guardian:³

“The paper feminine hygiene industry has done a very good job of convincing women that their period is something [which] should be out of sight and out of mind, something they shouldn’t talk about…

Think about the advertisements we see – it’s all about silent wrappers, discrete and smaller products that are easier to hide or dispose of, and concealing the fact you have your period. Without opportunities for positive period talk, women and girls may not have the opportunity to learn about or even ask about other, more sustainable options.”

Your Vagina Is Especially Vulnerable to Chemicals and Irritants

If there’s one place where you want to be sure only the purest of materials are introduced, it’s your vagina. Vulvar and vaginal tissues are more permeable than the rest of your skin, making them especially vulnerable to chemicals and other irritants.

With mucous membranes, numerous blood vessels, and lymphatic vessels, the vagina provides a direct entryway for chemicals to circulate through the rest of your body. Plus, tampons are left in place for hours at a time, for several days each month, adding quite a bit of cumulative exposure time.

This is why, when creating my line of premium feminine hygiene products, my team sourced only 100% hypoallergenic organic cotton for tampons and covered them with a special cotton safety layer to help prevent fibers from remaining inside your body.

Research has shown that not only are chemicals rapidly absorbed and circulated through the rest of your body via your vagina, but some chemicals, like hormone-mimicking substances, may lead to “higher than expected exposures” in the rest of your body.

For instance, a vaginally applied dose of estradiol resulted in systemic estradiol levels 10 to 80 times higher than resulted from the same dose taken orally.4 Another area of concern surrounds cancer-causing chemicals, of which little research has been done regarding their direct exposure to the vagina.

Studies show that dioxin, a potential byproduct of the chlorine-bleaching process, collects in your fatty tissues, and according to a draft report by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), dioxin is a serious public health threat that has no “safe” level of exposure! Published reports show that even low or trace levels of dioxins may be linked to:

• Abnormal tissue growth in the abdomen and reproductive organs
• Abnormal cell growth throughout the body
• Immune system suppression
• Hormonal and endocrine system disruption