Tara Olivo, Associate Editor11.12.20
Gone are the days when just a few brands dominated the feminine hygiene aisle. Over the last few years an explosion of new names and products featuring variations in ingredients and materials have expanded the diversity of store shelves, and there’s no sign of it stopping anytime soon.
“It is truly fascinating what’s happening and I don’t see any evidence that this variety is going to shrink,” says Pricie Hanna, managing partner of Price Hanna Consultants. “It seems to have proved that it has staying power. We’ve been watching it for some time now and these products aren’t disappearing.”
Young women are clearly interested in trying new products and solutions, Hanna adds, and the impact of social media as a referral vehicle is very powerful. “We are long past the days when a mother would recommend to her teenage daughter what to use and that was it for her lifetime. I think the appetite to try something new seems to be very strong if it’s supported by social media chatter and referrals. That’s what’s trusted rather than the advertising that was traditionally done by the market leaders.”
These new, smaller brands that mainly launched on direct-to-consumer channels through e-commerce have found success gaining attention on social media prior to joining better established brands on the shelves of mass retailers.
“Retailers for years would never carry more than the three feminine hygiene leaders product lines plus their private label offering,” Hanna explains. “That was because there were enough variations on the theme in terms of package counts and sizes that already were considered to be a very complex array to manage. Well, look at the feminine hygiene shelves today and you see twice as many SKUs in this category. I think that most retailers are expanding their feminine product offerings both on the shelf as well as online.”
Indeed, new brands in the femcare market have been taking an omnichannel approach to sales, interacting with consumers on multiple platforms, whether they’re shopping online from a laptop, mobile device or in a brick-and-mortar store.
“Most of these new products started online and now we see really interesting omnichannel patterns,” says Hanna. “Look at Walmart online. They are following the Amazon practice of offering products that are sold and shipped directly by the marketing company who designed the products. This permits Walmart to offer the assortment needed to keep up with this trend.”
According to a report on the global feminine care market from Euromonitor International, as the consumer path to purchase continues to evolve, e-commerce is seeing the fastest growth in disposable hygiene distribution. However, with the majority of sales still happening in stores, many direct-to-consumer brands are focusing more on omnichannel retail to expand their customer base.
“Everybody talks about e-commerce but the important thing to consider is the whole omnichannel approach because a majority of people still buy personal care products in stores,” says Svetlana Uduslivaia, head of research at Euromonitor International. “If you’re ignoring that space, you’re not tapping into a lot of the consumer base and you’re not visible to a lot of consumers.”
These new brands were really smart to start with direct-to-consumer and build out their knowledge and understanding of consumers, she adds, “because it has allowed them to gather a lot of data on what people are buying, how they’re seeing the product and they’re developing strategies around that and then they build partnerships with retailers like Target, Walmart and others.”
Sustainability Sells
Most of the new period care brands launching are in the natural and organic space, and many of them have increased their sales quite a bit, according to Uduslivaia. “These new brands are more visible in the market. In the U.S., we talk about brands like Cora and Rael, among others, that have expanded, and sure, they’re not anywhere near the sales of Tampax, Always or Kotex, but they are no longer just a tiny niche.”
In fact, Euromonitor recently began breaking out some of the smaller natural-positioned brands in its tracking of brand market shares for U.S. sanitary protection as well as some other markets, as many of these brands continue to evolve and grow. Previously they were all grouped together in the “Others” category.
“There aren’t more consumers for the feminine care brands to capture in developed markets like the U.S. with already high levels of disposable hygiene penetration, as the female population is ageing while many younger women are using contraceptives that reduce the need for period protection. In this environment, the growth of feminine hygiene brands depends on their ability to whisk customers away from competition rather than relying on expanding consumer base and organic growth,” Uduslivaia says. “Not everybody is successful, but there are quite a few brands that are definitely making an impact and definitely more significant.”
L., Cora, Organic Initiative and Rael are just some of the brands that have been added to store shelves alongside the pioneers in the eco-friendly femcare space such as Organyc, Seventh Generation and Natracare—all of which incorporate organic cotton in their products.
“People perceive that cotton is soft, cotton is comfortable, cotton is safe,” Hanna says. “The cotton image is clearly attractive to consumers. When you look at the retailers’ feminine hygiene offering it’s really been quite stunning how much shelf space is now going to these new products.”
According to Annick De Poorter, executive vice president Innovation, Sustainability and Quality at European hygiene manufacturer Ontex, sustainable and performance products are what consumers are looking for these days. “High performance on its own is not the ultimate target anymore,” she says. “Combining high performance with sustainable product design is an exciting challenge for us. As an example, we are addressing this challenge in the ultra thin towels segment, where we combine organic/bio-based materials and smart channels in the core.”
Ontex’s innovations in natural feminine care include raw material changes but also product design that automatically reduces the use of plastic. “We are aware that this trend goes in two directions: safe for the consumer and safe for the planet,” De Poorter says. “The trend emerged more as the former but now consumers are ever more concerned on the impact they are having on the planet as well. We take these two into account.”
Ontex is achieving constant development in its natural range. More product concepts are included in the range to offer a portfolio that is as similar as possible to its conventional range. Today it has an organic cotton range in all segments: ultra thin towels, liners, non-applicator tampons and all types of applicator tampons.
Growth of organic and natural products is being driven by consumers that are becoming aware of the ingredients in products, according to Paola Stevan, senior manager global marketing, Corman SpA, maker of Organyc. “Women in particular are questioning, why for instance, the list of man-made ingredients in traditional femcare products is so long. Growth of traditional femcare products is stagnating all over the world, and women are replacing them with more natural ones. The issue women face today is that many of the so-called natural products only meet the definition of natural half-way, with a cover made of cotton and nothing else. Unfortunately many of the half natural products are being heavily promoted and advertised. While women are shifting preference to natural it will remain important to read labels.”
Just this year the brand launched a new overnight product that offers greater absorption and more importantly coverage than its previous longest pad. “Consumers want the confidence of knowing they will be protected overnight from leaks and have Clinically-Proven Protection of their sensitive skin. So, we responded,” Stevan says.
A logical next step for Organyc was the launch of its new light incontinence (bladder leakage) pads, available in four sizes. The line of products uses 100% certified organic cotton on the topsheet—a consistent with the overall brand platform of protection for sensitive skin—and a patented Cotton-Balanced absorbent core that has a mix of cotton and super absorbents to pull wetness away and maintain a dry feeling. The new products offer a natural solution to odor control, using a PH activated system that neutralizes odor causing molecules.
The Organyc brand, she says, has always stood on three pillars: transparency, sustainability and authenticity. “Our consumers, who cover Generation Z to Baby Boomers, connect to our brand DNA more today than ever before,” she explains. “Women have a high concern about what they put on and in their body; something we capture in our simple statement to them, Expect Respect. For a brand that means being authentic in the claims that are made, being transparent in the ingredients used, and using sustainable practices in all aspects of the business. Our brand stood for these things and practiced these principals well before it became a common demand from consumers.”
Andrea Wroble, senior research analyst, Health and Wellness, Mintel, says that the feminine hygiene and sanitary protection category is in a moment of growth and evolution. “Consumer expectations are extending beyond functional needs, challenging key players to offer eco-friendly packaging, natural/organic materials and ingredient transparency at affordable prices. At the same time, brands have opportunity to grow user knowledge of product safety and managing vaginal health.”
Indeed, in recent years consumers’ calls for increased transparency has pushed hygiene brands big and small to list their products’ ingredients, at minimum, on their websites.
Alessandra Castro, adult & feminine care global brand purpose & social impact director, Kimberly-Clark, says ingredient transparency has been one significant area that consumers are interested. “For years, we have disclosed information on intentionally added ingredients to consumers on the package, and in North America, consumers can find this information on our website as well. We also maintain a restricted substances list as part of our commitment to safety,” she says.
Additionally, in recent years proposed legislation mandating disclosure of ingredients in femcare products has been introduced in some U.S. states. In fact, last year New York became the first U.S. state to require that all ingredients in tampons, pads and other feminine hygiene items be disclosed. Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the law that went into effect in January 2020, but companies have 18 months from that point to introduce new packaging with labels listing ingredients. Similar legislation was also signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom at the end of September. Other states are beginning to follow suit, proposing their own legislation.
Taking transparency a step further, some of today’s new femcare brands are going as far as listing where the ingredients are sourced. Rael, for example, says it uses OCS, USDA certified and non-GMO cotton from Texas that is safely grown without toxic pesticides and synthetic chemicals. “Texas cotton has also been found to be among the cleanest types of cotton in the world,” the company states on its website, stressing that its period care products are made with healthy ingredients sourced in the U.S. Organic Initiative, meanwhile, says its cotton comes from a range of GOTS (Global Organic Textiles Standard) certified farms in the U.S., Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
Industry consultant Heidi Beatty of Crown Abbey, a consultancy that helps companies big and small develop and launch new products, says that as far as sourcing raw materials for products, clients are asking a lot more than ever before that they want to have an understanding of what the fibers are to start with in a product. “Before, companies were just saying, ‘I want a wet wipe.’ It didn’t really matter what the materials were; they left that to us,” she says. “But now they’re really specifying the fibers need to be either natural or bio-based or there will be some form of requirement in terms of sustainability and the environment.”
With regard to raw materials derived from trees such as fluff pulp, there has also been a lot more understanding on the client and consumer sides of certifications such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), she adds. “FSC certification is something that we now put on packs for many of our clients, so the consumers are seeing it as well.”
For brands that stress the importance of sustainability and doing the right thing, Crown Abbey recommends sourcing from places that are really transparent and where they know what that supply chain looks like. Beatty comments: “There’s certainly been a shift back to more home base, so the European clients are asking for manufacturing to be as close to home as possible, where maybe five to 10 years ago they would say, ‘We just want the best price, so if we have to go to Asia, it doesn’t really matter,’ but that has certainly changed. In North America too; our clients want to say ‘Made in the USA’ on packs, and so the supply chain transparency becomes a lot more relevant.”
Mixing It Up
While still a very small share of the feminine hygiene market, consumers with major concerns for the environment and the impact that disposable products make have been increasingly experimenting with products like reusable menstrual cups and period underwear. Consumers’ growing interest in these other formats has attracted the attention of the major players who traditionally focused on pads, liners and tampons.
In late 2018, Procter & Gamble, the maker of Always pads and Tampax tampons, launched a menstrual cup under its Tampax brand. And, while not reusable, P&G’s Always brand quietly introduced this year Always ZZZ Disposable Overnight Period Underwear. The overnight period underwear offers 360° coverage, staying in place in any position a user sleeps in. Made with a silky-soft and breathable material, the disposable overnight period panties are designed to fit just like regular underwear.
Meanwhile, last year Kotex maker Kimberly-Clark invested $25 million in Thinx, a maker of reusable period underwear designed to offer an eco-friendly alternative to pads and tampons. The company’s period-proof innerwears are made by using quad-dry breathe technology, with thin materials that resist stains and leaks, wick moisture and provide anti-bacterial support.
K-C’s investment will reportedly enable Thinx to launch a lower-cost line of underwear priced between $15 and $19 a pair, compared to the current options with prices between $24 and $42.
“While we cannot speculate on new products, we certainly know that women are looking for new and sustainable ways to manage their periods, and our investment in Thinx provides an opportunity to gain deeper insights into this emerging space in the feminine care market,” says Castro.
Right now, the major brands want to be sure they can meet every need that they can identify, according to Hanna. “They’re investing in new niche products to gain first-hand insights on what is catching the consumers’ attention,” she explains. “It’s evident that these leaders are determined to offer the consumer every meaningful variation that they can identify, and they obviously decided that the SKU proliferation or the shelf space is not that big a concern because of e-commerce. What’s important is that they have their own entries into specialty segments to provide a reliable way to see what’s growing and what’s not.”
Euromonitor’s Uduslivaia says that while the reusable segment of the market is no longer a tiny niche, it’s also not the size of the disposable market and it probably never will be. “But it’s definitely there and it is a disruptor,” she says. “That’s a reason why tapping into that space has become part of the strategies that the key players are using to make sure they capture women everywhere they are, whether they’re using disposable, or whether they’re using reusable.”
Cause Marketing Continues
In recent years cause marketing has become a norm for femcare brands. Experts say this has evolved from eliminating stigma associated with menstruation to focusing on access to menstrual products as a right.
Marking the 100th anniversary of its Kotex brand, Kimberly-Clark is continuing the critical work to break down period stigmas. Earlier this year, the company announced the Kotex ‘She Can Initiative.’ This initiative champions women’s progress by fighting period stigmas and the barriers they cause by promoting access to education in schools and communities and by helping to open doors so women gain equal opportunity. “Kotex exists to ensure that a period never stands in the way of a woman’s progress,” says Castro.
K-C works closely with Plan International, a girls’ rights organization, in countries around the world to deliver menstrual hygiene education through community platforms such as girls’ clubs, parenting groups, and teacher trainings. This work occurs primarily in schools and communities, as well as in health care facilities. Plan International also works to improve local access to period products and builds bathrooms in schools, which help girls manage their periods with dignity. As part of the ‘She Can Initiative,’ K-C committed $2.5 million over three years to Plan International to expand menstrual hygiene education and access.
Another U by Kotex initiative that launched earlier this year in the U.S. was an advertising campaign to show the absorbency of the Security Ultra-Thin Pads while challenging period stigmas by using a red fluid (resembling actual blood) as opposed to blue.
U by Kotex also co-founded the Alliance for Period Supplies in 2018 to provide products to women in need via local social service agencies. In the U.S., about 25% of women typically don’t have the means to buy period supplies, according to K-C.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected women and forced many of them to turn to nonprofits for essential goods,” says Castro. “This year, U by Kotex donated 1 million menstrual pads and panty liners to the Alliance for Period Supplies, over and above our annual contribution, to meet increased demand due to the pandemic.”
U by Kotex has donated more than 24 million period products to the Alliance for Period Supplies over the past two years.
Swedish hygiene company Essity has also taken actions to remove the taboos surrounding menstruation and promote awareness of hygiene and menstruation. Educational programs are arranged in Latin America, Asia and Europe that aim to educate girls about what happens to their bodies during puberty and when they have their period.
For years, Essity has been on a mission to break barriers to women’s wellbeing with innovative feminine care products and bold campaigns.
In 2017, Essity’s #bloodnormal campaign normalized conversations about period care by showing red period blood—instead of unnatural clinical blue liquid—in advertisements. In 2018, Essity followed this up with the award-winning “Viva la Vulva” campaign, where singing vulvas called out the culture of body shaming. Behind the bold content was a serious message—68% of women don’t really know what their own vulva is and many feel embarrassed about the way it looks, feels and smells, sometimes leading to serious health consequences.
In 2020, the company takes one step forward in this direction with Essity Ventures, a strategic initiative within Essity to reshape the future of women’s health in collaboration with top-notch startups in the femtech ecosystem.
Essity Ventures started its first partnership in the femtech space with Endometrix, a startup that helps women with endometriosis, empowering them with data-driven solutions to better understand their condition and empowering them with self-care programs.
“We are thrilled to collaborate a startup like Endometrix, that shares our vision to reshape the future of women’s health. With this partnership, we connect the dots between our strong know-how and understanding of women’s needs and Endometrix’ groundbreaking tech-driven innovation,” says Robert Sjöström, president Global Operational Services and CIO at Essity.
Essity featured the Endometrix app as part of its Bodyform brand’s #wombstories campaign, helping the startup raise awareness of the tool. As part of this collaboration, women are offered access to Endometrix’ premium solution via Libresse, one of Essity’s leading brands. Those who sign up for this offer receive a welcome care package with Libresse products and one free month trial of the Endometrix application. The offer, targeting women in Sweden and Norway, might be extended to other countries following the pilot session.
“We were aiming at onboarding 3000 women to Endometrix over three months, but we reached that number in just two weeks,” says Marie-Laure Mahé, Essity Ventures’ project lead.
Meanwhile, P&G’s Tampax brand launched a campaign this year to address misinformation about periods and tampons, joining forces with comedian and actress Amy Schumer. Together they are on a mission to ensure people understand what is going on with their bodies so they can take control over their periods, feel educated and empowered about using tampons and have a more comfortable experience.
“We thought a lot about whether or not to kick off this new period education campaign now. While we paused to shift focus to support more urgent needs, we decided that because periods aren’t stopping, we shouldn’t either,” says Melissa Suk, vice president of North America Tampax and Always. “When we chose to focus on tampon and period education, we knew Amy Schumer was a perfect fit because Amy doesn’t shy away from anything. Our goal is to make period and tampon conversations as normal as periods and the first step is getting people comfortable talking about them. We hope this partnership and our new, engaging ‘edu-tainment’ period and tampon content will encourage more people to laugh, talk and learn about them.”
“When I started working with Tampax, it made my heart hurt to hear about the discomfort people are putting up with because they don’t understand periods or even how to use a tampon properly, and I want to do everything I can to change that,” Schumer says. “My hope is that through this partnership, we’ll educate ourselves and each other and take the senseless shame out of getting your period.”
Schumer is featured in a series of comedic videos that are aimed at teaching people about their periods and tampons. Schumer is joined in this campaign by medical expert Dr. Melisa Holmes, OB/GYN and co-founder of Girlology, a leading health education community, to answer burning questions people have about their bodies, periods and tampons.
In addition to this campaign, over the last year Tampax has donated more than 8 million tampons to people in need through partners including Matthew 25 Ministries, Feeding America and Good+ Foundation.
For its part, Organyc recently launched a program to provide free feminine care products to Food Banks in the U.S. and it is expanding this program globally in 2021.
The program was first piloted with a food bank in Alcoa, TN, in the U.S., and it worked well, Stevan says. “Women face economic hardship for many reasons, and while food banks have been terrific about providing food and other staples, there was a glaring lack of feminine care and adult care products. All women should Expect Respect no matter what circumstance life presents. We can do our part towards this goal by giving them access to the best feminine care and adult care products.”
Acquisition News
Last month, Kimberly-Clark announced that it completed the acquisition of Softex Indonesia, a leader in the fast-growing Indonesian personal care market, in an all-cash transaction for approximately $1.2 billion from a group of shareholders including CVC Capital Partners Asia Pacific IV.
“Indonesia is a large and growing market, and Softex Indonesia has a strong, growing and profitable business with a portfolio of brands that are loved by Indonesian consumers,” says Castro. “The acquisition provides an opportunity for Kimberly-Clark to accelerate our growth in Southeast Asia. We look forward to combining our strengths in innovation and brand building with Softex Indonesia’s capabilities to drive continued success.”
While approximately 80% of Softex Indonesia sales come from diapers—it currently holds the No. 2 market share position with the Sweety and Happy Nappy brands—the company holds the No. 3 market share position in feminine care with the Softex brand. In adult care, it holds the No. 2 market share position with the Confidence brand.
Since 1976, Softex Indonesia has built a successful personal care business with strong market positions and has consistently delivered double-digit growth. The company has excellent manufacturing capabilities and a strong go-to-market distribution network. Softex Indonesia generated net sales of approximately $420 million in 2019.
Meanwhile, in May Ontex Group announced that it will begin operations at a new personal hygiene manufacturing plant in Rockingham County, NC, in mid-2021. De Poorter says the facility will initially be oriented towards baby products, but the company has incorporated a flexible design in the building that will allow it to produce other absorbent hygiene products if they choose to do so. “We currently place products in the U.S. market that are manufactured throughout the Ontex network of facilities, and our new U.S. operations will serve to enhance our already-strong supply network,” she continues.
The North Carolina location was selected because approximately half the U.S. population lives within a 1,000 km/650-mile radius. The strategic location of Rockingham County, the quality of the workforce, as well as state and local incentives were compelling factors in the company’s decision to locate the new facility in Rockingham County.
In July, Ontex completed the acquisition of Albaad’s feminine hygiene production assets, also in Rockingham County.
Ontex’s agreement with Albaad covers the production lines and related equipment in Rockingham County as well as a license for all corresponding inventory and intellectual property. The production lines produce feminine hygiene pads.
“In addition to the existing equipment, we were happy to welcome the associated workforce to the Ontex family,” De Poorter says. “This acquisition gives Ontex access to a broader range of external feminine hygiene products that are tailored to the needs of U.S. consumers. With a stronger product lineup and an orientation towards helping our customers develop winning brands, we see a significant opportunity to bring great value propositions to our current and future customers in this category.”
These recent moves allow the Belgium-based hygiene specialist to accelerate the execution of its strategic priority to increase its U.S. presence.
Forty years of menstruation—that is about 2400 days or 6.5 years in every woman’s lifetime—and still menstruation is a topic a lot of woman are uncomfortable with. Maybe that’s why for a long time nobody has dared to talk about one considerable challenge that comes with the period: The average woman uses up to 17,000 period products in her life and more than 90% of those are single-use products. That corresponds to an annual amount of 75,000-125,000 tons of “period waste” in Germany, Austria and Switzerland alone.
The problem: Almost all sanitary napkins contain crude-oil-based components that are not biodegradable. Ending up in landfills or in our oceans, these plastic items can take hundreds of years to disintegrate—and even then, they remain in our environment as microplastics.
So, why don’t more women switch to eco-friendly alternatives for their menstrual hygiene needs? Yes, the call for eco-friendly alternatives is getting louder, but women must be able to completely rely on a period product. Alternative hygiene products will only be accepted when they deliver the same performance as their synthetic counterparts.
Kelheim Fibres, renowned Bavarian viscose speciality fiber manufacturer, is now tackling this topic.
“Our absorbent hygiene viscose fibers beat synthetic materials in terms of sustainability, and they beat other natural fibers in terms of performance. In contrast to other natural-based fibers, Kelheim’s viscose fibers can be customized in many ways during the production process: functional additives can be incorporated into the fiber’s matrix, the fiber’s cross-section can be modified or the dimensions of the fiber can be precisely defined,” says Dominik Mayer, R&D project manager at Kelheim Fibres.
With more than 40 years of experience as a partner of the tampon industry, the Bavarians have extensive and wide-ranging knowledge about absorbent hygiene fibers. But for sanitary pads, the demands are different: Every layer fulfils a specific function. The top layer is in direct contact to human skin. This layer must draw the liquid into the core of the pad, while staying dry outside and leaving a pleasant and soft feel on the skin. Kelheim’s hydrophobic fiber Olea is ideally suited for that job: This fiber doesn’t absorb liquids but stays dry while creating an extra tender top sheet—and beating not only synthetic fibers but even other natural fibers in softness.
Kelheim’s premium tampon fiber Galaxy has proven effective in the ADL (Acquisition-Distribution-Layers) of feminine hygiene pads: Due to the trilobal cross section of the fiber, Galaxy creates capillary channels in between the single fibers in nonwovens constructions which offer an excellent wicking performance. Liquid is conducted quickly and efficiently away from the body and distributed evenly in the absorbent core. In comparison to other sustainable and conventional (synthetic) materials, Galaxy excels by faster acquisition, lower rewetting and an enhanced distribution.
Another example is Kelheim’s speciality fiber Bramante: It can store up to 260% of its own weight in liquids in its characteristic segmented hollow core. While other fabrics store liquids between the fibers in a nonwoven, Bramante absorbs the liquid inside the fiber. Bramante is therefore not only very absorbent, but it also excels in its retention capacity.
All of Kelheim’s fibers are made from 100% wood pulp, which comes only from certified and sustainably managed forests. They are fully biodegradable and vegan. Microorganisms in soil and in marine environment make sure that no residues remain after biodegradation.
Ira Frankenberger from the New Business Development team at Kelheim is convinced: “Our fibers can make a substantial contribution towards fully bio-based and biodegradable feminine hygiene products with a performance level comparable to that of synthetic products. Our goal is a fully bio-based solution for fem hy products.”
To this purpose, the speciality fiber manufacturers are following the open innovation concept and constantly seeking for innovative partners—from industry experts to scientific institutes or unconventional start-ups.
“It is truly fascinating what’s happening and I don’t see any evidence that this variety is going to shrink,” says Pricie Hanna, managing partner of Price Hanna Consultants. “It seems to have proved that it has staying power. We’ve been watching it for some time now and these products aren’t disappearing.”
Young women are clearly interested in trying new products and solutions, Hanna adds, and the impact of social media as a referral vehicle is very powerful. “We are long past the days when a mother would recommend to her teenage daughter what to use and that was it for her lifetime. I think the appetite to try something new seems to be very strong if it’s supported by social media chatter and referrals. That’s what’s trusted rather than the advertising that was traditionally done by the market leaders.”
These new, smaller brands that mainly launched on direct-to-consumer channels through e-commerce have found success gaining attention on social media prior to joining better established brands on the shelves of mass retailers.
“Retailers for years would never carry more than the three feminine hygiene leaders product lines plus their private label offering,” Hanna explains. “That was because there were enough variations on the theme in terms of package counts and sizes that already were considered to be a very complex array to manage. Well, look at the feminine hygiene shelves today and you see twice as many SKUs in this category. I think that most retailers are expanding their feminine product offerings both on the shelf as well as online.”
Indeed, new brands in the femcare market have been taking an omnichannel approach to sales, interacting with consumers on multiple platforms, whether they’re shopping online from a laptop, mobile device or in a brick-and-mortar store.
“Most of these new products started online and now we see really interesting omnichannel patterns,” says Hanna. “Look at Walmart online. They are following the Amazon practice of offering products that are sold and shipped directly by the marketing company who designed the products. This permits Walmart to offer the assortment needed to keep up with this trend.”
According to a report on the global feminine care market from Euromonitor International, as the consumer path to purchase continues to evolve, e-commerce is seeing the fastest growth in disposable hygiene distribution. However, with the majority of sales still happening in stores, many direct-to-consumer brands are focusing more on omnichannel retail to expand their customer base.
“Everybody talks about e-commerce but the important thing to consider is the whole omnichannel approach because a majority of people still buy personal care products in stores,” says Svetlana Uduslivaia, head of research at Euromonitor International. “If you’re ignoring that space, you’re not tapping into a lot of the consumer base and you’re not visible to a lot of consumers.”
These new brands were really smart to start with direct-to-consumer and build out their knowledge and understanding of consumers, she adds, “because it has allowed them to gather a lot of data on what people are buying, how they’re seeing the product and they’re developing strategies around that and then they build partnerships with retailers like Target, Walmart and others.”
Sustainability Sells
Most of the new period care brands launching are in the natural and organic space, and many of them have increased their sales quite a bit, according to Uduslivaia. “These new brands are more visible in the market. In the U.S., we talk about brands like Cora and Rael, among others, that have expanded, and sure, they’re not anywhere near the sales of Tampax, Always or Kotex, but they are no longer just a tiny niche.”
In fact, Euromonitor recently began breaking out some of the smaller natural-positioned brands in its tracking of brand market shares for U.S. sanitary protection as well as some other markets, as many of these brands continue to evolve and grow. Previously they were all grouped together in the “Others” category.
“There aren’t more consumers for the feminine care brands to capture in developed markets like the U.S. with already high levels of disposable hygiene penetration, as the female population is ageing while many younger women are using contraceptives that reduce the need for period protection. In this environment, the growth of feminine hygiene brands depends on their ability to whisk customers away from competition rather than relying on expanding consumer base and organic growth,” Uduslivaia says. “Not everybody is successful, but there are quite a few brands that are definitely making an impact and definitely more significant.”
L., Cora, Organic Initiative and Rael are just some of the brands that have been added to store shelves alongside the pioneers in the eco-friendly femcare space such as Organyc, Seventh Generation and Natracare—all of which incorporate organic cotton in their products.
“People perceive that cotton is soft, cotton is comfortable, cotton is safe,” Hanna says. “The cotton image is clearly attractive to consumers. When you look at the retailers’ feminine hygiene offering it’s really been quite stunning how much shelf space is now going to these new products.”
According to Annick De Poorter, executive vice president Innovation, Sustainability and Quality at European hygiene manufacturer Ontex, sustainable and performance products are what consumers are looking for these days. “High performance on its own is not the ultimate target anymore,” she says. “Combining high performance with sustainable product design is an exciting challenge for us. As an example, we are addressing this challenge in the ultra thin towels segment, where we combine organic/bio-based materials and smart channels in the core.”
Ontex’s innovations in natural feminine care include raw material changes but also product design that automatically reduces the use of plastic. “We are aware that this trend goes in two directions: safe for the consumer and safe for the planet,” De Poorter says. “The trend emerged more as the former but now consumers are ever more concerned on the impact they are having on the planet as well. We take these two into account.”
Ontex is achieving constant development in its natural range. More product concepts are included in the range to offer a portfolio that is as similar as possible to its conventional range. Today it has an organic cotton range in all segments: ultra thin towels, liners, non-applicator tampons and all types of applicator tampons.
Growth of organic and natural products is being driven by consumers that are becoming aware of the ingredients in products, according to Paola Stevan, senior manager global marketing, Corman SpA, maker of Organyc. “Women in particular are questioning, why for instance, the list of man-made ingredients in traditional femcare products is so long. Growth of traditional femcare products is stagnating all over the world, and women are replacing them with more natural ones. The issue women face today is that many of the so-called natural products only meet the definition of natural half-way, with a cover made of cotton and nothing else. Unfortunately many of the half natural products are being heavily promoted and advertised. While women are shifting preference to natural it will remain important to read labels.”
Just this year the brand launched a new overnight product that offers greater absorption and more importantly coverage than its previous longest pad. “Consumers want the confidence of knowing they will be protected overnight from leaks and have Clinically-Proven Protection of their sensitive skin. So, we responded,” Stevan says.
A logical next step for Organyc was the launch of its new light incontinence (bladder leakage) pads, available in four sizes. The line of products uses 100% certified organic cotton on the topsheet—a consistent with the overall brand platform of protection for sensitive skin—and a patented Cotton-Balanced absorbent core that has a mix of cotton and super absorbents to pull wetness away and maintain a dry feeling. The new products offer a natural solution to odor control, using a PH activated system that neutralizes odor causing molecules.
The Organyc brand, she says, has always stood on three pillars: transparency, sustainability and authenticity. “Our consumers, who cover Generation Z to Baby Boomers, connect to our brand DNA more today than ever before,” she explains. “Women have a high concern about what they put on and in their body; something we capture in our simple statement to them, Expect Respect. For a brand that means being authentic in the claims that are made, being transparent in the ingredients used, and using sustainable practices in all aspects of the business. Our brand stood for these things and practiced these principals well before it became a common demand from consumers.”
Andrea Wroble, senior research analyst, Health and Wellness, Mintel, says that the feminine hygiene and sanitary protection category is in a moment of growth and evolution. “Consumer expectations are extending beyond functional needs, challenging key players to offer eco-friendly packaging, natural/organic materials and ingredient transparency at affordable prices. At the same time, brands have opportunity to grow user knowledge of product safety and managing vaginal health.”
Indeed, in recent years consumers’ calls for increased transparency has pushed hygiene brands big and small to list their products’ ingredients, at minimum, on their websites.
Alessandra Castro, adult & feminine care global brand purpose & social impact director, Kimberly-Clark, says ingredient transparency has been one significant area that consumers are interested. “For years, we have disclosed information on intentionally added ingredients to consumers on the package, and in North America, consumers can find this information on our website as well. We also maintain a restricted substances list as part of our commitment to safety,” she says.
Additionally, in recent years proposed legislation mandating disclosure of ingredients in femcare products has been introduced in some U.S. states. In fact, last year New York became the first U.S. state to require that all ingredients in tampons, pads and other feminine hygiene items be disclosed. Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the law that went into effect in January 2020, but companies have 18 months from that point to introduce new packaging with labels listing ingredients. Similar legislation was also signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom at the end of September. Other states are beginning to follow suit, proposing their own legislation.
Taking transparency a step further, some of today’s new femcare brands are going as far as listing where the ingredients are sourced. Rael, for example, says it uses OCS, USDA certified and non-GMO cotton from Texas that is safely grown without toxic pesticides and synthetic chemicals. “Texas cotton has also been found to be among the cleanest types of cotton in the world,” the company states on its website, stressing that its period care products are made with healthy ingredients sourced in the U.S. Organic Initiative, meanwhile, says its cotton comes from a range of GOTS (Global Organic Textiles Standard) certified farms in the U.S., Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
Industry consultant Heidi Beatty of Crown Abbey, a consultancy that helps companies big and small develop and launch new products, says that as far as sourcing raw materials for products, clients are asking a lot more than ever before that they want to have an understanding of what the fibers are to start with in a product. “Before, companies were just saying, ‘I want a wet wipe.’ It didn’t really matter what the materials were; they left that to us,” she says. “But now they’re really specifying the fibers need to be either natural or bio-based or there will be some form of requirement in terms of sustainability and the environment.”
With regard to raw materials derived from trees such as fluff pulp, there has also been a lot more understanding on the client and consumer sides of certifications such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), she adds. “FSC certification is something that we now put on packs for many of our clients, so the consumers are seeing it as well.”
For brands that stress the importance of sustainability and doing the right thing, Crown Abbey recommends sourcing from places that are really transparent and where they know what that supply chain looks like. Beatty comments: “There’s certainly been a shift back to more home base, so the European clients are asking for manufacturing to be as close to home as possible, where maybe five to 10 years ago they would say, ‘We just want the best price, so if we have to go to Asia, it doesn’t really matter,’ but that has certainly changed. In North America too; our clients want to say ‘Made in the USA’ on packs, and so the supply chain transparency becomes a lot more relevant.”
Mixing It Up
While still a very small share of the feminine hygiene market, consumers with major concerns for the environment and the impact that disposable products make have been increasingly experimenting with products like reusable menstrual cups and period underwear. Consumers’ growing interest in these other formats has attracted the attention of the major players who traditionally focused on pads, liners and tampons.
In late 2018, Procter & Gamble, the maker of Always pads and Tampax tampons, launched a menstrual cup under its Tampax brand. And, while not reusable, P&G’s Always brand quietly introduced this year Always ZZZ Disposable Overnight Period Underwear. The overnight period underwear offers 360° coverage, staying in place in any position a user sleeps in. Made with a silky-soft and breathable material, the disposable overnight period panties are designed to fit just like regular underwear.
Meanwhile, last year Kotex maker Kimberly-Clark invested $25 million in Thinx, a maker of reusable period underwear designed to offer an eco-friendly alternative to pads and tampons. The company’s period-proof innerwears are made by using quad-dry breathe technology, with thin materials that resist stains and leaks, wick moisture and provide anti-bacterial support.
K-C’s investment will reportedly enable Thinx to launch a lower-cost line of underwear priced between $15 and $19 a pair, compared to the current options with prices between $24 and $42.
“While we cannot speculate on new products, we certainly know that women are looking for new and sustainable ways to manage their periods, and our investment in Thinx provides an opportunity to gain deeper insights into this emerging space in the feminine care market,” says Castro.
Right now, the major brands want to be sure they can meet every need that they can identify, according to Hanna. “They’re investing in new niche products to gain first-hand insights on what is catching the consumers’ attention,” she explains. “It’s evident that these leaders are determined to offer the consumer every meaningful variation that they can identify, and they obviously decided that the SKU proliferation or the shelf space is not that big a concern because of e-commerce. What’s important is that they have their own entries into specialty segments to provide a reliable way to see what’s growing and what’s not.”
Euromonitor’s Uduslivaia says that while the reusable segment of the market is no longer a tiny niche, it’s also not the size of the disposable market and it probably never will be. “But it’s definitely there and it is a disruptor,” she says. “That’s a reason why tapping into that space has become part of the strategies that the key players are using to make sure they capture women everywhere they are, whether they’re using disposable, or whether they’re using reusable.”
Cause Marketing Continues
In recent years cause marketing has become a norm for femcare brands. Experts say this has evolved from eliminating stigma associated with menstruation to focusing on access to menstrual products as a right.
Marking the 100th anniversary of its Kotex brand, Kimberly-Clark is continuing the critical work to break down period stigmas. Earlier this year, the company announced the Kotex ‘She Can Initiative.’ This initiative champions women’s progress by fighting period stigmas and the barriers they cause by promoting access to education in schools and communities and by helping to open doors so women gain equal opportunity. “Kotex exists to ensure that a period never stands in the way of a woman’s progress,” says Castro.
K-C works closely with Plan International, a girls’ rights organization, in countries around the world to deliver menstrual hygiene education through community platforms such as girls’ clubs, parenting groups, and teacher trainings. This work occurs primarily in schools and communities, as well as in health care facilities. Plan International also works to improve local access to period products and builds bathrooms in schools, which help girls manage their periods with dignity. As part of the ‘She Can Initiative,’ K-C committed $2.5 million over three years to Plan International to expand menstrual hygiene education and access.
Another U by Kotex initiative that launched earlier this year in the U.S. was an advertising campaign to show the absorbency of the Security Ultra-Thin Pads while challenging period stigmas by using a red fluid (resembling actual blood) as opposed to blue.
U by Kotex also co-founded the Alliance for Period Supplies in 2018 to provide products to women in need via local social service agencies. In the U.S., about 25% of women typically don’t have the means to buy period supplies, according to K-C.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected women and forced many of them to turn to nonprofits for essential goods,” says Castro. “This year, U by Kotex donated 1 million menstrual pads and panty liners to the Alliance for Period Supplies, over and above our annual contribution, to meet increased demand due to the pandemic.”
U by Kotex has donated more than 24 million period products to the Alliance for Period Supplies over the past two years.
Swedish hygiene company Essity has also taken actions to remove the taboos surrounding menstruation and promote awareness of hygiene and menstruation. Educational programs are arranged in Latin America, Asia and Europe that aim to educate girls about what happens to their bodies during puberty and when they have their period.
For years, Essity has been on a mission to break barriers to women’s wellbeing with innovative feminine care products and bold campaigns.
In 2017, Essity’s #bloodnormal campaign normalized conversations about period care by showing red period blood—instead of unnatural clinical blue liquid—in advertisements. In 2018, Essity followed this up with the award-winning “Viva la Vulva” campaign, where singing vulvas called out the culture of body shaming. Behind the bold content was a serious message—68% of women don’t really know what their own vulva is and many feel embarrassed about the way it looks, feels and smells, sometimes leading to serious health consequences.
In 2020, the company takes one step forward in this direction with Essity Ventures, a strategic initiative within Essity to reshape the future of women’s health in collaboration with top-notch startups in the femtech ecosystem.
Essity Ventures started its first partnership in the femtech space with Endometrix, a startup that helps women with endometriosis, empowering them with data-driven solutions to better understand their condition and empowering them with self-care programs.
“We are thrilled to collaborate a startup like Endometrix, that shares our vision to reshape the future of women’s health. With this partnership, we connect the dots between our strong know-how and understanding of women’s needs and Endometrix’ groundbreaking tech-driven innovation,” says Robert Sjöström, president Global Operational Services and CIO at Essity.
Essity featured the Endometrix app as part of its Bodyform brand’s #wombstories campaign, helping the startup raise awareness of the tool. As part of this collaboration, women are offered access to Endometrix’ premium solution via Libresse, one of Essity’s leading brands. Those who sign up for this offer receive a welcome care package with Libresse products and one free month trial of the Endometrix application. The offer, targeting women in Sweden and Norway, might be extended to other countries following the pilot session.
“We were aiming at onboarding 3000 women to Endometrix over three months, but we reached that number in just two weeks,” says Marie-Laure Mahé, Essity Ventures’ project lead.
Meanwhile, P&G’s Tampax brand launched a campaign this year to address misinformation about periods and tampons, joining forces with comedian and actress Amy Schumer. Together they are on a mission to ensure people understand what is going on with their bodies so they can take control over their periods, feel educated and empowered about using tampons and have a more comfortable experience.
“We thought a lot about whether or not to kick off this new period education campaign now. While we paused to shift focus to support more urgent needs, we decided that because periods aren’t stopping, we shouldn’t either,” says Melissa Suk, vice president of North America Tampax and Always. “When we chose to focus on tampon and period education, we knew Amy Schumer was a perfect fit because Amy doesn’t shy away from anything. Our goal is to make period and tampon conversations as normal as periods and the first step is getting people comfortable talking about them. We hope this partnership and our new, engaging ‘edu-tainment’ period and tampon content will encourage more people to laugh, talk and learn about them.”
“When I started working with Tampax, it made my heart hurt to hear about the discomfort people are putting up with because they don’t understand periods or even how to use a tampon properly, and I want to do everything I can to change that,” Schumer says. “My hope is that through this partnership, we’ll educate ourselves and each other and take the senseless shame out of getting your period.”
Schumer is featured in a series of comedic videos that are aimed at teaching people about their periods and tampons. Schumer is joined in this campaign by medical expert Dr. Melisa Holmes, OB/GYN and co-founder of Girlology, a leading health education community, to answer burning questions people have about their bodies, periods and tampons.
In addition to this campaign, over the last year Tampax has donated more than 8 million tampons to people in need through partners including Matthew 25 Ministries, Feeding America and Good+ Foundation.
For its part, Organyc recently launched a program to provide free feminine care products to Food Banks in the U.S. and it is expanding this program globally in 2021.
The program was first piloted with a food bank in Alcoa, TN, in the U.S., and it worked well, Stevan says. “Women face economic hardship for many reasons, and while food banks have been terrific about providing food and other staples, there was a glaring lack of feminine care and adult care products. All women should Expect Respect no matter what circumstance life presents. We can do our part towards this goal by giving them access to the best feminine care and adult care products.”
Acquisition News
Last month, Kimberly-Clark announced that it completed the acquisition of Softex Indonesia, a leader in the fast-growing Indonesian personal care market, in an all-cash transaction for approximately $1.2 billion from a group of shareholders including CVC Capital Partners Asia Pacific IV.
“Indonesia is a large and growing market, and Softex Indonesia has a strong, growing and profitable business with a portfolio of brands that are loved by Indonesian consumers,” says Castro. “The acquisition provides an opportunity for Kimberly-Clark to accelerate our growth in Southeast Asia. We look forward to combining our strengths in innovation and brand building with Softex Indonesia’s capabilities to drive continued success.”
While approximately 80% of Softex Indonesia sales come from diapers—it currently holds the No. 2 market share position with the Sweety and Happy Nappy brands—the company holds the No. 3 market share position in feminine care with the Softex brand. In adult care, it holds the No. 2 market share position with the Confidence brand.
Since 1976, Softex Indonesia has built a successful personal care business with strong market positions and has consistently delivered double-digit growth. The company has excellent manufacturing capabilities and a strong go-to-market distribution network. Softex Indonesia generated net sales of approximately $420 million in 2019.
Meanwhile, in May Ontex Group announced that it will begin operations at a new personal hygiene manufacturing plant in Rockingham County, NC, in mid-2021. De Poorter says the facility will initially be oriented towards baby products, but the company has incorporated a flexible design in the building that will allow it to produce other absorbent hygiene products if they choose to do so. “We currently place products in the U.S. market that are manufactured throughout the Ontex network of facilities, and our new U.S. operations will serve to enhance our already-strong supply network,” she continues.
The North Carolina location was selected because approximately half the U.S. population lives within a 1,000 km/650-mile radius. The strategic location of Rockingham County, the quality of the workforce, as well as state and local incentives were compelling factors in the company’s decision to locate the new facility in Rockingham County.
In July, Ontex completed the acquisition of Albaad’s feminine hygiene production assets, also in Rockingham County.
Ontex’s agreement with Albaad covers the production lines and related equipment in Rockingham County as well as a license for all corresponding inventory and intellectual property. The production lines produce feminine hygiene pads.
“In addition to the existing equipment, we were happy to welcome the associated workforce to the Ontex family,” De Poorter says. “This acquisition gives Ontex access to a broader range of external feminine hygiene products that are tailored to the needs of U.S. consumers. With a stronger product lineup and an orientation towards helping our customers develop winning brands, we see a significant opportunity to bring great value propositions to our current and future customers in this category.”
These recent moves allow the Belgium-based hygiene specialist to accelerate the execution of its strategic priority to increase its U.S. presence.
Forty years of menstruation—that is about 2400 days or 6.5 years in every woman’s lifetime—and still menstruation is a topic a lot of woman are uncomfortable with. Maybe that’s why for a long time nobody has dared to talk about one considerable challenge that comes with the period: The average woman uses up to 17,000 period products in her life and more than 90% of those are single-use products. That corresponds to an annual amount of 75,000-125,000 tons of “period waste” in Germany, Austria and Switzerland alone.
The problem: Almost all sanitary napkins contain crude-oil-based components that are not biodegradable. Ending up in landfills or in our oceans, these plastic items can take hundreds of years to disintegrate—and even then, they remain in our environment as microplastics.
So, why don’t more women switch to eco-friendly alternatives for their menstrual hygiene needs? Yes, the call for eco-friendly alternatives is getting louder, but women must be able to completely rely on a period product. Alternative hygiene products will only be accepted when they deliver the same performance as their synthetic counterparts.
Kelheim Fibres, renowned Bavarian viscose speciality fiber manufacturer, is now tackling this topic.
“Our absorbent hygiene viscose fibers beat synthetic materials in terms of sustainability, and they beat other natural fibers in terms of performance. In contrast to other natural-based fibers, Kelheim’s viscose fibers can be customized in many ways during the production process: functional additives can be incorporated into the fiber’s matrix, the fiber’s cross-section can be modified or the dimensions of the fiber can be precisely defined,” says Dominik Mayer, R&D project manager at Kelheim Fibres.
With more than 40 years of experience as a partner of the tampon industry, the Bavarians have extensive and wide-ranging knowledge about absorbent hygiene fibers. But for sanitary pads, the demands are different: Every layer fulfils a specific function. The top layer is in direct contact to human skin. This layer must draw the liquid into the core of the pad, while staying dry outside and leaving a pleasant and soft feel on the skin. Kelheim’s hydrophobic fiber Olea is ideally suited for that job: This fiber doesn’t absorb liquids but stays dry while creating an extra tender top sheet—and beating not only synthetic fibers but even other natural fibers in softness.
Kelheim’s premium tampon fiber Galaxy has proven effective in the ADL (Acquisition-Distribution-Layers) of feminine hygiene pads: Due to the trilobal cross section of the fiber, Galaxy creates capillary channels in between the single fibers in nonwovens constructions which offer an excellent wicking performance. Liquid is conducted quickly and efficiently away from the body and distributed evenly in the absorbent core. In comparison to other sustainable and conventional (synthetic) materials, Galaxy excels by faster acquisition, lower rewetting and an enhanced distribution.
Another example is Kelheim’s speciality fiber Bramante: It can store up to 260% of its own weight in liquids in its characteristic segmented hollow core. While other fabrics store liquids between the fibers in a nonwoven, Bramante absorbs the liquid inside the fiber. Bramante is therefore not only very absorbent, but it also excels in its retention capacity.
All of Kelheim’s fibers are made from 100% wood pulp, which comes only from certified and sustainably managed forests. They are fully biodegradable and vegan. Microorganisms in soil and in marine environment make sure that no residues remain after biodegradation.
Ira Frankenberger from the New Business Development team at Kelheim is convinced: “Our fibers can make a substantial contribution towards fully bio-based and biodegradable feminine hygiene products with a performance level comparable to that of synthetic products. Our goal is a fully bio-based solution for fem hy products.”
To this purpose, the speciality fiber manufacturers are following the open innovation concept and constantly seeking for innovative partners—from industry experts to scientific institutes or unconventional start-ups.
