My Favorite Period Products
- Nicole Peterson
- Jul 7
- 4 min read
This article contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission when you purchase through these links.
Periods are no party, so it's worth the investment to have products that are safe, comfortable, and sustainable (and I mean that on an environmental AND a budget friendly level).
Throughout my teenage years I used the basic disposable tampons and pads that my mom pulled off the shelf at Walmart: brands like Tampax, Playtex, and Kotex. And when I left for college, I just stuck to the same brands. (Promptly I added Equate to the list because I was the stereotypical poor college student and didn't want to invest in anything labeled "organic.")
I never checked the adjacent shelves for alternative products like reusable cups or disks, and I certainly never searched the internet for reusable pads. They just seemed too complicated in theory to me: Where was I supposed to store bloody pads when I shared a bathroom with three other people at home and had limited access to the washing machine? How could a cup fit down there?
Anyway.
When I married my husband, I also married the world of women's health advocacy, and I became my first client. I spent hours every week studying books on feminine health, hygiene, and sexuality, and somewhere along the lines I started investigating period products. I hopped over to my local Target and bought my first menstrual cup by Saalt. (And because of my college/newlywed budget, I stood in that aisle for like an hour to avoid wasting $30 on the wrong color or the wrong size. Wrong color??? It's impossible to go wrong—Saalt uses the most beautiful colors.)
Finally I landed on a blue, size regular, and quickly found out that my uterus is tilted toward my back and that makes cup placement a little more challenging. But I'm a stubborn girl, so I stuck with it, leak after leak. In the end, I figured it out (with a little extra help from Saalt's Facebook help forum and Put A Cup In It. And once I figured it out, I swore I'd never buy another period product until this cup wore out in 10 years.
But...
Turns out, your body changes after you have a baby, and I've had four, so my body (most notably my uterus) has "gone through a lot" several times, and my periods just aren't what they used to be. A cup isn't my go-to on Day 1 of my period. Don't misunderstand—I love my cup! But I choose to use other products when my flow is especially heavy and my vagina feels tender.
So if you, like me, struggle wearing a menstrual cup comfortably sometimes, or you are just averse to putting a silicone goblet up your vagina, here are some of my favorite alternatives.
Period Underwear
This is basically underwear with special layering of absorbent and leak-proof layers in the gusset. It works very similar to a reusable pad, except that you don't have to worry about the pad shifting around. You DO have to worry about the underwear smelling after a while, or leaking on an extra heavy day, so make sure you switch it out after a few hours to prevent either of those issues.
I have a whole article on how to wash and store your period underwear here.
Personally, I prefer to use menstrual underwear on my lighter days, when I know I can go the whole day wearing it and then just switch it out at night. If I wear it on a heavy day, it's as a back-up product while I wear a menstrual cup that I know might overflow when I'm just too busy to empty it.
Brands I Trust:
Saalt (use the code NURTURE15 to get 15% off your purchase!)
These brands use safe fabrics and careful testing while maintaining the highest quality, so that you don't have to worry about any dangerous chemicals in your underwear.
Reusable Pads
Pads come in all different colors and sizes. You can get a "kit" from a company, which contains various thicknesses and lengths to accommodate light, medium, and heavy days. You can also go crazy with colors and patterns—if you can dream it, it exists, I'm sure, somewhere on Etsy probably. And if it doesn't, there are patterns on the internet so you can make you're own!
Brands I Trust:
Reusable Discs
This is one I haven't actually tried—so I feel weird posting it in a blog titled, "My Favorite Period Products"... but so many women that have converted from cups to discs have simply gushed to me about how much they love their discs, so I just had to include it in the list. And some day when my periods return, I swear I will try them... (I'm still recently postpartum though so there's no immediate way around that.)
Brands I Trust:
Tampons
Man. It has been YEARS since I've used a tampon. (I used to love them, but ever since having babies they just don't feel right.) Despite my lack of use, they are still a favorite of mine because a good-fitting tampon keeps you pretty clean and allows you to do otherwise complicated activities like swimming while you're bleeding. If or when they feel good to me again, I will be using them.
Be picky when purchasing tampons. These things are going right into your vagina and touching the majority of this delicate and highly absorbent membrane. Toxins in a tampon get soaked right up into more than just your vagina. You don't want that. Look for brands that have a GOTS certification, or do your own research on each brand that you're interested in. We're trying to avoid tampons that could contain plastics, pesticides, heavy metals, and chlorine, among other things. You can visit Pretty Organic Girl's blog to explore some clear-cut research on the topic.
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