Looking back 80 years ago, women earned just over half of what men did. They could not take out loans or credit cards in their own names, and there were laws that prohibited the dissemination of information about contraception. It was also the last time there was any significant innovation in the period product market. So much has evolved since then, and yet tampons remain almost exactly the same. Disruptive change is long overdue. It’s time to rethink and redesign the reliability, sustainability, safety and comfort of tampons and give women the period products they deserve.
A Brief History of Tampon Innovation
In order to understand how cycles of innovation have worked in this market, it’s important to understand the key players. Historically, the space was dominated by large legacy consumer-packaged-good (CPG) juggernauts like P&G, Edgewell and Johnson & Johnson, as well as by private label store brands that were produced by one of only a few contract manufacturers around the world. These players mainly focused on non-pledget innovation because of a product that was released in the 1980s called Rely. The Rely tampon, which was made of super absorbent fibers, was said to lead to multiple cases of Toxic Shock Syndrome that resulted in infections, and even deaths.
Those tragedies created widespread hesitancy in the industry to touch the pledget or work with different materials. As a result, most innovations have centered around applicators, with the three-piece applicator pioneered by contract manufacturers.
During user research and surveys, when tampons were removed for leaking, a significant portion of the pledget was unused. And yet, the only pledget improvements since the 80’s have been from a change in fiber shape with a trilobal rayon fiber called Galaxy made by Kelheim Ltd. This change allowed manufacturers to reduce the overall weight of the pledget and save money but only offered a minor improvement in performance. The other change in pledget was from the Procter & Gamble leakguard braid string. Again, it was only a minor improvement in performance and designed to compensate for the deficiencies in the pledget itself.
Safety concerns haven’t been the only barriers to innovation, however. The way the tampon-making machine business is structured has also led to a lack of notable design innovation. Over time, tampon pledgets have migrated to three basic types: Grooved (JNJ/Edgewell), Teabag (P&G/Tampax), and Flower (Edgewell/Playtex). Most tampon machines in the world are designed and distributed by Ruggli AG. The corporation has created various models that can output different tampon designs at about 100 pieces per minute, which is incredibly efficient. Because Ruggli AG is the sole company in this area of the market, it sets the standard for what is possible from a manufacturing perspective, and some companies still upgrade or build their own machines.
Considering that this degree of efficiency is combined with strict regulation from the FDA on tampons, we can begin to gain a clearer understanding of why nobody has thought to change the design before. If consumers were clamoring for a new-and-improved tampon, CPG companies would likely have responded to that demand, but consumers haven’t been. Why? Because they often blame themselves for product failure. They believe that their flow is too heavy or that they inserted the product in the wrong way. Consumers are “happy enough” with what is available to them because they have no idea that a better performing product is possible.
What Consumers Want\
Consumers may be complacent with the status quo, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about the products they use. During extensive interviews, we identified three key parameters for success. The first is performance and reliability—“Will my tampon last a few hours? Will it leak?” The second is safety—“Am I at risk for TSS?” Third is sustainability—“What is my impact using this product?” In North America alone, close to 20 billion sanitary napkins, tampons and applicators are sent to landfills every year and these plastic-centric products will live on for at least 500 years. Moreover, production of the plastic components of pads and tampons requires massive amounts of fossil fuel. A year’s worth of period products was estimated by a Harvard researcher to have a carbon footprint of 5.3 kg CO2 equivalents.
Right now the FDA manages performance and safety and manufacturers are accountable for sustainability. But should we be questioning what those standards are? The organic tampon movement, spearheaded by startups like Lola and Cora, have pushed consumers to think more deeply about materials, but are there truly unsafe materials on the market? Should we be pushing further to consider additional standards and frameworks to think about and test for performance and safety?
We believe the answer is yes.
A Closer Look at Performance
Right now tampon performance in the eyes of the FDA is based on the product’s ability to absorb to a certain capacity. Tampons are categorized as light, regular, super or super plus based on the amount of fluid they absorb, and they are tested using a syngina (synthetic-vagina). It disperses fluid over time to a tampon suspended in a pressurized chamber to determine the tampon’s absorbency capacity by weighing the tampon after it is fully saturated.
For consumers, it is pretty arbitrary to think about these categorizations in the context of how much (in mg) of menses is exiting their body during menstruation. It is also really not the most important thing on the consumer’s mind when choosing a product.
Consumers also know that some leaks occur before the tampon is fully saturated, so obviously tampon total capacity is not fully utilized.
Whether you are an athlete, a mom, a teacher or a firewoman, anyone that menstruates has encountered a critical moment while on their period. When a tampon fails (“leaks”), the consequences can be catastrophic. Even if a tampon doesn’t fail, the anticipation of failure or the potential for failure can lead to distraction and a loss of focus.
Given that this is a main concern for women, why do we not test tampons for their likelihood of failure before complete saturation? Because the syngina method does not accurately represent what is happening inside the vaginal canal during menstruation. The shedding of the uterine lining is uneven, sporadic and unpredictable. The syngina applies a fake saline-like solution, whereas menses is not a uniform viscosity, directly to the tampon at a uniform interval.
Our proposed solutions are to add a “time to leak” standard and to manipulate the syngina testing method to better represent menstrual activity, so that we can better understand how tampons are actually performing. Even better testing at different flow rates would represent a palpable improvement by providing additional insight into better designs and standards.
A Closer Look at Safety
Safety is a massive concern for users, mostly because they often don’t understand TSS. Post-Rely, the FDA issued a rule that TSS safety information must be distributed to all women, regardless of their risk. This included the requirement that information about TSS be included on tampon box labels and as inserts inside the boxes.
Despite these requirements, we have found that women are scared of TSS due to a lack of information. Labeling is important, but it hasn’t done enough to empower women with the information they need to make the most informed decisions about products that interact with their bodies every month for about 40 years of their life. Through extensive research and consultations with experts, we have determined that education is not needed but necessary to innovate in the tampon space in a meaningful way.
Currently, the FDA directs women to use the lowest absorbency possible to meet their needs. Since current tampons leak when only partially saturated, some women unnecessarily go to the next highest absorbency level. Developing better methods to understand the properties of tampons would lead to better designs. Most importantly, it could possibly encourage women to use much lower absorbent capacity products that safely meet their level of protection needs. This logic could also provide a more sustainable design using fewer materials.
Building a Better Tampon
For all these reasons and more, the tampon space has failed to see significant innovation that would improve their users’ lives. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t ample opportunities to move the space forward and create products that are reliable, high-performing and safe. And of course, that are comfortable. The comfort-level of the tampon is just as important as its absorbency and women shouldn’t have to choose between the two. It’s possible to check all of these boxes, if the will and creativity is there to do so.
—Greta Meyer is the CEO and co-founder of Sequel. www.trysequel.com.
