Tara Olivo, Associate Editor06.05.25
Increasing concerns among consumers for health, wellness and the environment, paired with increasing government action to curb plastic use, have driven companies and brands to use cleaner, more natural ingredients in their products, and the absorbent hygiene market is no exception. Cotton, bamboo and hemp have become popular fibers in the latest launches of baby diapers, period care and incontinence products.
Demand for plant-based hygiene goods has grown in recent years because of their tie to wellness, and the growth is most notable in baby diapers and wipes, products where product safety is under high scrutiny, according to Liying Qian, global insights manager for Tissue and Hygiene at Euromonitor International. “Health and safety are absolutely the top motivation for the mass consumers’ interest in sustainable claims,” she says. “The environmental aspect is important but often considered as a bonus when the attributes come with health benefits and efficacy first and foremost and at a fair price.”
Kelly Murphy, general manager of organic period care brand Lola, adds that today’s consumer—especially millennial women and younger—is more ingredient-conscious than ever. “They want to know what’s in the products they use on and in their bodies,” she says. “This demand for transparency and sustainability is being driven by growing awareness of harmful additives in conventional products, studies linking materials to health concerns, and a broader cultural shift toward clean living and longevity.”
Pinkie, a sustainable brand of period products for tweens and teens, is seeing consistent consumer demand, driven by a strong shift toward organic and sustainable menstrual care products, according to Sana Clegg, co-founder of Pinkie. “This growth is largely fueled by increasing consumer awareness of health and safety, with a focus on toxin-free options—products that are PFA-free, bleach-free, fragrance-free, and include BPA-free tampon applicators,” she explains. “Sustainability is also a key factor, especially among younger consumers who are motivated by both environmental and cost concerns.”
Additionally, rising awareness and education around menstruation, especially through classroom initiatives and social media, have expanded the market. “The average age of menstruation in the U.S. has dropped to 11.9 years, making early education and access to safe, sustainable options more important than ever,” she adds.
As demand for plant-based products continues to grow, the number of new product launches has continued to increase.
Globally, value sales of online retail disposable hygiene SKUs with the “natural” claim (including menstrual care, baby diapers, adult incontinence and personal wipes) grew almost 20% from 2020-2023, according to Euromonitor’s Sustainability tracker.
“We have seen many new hygiene brands with a strong sustainable positioning enter the market over the past 12 months, some of which have managed to gain investment and expand through mass retail,” Qian says. “These signify an existing consumer appetite for discovery and trials.”
Also, as competition in the sustainable/natural space heats up, Qian notes that consumers are becoming more ingredient-literate, especially around the green-washing trend, and brands are under stronger pressure to show evidence through third-party verification. “As such, consumer trust in sustainable labels is improving,” she adds.
According to Euromonitor’s Voice of the Consumer Lifestyles Survey, 54% of global consumers find the “natural” claim trustworthy in 2025, versus 47% nearly 10 years ago.
Pinkie was founded in 2022 by two moms on a mission to find the best period protection for their own daughters. After discovering that every teen pad on the market was the same size as adult pads, the two developed Pinkie’s pads with innovative sizing and high-quality, organic performance materials to address the white space.
Pinkie offers Mini, Small and Regular-sized menstrual pads that feature an organic cotton topsheet, and in February, the brand expanded its line to include Overnight Pads.
The Overnight Pad is Pinkie’s most supportive option for guaranteed all-night confidence and is also sized and comfortable for young girls to wear. In line with all of Pinkie’s other products, this pad is toxin-free, organic and plant-based, which the brand says is imperative for overnight menstrual products as they’re worn for longer periods of time and aid in a good night’s rest.
Pinkie introduced Overnight Pads in direct response to feedback from the brand’s loyal customers, through reviews, DMs and emails requesting a more absorbent, overnight option, Clegg says. “The Pinkie Overnight Pad launched as the No. 1 new item in menstrual care on Amazon and held that position for six weeks, validating the strong demand and product-market fit. Building on this momentum, we plan to expand into new categories between 2025 and early 2026,” she adds.
In addition to product expansion, the brand has also extended its retail presence. Available on Amazon, as well as in Target, Walmart and CVS stores, Pinkie pads rolled out to Wegmans stores in the Northeast in April, marking its grocery retail debut.
“Pinkie’s success with retailers and national expansion is driven by our unique position as the only organic period pad brand specifically designed for tweens and teens on U.S. shelves,” Clegg says. “We identified a clear white space in the menstrual care aisle and filled it with a better-for-you solution that prioritizes comfort, convenience and clean ingredients. Inspired by the challenges we faced ourselves growing up, Pinkie is focused on solving real pain points for young users. Retailers recognize the gap—and we’re proud to be the brand filling it.”
Meanwhile, Lola has moved beyond the period care aisle and into a new major arena—professional sports. In April, the brand announced a partnership with Barclays Center and the WNBA’s New York Liberty—its first professional sports team partner. As part of the partnership, the Liberty and Lola will work together on community programming to encourage and uplift young women and girls to participate in sports. Additionally, complementary Lola products will now be available in restrooms for all events at Barclays Center—the first time the Brooklyn arena will provide feminine care products free to guests.
“At Lola, we believe that safe period care products with clean ingredients should be accessible in all restrooms, venues and public and private spaces,” says Murphy. “Our partnership with Barclays Center and the New York Liberty is a significant step in supporting the everyday wellness of athletes and fans, and we’re excited to support their mission to provide young girls with the care and resources they need to participate in sports at all levels.”
While expanding its presence in public venues, Lola has also been innovating on the product front—most recently with a move into postpartum care. In January, the brand launched three essentials that support new mothers including Organic Cotton Postpartum Pads, Stretch Mark Prevention Cream and Hot and Cold Perineal Gel Pads.
The Organic Cotton Postpartum Pads are engineered to be three times more absorbent than standard heavy pads, while also featuring 100% organic cotton. The extra-long pads include a moisture-wicking topsheet and are free from chlorine bleach, dyes, fragrances and PFAS.
The Hot and Cold Perineal Gel Pads offer versatile temperature therapy with a convenient two-pack system and 24 disposable liners, providing targeted relief. The flexible design allows for use with or without pads, maximizing comfort and convenience.
Murphy says the brand expanded into postpartum because they saw a clear need. “New moms are often handed products without context—sometimes even without knowing what’s in them,” she says. “We wanted to offer care that was not just effective, but clean, safe, comfortable and thoughtfully designed for recovery. We’re proud to offer products we’d want for ourselves, our sisters and our friends.”
In 2021, Kudos launched a disposable diaper lined with 100% cotton, meaning there’s only cotton—no plastic—touching baby’s skin. The brand, which was first introduced through direct-to-consumer channels, debuted in 400 Target stores nationwide and online at Target.com in August 2024, and after far exceeding expectations on sales in that initial launch, it doubled that store expansion to over 800 stores nationwide in March 2025.
“Year over year, we’re continuing to see demand for natural disposable diapers outpace demand for traditional disposable diapers, with smaller brands, like Kudos, increasingly capturing market share from industry incumbents,” says Moira Finicane, head of marketing, Kudos. “Nowhere has this been more clear to us than with our Target retail launch, where we sold out of our first month’s supply of inventory in just one week!”
Not only do families see cotton as healthier for baby’s skin, but they also care about the environmental impact that comes with getting as much plastic out of the disposable diaper as possible, Finicane adds.
“Babies sit in diapers almost 24/7 for the first two and a half years of their life, and our success at Target really underscores just how much parents’ want a better option when it comes to what’s touching skin for those years,” she says. “That being said, most parents don’t realize that traditional disposable diapers are lined with plastic. Moving forward, we see a real educational opportunity for Kudos to help families better understand why Kudos is different, and why what’s touching baby’s skin matters.”
As Kudos was launching into Target, the brand also moved its manufacturing to the U.S. and is adding a second manufacturing line. Finicane says the biggest driving force behind moving manufacturing to the U.S. was that their customers wanted it. “We’re constantly talking to our customers, and we knew that made in the U.S.A. was important to them,” she says. “Furthermore, because our cotton and most of our materials were already U.S.-sourced, it allowed us to put our raw material suppliers and our manufacturer right next to each other.”
As Kudos forges ahead, it is optimistic about the eco-friendly hygiene market. “With more and more Millennial, and now Gen Z, families having kids, we expect that demand for non-toxic, eco-friendly hygiene products is only going to increase—and we are so excited for this future,” she says. “To date, one of the biggest challenges to more widespread adoption of natural, eco-friendly products has been the high cost of natural materials. The more demand, however, that we show for these materials, the more we can put pressure on the industry to increase supply of natural materials and lower costs. When we can get to the point that natural materials are just as cost-effective as plastic-based materials, that will be a real game changer.”
Next for the company is the launch of cotton-lined training pants for parents who want to continue their Kudos journey into potty-training.
While Kudos uses 100% cotton in the topsheet of the diaper, Cottonsie, a new diaper brand, is using 100% cotton in three key diaper layers, including the topsheet, backsheet and acquisition distribution layer (ADL).
Nicole Richards, the founder and CEO of Cottonsie, has a background in textiles and polymers, specifically, the challenge of making cotton behave more like plastic when it comes to moisture transfer.
“Cotton is such a beautiful, natural material—soft, breathable, and environmentally-friendly—but it’s also known for holding onto moisture, which isn’t great when that moisture is sitting right next to a baby’s delicate skin,” she says. “I developed a patent-pending method that transforms how cotton handles liquid, allowing it to release and transfer moisture more like synthetic plastic-based materials found in conventional diapers.”
With that breakthrough, Cottonsie was able to create a diaper that’s made with 100% cotton in the topsheet, backsheet and ADL—offering the comfort of cotton with the performance of plastic. While the diapers contain some synthetic ingredients to enhance performance, including spandex in the leg cuffs for a comfortable fit, and plastic ear tabs for safety and quality, as well as a biodegradable superabsorbent polymer (SAP) to prevent leaks, most of the parts of the diaper that touch the baby’s and parent’s skin has been swapped out for cotton.
According to Richards, the brand identified a gap in the market for a truly green diaper—one that goes beyond marketing claims. “A lot of brands use terms like ‘plant-based’ or ‘eco-friendly,’ but when you read the fine print or run a materials analysis, it’s clear most of the diaper is still plastic,” she explains. “Some brands include a small amount of plant-based plastic, such as PLA, but it is often encased in conventional plastic—making it more of a marketing gimmick than a genuine environmental benefit. Even though PLA starts as a plant, such as corn, sugarcane or sugar beets, the heavy chemical processing involved turns it into a synthetic plastic that can break down into microplastics. In addition, this process often relies on metal catalysts and petroleum-based inputs that are typically not disclosed to consumers.”
Richards says Cottonsie takes a completely different approach by using real, natural cotton—not just as a marketing hook, but as the core of its product. “That means we’re not just adding a trace of cotton for feel-good appeal. We’re building the diaper around cotton because we believe it’s best for babies and the environment.
Meanwhile, Freestyle, which debuted a baby diaper engineered with a proprietary 100% tree-free organic bamboo core in 2022, recently launched its newest product, the Skin Shield diaper. Designed with high-performance, non-toxic absorbent materials, the diaper is up to 14 times more absorbent than leading brands thanks to a proprietary seven-layer superabsorbent polymer matrix. The diaper also features “cloud-like softness” and super-stretchable sides for a secure fit, and dual wetness indicators for easier changes.
While Freestyle’s BambooTek diaper is positioned as a premium product, the brand aimed to deliver similar performance and meaningful sustainability benefits with the Skin Shield diaper, at a price point closer to mass retail, according to co-founder Russ Wallace.
In a traditional diaper core—typically made of fluff pulp—the SAP is dispersed somewhat randomly and handles the bulk of the absorption, Wallace explains. Pulp surrounds the SAP as a substrate, but because pulp tends to release moisture while SAP does not, this construction can lead to rewetting when a baby sits on a fluff pulp core.
Freestyle developed a different type of substrate that allows SAP to be distributed evenly just beneath the topsheet, which the brand calls an SAP matrix, and is part of the patent-pending construction of Skin Shield. “It is the ‘shield’ in Skin Shield,” Wallace says.
The SAP Matrix has five layers: a distribution layer on top, a layer of SAP evenly distributed across the whole SAP matrix, then a cotton layer to hold it all together as the substrate, plus another layer of SAP and a final distribution layer underneath. That, plus the topsheet and the added pulp layer, gives the diaper an industry-leading seven layers of absorption.
“What that does is as the moisture comes through the topsheet, the distribution layer spreads it out across this shield of SAP,” Wallace explains. “SAP absorbs more slowly than fluff, so there is some fluff underneath, and that allows the overall absorption of the diaper to be truly exceptional.”
Once the liquid passes through the SAP layer, Wallace says it does not come back out.
Freestyle’s Skin Shield diapers, launching this month at Walmart, will be priced competitively with Pampers Swaddlers and Huggies Little Snugglers.
The growing movement toward safer, more sustainable diapers isn’t limited to materials and absorption—it also includes efforts to address plastic waste and ingredient transparency.
In October 2024, HealthyBaby launched SmartyPants, the first-ever EWG verified safe and plastic-neutral newborn diaper and diaper pants. The launch builds on the brand’s ongoing commitment to developmental health and safety, following its 2020 release of the first EWG verified safe diaper, which is made free from 2800+ chemicals and materials linked to health harm in diapers by the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
Mothers today ingest up to 12 plastic bags worth of plastic a year in the form of microplastics and nanoplastics found in water, consumer packaged goods and other daily consumer products, as per EWG, a leading environmental research and advocacy group. Recent research has also discovered the presence of microplastics found in the human placenta and its impact on fertility.
In partnership with RePurpose Global, today all HealthyBaby Diapers are plastic-neutral. According to the brand, being a plastic-neutral diaper means that for every amount of plastic used to make and package the product, an equal amount of plastic waste is removed from the environment. The partnership with rePurpose Global works to recover and responsibly process plastic waste, helping to balance out the environmental footprint. For eco-conscious parents, plastic-neutral certification signals that the brand isn’t just aware of its impact—it is actively working to reduce it in measurable ways.
To date, HealthyBaby has prevented over 1 million pounds of plastic from entering into the environment with diapers designed with technology and materials that are pushing the limit on plant-based materials for diapers. In 2025, HealthyBaby will reclaim an additional 1 million pounds of plastic from the environment by funding the recovery of nature-bound plastic waste.
“Unfortunately, plastic is still a necessary part of making disposable diapers functional, but we are focused on removing plastic from our materials when/where we can without sacrificing performance, such as the switch to 100% paper packaging,” the company said in a statement.
In April, Hiro Technologies announced the world’s first MycoDigestible Diapers (meaning “digested by fungi”), a first-of-its-kind product designed to break down in a landfill thanks to fungi-powered decomposition technology. Co-founded by entrepreneurs Miki Agrawal, the founder of Thinx period underwear, and Tero Isokauppila, Hiro’s launch marks the debut of an entirely new category of sustainability—a natural end-of-life solution for plastic waste, beginning with baby diapers.
“Diapers are the number one source of household plastic waste and the third largest contributor to landfills overall,” says Agrawal. “Each baby goes through ~5000 diapers. The very first disposable diaper ever made? It’s still in a landfill today. We knew there had to be a better way.”
Agrawal was given the idea for the MycoDigestible Diapers by her two-year-old son Hiro Happy. While appalled by how many disposable diapers she was going through with her new baby, Agrawal had a realization: if breast milk is liquid gold, then baby poop must be fertilizer gold. “What if we could harness this fertilizer gold to help enable something to grow and help break down all these diapers?” she thought.
At that moment, her son ran to her with a book, asking her to read it to him. In the book it said, “there are certain fungi that can eat plastic.” From there, Agrawal met Isokauppila, the mushroom guy, and they founded Hiro Technologies in 2021 with the mission to launch the world’s first MycoDigestible diaper by 2024.
While plastic-eating fungi were first discovered by scientists over a decade ago, their potential had remained locked in labs—until now, according to the company. Hiro has pioneered a commercial, shelf-stable fungi technology that targets plastic at a molecular level, breaking it down into soil and mycelium (the root system of mushrooms) without harmful emissions or energy-intensive processes. This patented innovation won the 2024 Hygienix Innovation Award, the highest honor in the nonwovens industry.
Each MycoDigestible Diaper comes with a small packet of shelf-stable, plastic-eating fungi. Parents simply throw the packet away with the used diaper—no extra steps required. Once the diaper reaches a landfill, the fungi activate in the presence of moisture and begin to break down the diaper’s materials from the inside out. These fungi secrete enzymes that target and sever the carbon bonds in plastic, transforming the waste into mycelium and nutrient-rich soil over time. Traditional landfill conditions are typically too dry, oxygen-poor, or contaminated for decomposition to occur naturally, but Hiro’s innovation brings its own biological degradation system directly into the waste stream—no industrial composting or special infrastructure required.
According to Agrawal, fungi have evolved over billions of years to break down lignin with their enzymes, or the hard bark on trees. “It turns out that the chemical composition of this lignin is similar to the chemical composition of plastics,” she explains. “Researchers first discovered certain decomposer fungi growing on plastics in the Amazon around 15 years ago, and since then, scientists have been studying them and their enzymes in labs. Once the ‘macro’ plastics break down, they first become ‘micro,’ then ‘nano,’ and then soil. Obviously, this is the current understanding of plastic degradation, and maybe over time, we can also detect ‘pico’ plastics.”
Hiro fungi’s lifecycle is variable depending on the landfill conditions. The brand typically observes that the fungi begin growing around two weeks once in the landfill, and it has seen significant degradation start occurring in as little as three months. Hiro hopes to publish its first white paper in early 2026 and get a compostability claim soon after. “At this point, we can’t make specific degradation claims and times of breakdown until we’ve repeated the process enough in various conditions within one standard deviation,” Agrawal says.
In terms of diaper components, Hiro intentionally defeatured the Hiro Diaper, stripping it down to only the necessary components needed to create a high-performing diaper. Additionally, it uses an unbleached TruCotton backsheet and unbleached softwood fluff pulp core.
“We believe that bleach is a nasty chemical that should not be anywhere near our children,” says Agrawal. “Additionally, we chose not to use a wetness indicator either because of the harmful chemical compound, bromothymol blue. The Hiro solution allows us to create a high-performing diaper that includes the necessary components to have top absorbency while also having an end-of-life solution that is also gentle on our planet, thanks to our friendly, plastic-eating fungi.”
Meanwhile, Hiro is working with waste facilities and landfill operators to embed fungi more broadly across their systems, with a long-term goal of creating an ecosystem where fungi can help accelerate the breakdown of other plastic waste at scale.
“It’s literally in mushrooms’ DNA to break down complex carbon materials,” explains Isokauppila. “They already break down lignin which has a similar carbon backbone to plastics. We’ve simply re-trained them to do what they already kind of knew how to do.”
“We’re not waiting for policy to catch up. We’re not waiting for corporations to change on their own,” adds Agrawal. “We’re doing it now. With our hands in the dirt, and fungi as our partner.”
The company’s long-term vision is to become a global supplier of plastic-eating fungi, partnering with manufacturers, brands and waste management companies to address plastic pollution at scale. Hiro is actively building an international fungi-powered infrastructure—designed to serve the industries most in need of viable, sustainable disposal methods.
“In the absence of effective recycling, we’ve built a circular, scalable alternative,” says Isokauppila. “We believe the end of plastic begins with mushrooms—and with Hiro.”
Demand for plant-based hygiene goods has grown in recent years because of their tie to wellness, and the growth is most notable in baby diapers and wipes, products where product safety is under high scrutiny, according to Liying Qian, global insights manager for Tissue and Hygiene at Euromonitor International. “Health and safety are absolutely the top motivation for the mass consumers’ interest in sustainable claims,” she says. “The environmental aspect is important but often considered as a bonus when the attributes come with health benefits and efficacy first and foremost and at a fair price.”
Kelly Murphy, general manager of organic period care brand Lola, adds that today’s consumer—especially millennial women and younger—is more ingredient-conscious than ever. “They want to know what’s in the products they use on and in their bodies,” she says. “This demand for transparency and sustainability is being driven by growing awareness of harmful additives in conventional products, studies linking materials to health concerns, and a broader cultural shift toward clean living and longevity.”
Pinkie, a sustainable brand of period products for tweens and teens, is seeing consistent consumer demand, driven by a strong shift toward organic and sustainable menstrual care products, according to Sana Clegg, co-founder of Pinkie. “This growth is largely fueled by increasing consumer awareness of health and safety, with a focus on toxin-free options—products that are PFA-free, bleach-free, fragrance-free, and include BPA-free tampon applicators,” she explains. “Sustainability is also a key factor, especially among younger consumers who are motivated by both environmental and cost concerns.”
Additionally, rising awareness and education around menstruation, especially through classroom initiatives and social media, have expanded the market. “The average age of menstruation in the U.S. has dropped to 11.9 years, making early education and access to safe, sustainable options more important than ever,” she adds.
As demand for plant-based products continues to grow, the number of new product launches has continued to increase.
Globally, value sales of online retail disposable hygiene SKUs with the “natural” claim (including menstrual care, baby diapers, adult incontinence and personal wipes) grew almost 20% from 2020-2023, according to Euromonitor’s Sustainability tracker.
“We have seen many new hygiene brands with a strong sustainable positioning enter the market over the past 12 months, some of which have managed to gain investment and expand through mass retail,” Qian says. “These signify an existing consumer appetite for discovery and trials.”
Also, as competition in the sustainable/natural space heats up, Qian notes that consumers are becoming more ingredient-literate, especially around the green-washing trend, and brands are under stronger pressure to show evidence through third-party verification. “As such, consumer trust in sustainable labels is improving,” she adds.
According to Euromonitor’s Voice of the Consumer Lifestyles Survey, 54% of global consumers find the “natural” claim trustworthy in 2025, versus 47% nearly 10 years ago.
Clean Period Protection
For many entrepreneurs in the natural hygiene space, the drive to create cleaner products is personal.Pinkie was founded in 2022 by two moms on a mission to find the best period protection for their own daughters. After discovering that every teen pad on the market was the same size as adult pads, the two developed Pinkie’s pads with innovative sizing and high-quality, organic performance materials to address the white space.
Pinkie offers Mini, Small and Regular-sized menstrual pads that feature an organic cotton topsheet, and in February, the brand expanded its line to include Overnight Pads.
The Overnight Pad is Pinkie’s most supportive option for guaranteed all-night confidence and is also sized and comfortable for young girls to wear. In line with all of Pinkie’s other products, this pad is toxin-free, organic and plant-based, which the brand says is imperative for overnight menstrual products as they’re worn for longer periods of time and aid in a good night’s rest.
Pinkie introduced Overnight Pads in direct response to feedback from the brand’s loyal customers, through reviews, DMs and emails requesting a more absorbent, overnight option, Clegg says. “The Pinkie Overnight Pad launched as the No. 1 new item in menstrual care on Amazon and held that position for six weeks, validating the strong demand and product-market fit. Building on this momentum, we plan to expand into new categories between 2025 and early 2026,” she adds.
In addition to product expansion, the brand has also extended its retail presence. Available on Amazon, as well as in Target, Walmart and CVS stores, Pinkie pads rolled out to Wegmans stores in the Northeast in April, marking its grocery retail debut.
“Pinkie’s success with retailers and national expansion is driven by our unique position as the only organic period pad brand specifically designed for tweens and teens on U.S. shelves,” Clegg says. “We identified a clear white space in the menstrual care aisle and filled it with a better-for-you solution that prioritizes comfort, convenience and clean ingredients. Inspired by the challenges we faced ourselves growing up, Pinkie is focused on solving real pain points for young users. Retailers recognize the gap—and we’re proud to be the brand filling it.”
Meanwhile, Lola has moved beyond the period care aisle and into a new major arena—professional sports. In April, the brand announced a partnership with Barclays Center and the WNBA’s New York Liberty—its first professional sports team partner. As part of the partnership, the Liberty and Lola will work together on community programming to encourage and uplift young women and girls to participate in sports. Additionally, complementary Lola products will now be available in restrooms for all events at Barclays Center—the first time the Brooklyn arena will provide feminine care products free to guests.
“At Lola, we believe that safe period care products with clean ingredients should be accessible in all restrooms, venues and public and private spaces,” says Murphy. “Our partnership with Barclays Center and the New York Liberty is a significant step in supporting the everyday wellness of athletes and fans, and we’re excited to support their mission to provide young girls with the care and resources they need to participate in sports at all levels.”
Organic period care brand Lola recently announced a partnership with Barclays Center and the WNBA’s New York Liberty. Photo credit: BSE Global.
While expanding its presence in public venues, Lola has also been innovating on the product front—most recently with a move into postpartum care. In January, the brand launched three essentials that support new mothers including Organic Cotton Postpartum Pads, Stretch Mark Prevention Cream and Hot and Cold Perineal Gel Pads.
The Organic Cotton Postpartum Pads are engineered to be three times more absorbent than standard heavy pads, while also featuring 100% organic cotton. The extra-long pads include a moisture-wicking topsheet and are free from chlorine bleach, dyes, fragrances and PFAS.
The Hot and Cold Perineal Gel Pads offer versatile temperature therapy with a convenient two-pack system and 24 disposable liners, providing targeted relief. The flexible design allows for use with or without pads, maximizing comfort and convenience.
Murphy says the brand expanded into postpartum because they saw a clear need. “New moms are often handed products without context—sometimes even without knowing what’s in them,” she says. “We wanted to offer care that was not just effective, but clean, safe, comfortable and thoughtfully designed for recovery. We’re proud to offer products we’d want for ourselves, our sisters and our friends.”
Natural Nappies
In baby care, diaper brands are responding to parents’ growing desire for cleaner and safer products. Rising demand for transparency and increased awareness of potentially harmful chemicals have driven brands to remove unnecessary additives like fragrances and to replace petroleum-based components with plant-derived alternatives.In 2021, Kudos launched a disposable diaper lined with 100% cotton, meaning there’s only cotton—no plastic—touching baby’s skin. The brand, which was first introduced through direct-to-consumer channels, debuted in 400 Target stores nationwide and online at Target.com in August 2024, and after far exceeding expectations on sales in that initial launch, it doubled that store expansion to over 800 stores nationwide in March 2025.
“Year over year, we’re continuing to see demand for natural disposable diapers outpace demand for traditional disposable diapers, with smaller brands, like Kudos, increasingly capturing market share from industry incumbents,” says Moira Finicane, head of marketing, Kudos. “Nowhere has this been more clear to us than with our Target retail launch, where we sold out of our first month’s supply of inventory in just one week!”
Not only do families see cotton as healthier for baby’s skin, but they also care about the environmental impact that comes with getting as much plastic out of the disposable diaper as possible, Finicane adds.
“Babies sit in diapers almost 24/7 for the first two and a half years of their life, and our success at Target really underscores just how much parents’ want a better option when it comes to what’s touching skin for those years,” she says. “That being said, most parents don’t realize that traditional disposable diapers are lined with plastic. Moving forward, we see a real educational opportunity for Kudos to help families better understand why Kudos is different, and why what’s touching baby’s skin matters.”
As Kudos was launching into Target, the brand also moved its manufacturing to the U.S. and is adding a second manufacturing line. Finicane says the biggest driving force behind moving manufacturing to the U.S. was that their customers wanted it. “We’re constantly talking to our customers, and we knew that made in the U.S.A. was important to them,” she says. “Furthermore, because our cotton and most of our materials were already U.S.-sourced, it allowed us to put our raw material suppliers and our manufacturer right next to each other.”
Cotton-based diaper brand Kudos recently moved its manufacturing to the U.S.
As Kudos forges ahead, it is optimistic about the eco-friendly hygiene market. “With more and more Millennial, and now Gen Z, families having kids, we expect that demand for non-toxic, eco-friendly hygiene products is only going to increase—and we are so excited for this future,” she says. “To date, one of the biggest challenges to more widespread adoption of natural, eco-friendly products has been the high cost of natural materials. The more demand, however, that we show for these materials, the more we can put pressure on the industry to increase supply of natural materials and lower costs. When we can get to the point that natural materials are just as cost-effective as plastic-based materials, that will be a real game changer.”
Next for the company is the launch of cotton-lined training pants for parents who want to continue their Kudos journey into potty-training.
While Kudos uses 100% cotton in the topsheet of the diaper, Cottonsie, a new diaper brand, is using 100% cotton in three key diaper layers, including the topsheet, backsheet and acquisition distribution layer (ADL).
Nicole Richards, the founder and CEO of Cottonsie, has a background in textiles and polymers, specifically, the challenge of making cotton behave more like plastic when it comes to moisture transfer.
“Cotton is such a beautiful, natural material—soft, breathable, and environmentally-friendly—but it’s also known for holding onto moisture, which isn’t great when that moisture is sitting right next to a baby’s delicate skin,” she says. “I developed a patent-pending method that transforms how cotton handles liquid, allowing it to release and transfer moisture more like synthetic plastic-based materials found in conventional diapers.”
With that breakthrough, Cottonsie was able to create a diaper that’s made with 100% cotton in the topsheet, backsheet and ADL—offering the comfort of cotton with the performance of plastic. While the diapers contain some synthetic ingredients to enhance performance, including spandex in the leg cuffs for a comfortable fit, and plastic ear tabs for safety and quality, as well as a biodegradable superabsorbent polymer (SAP) to prevent leaks, most of the parts of the diaper that touch the baby’s and parent’s skin has been swapped out for cotton.
According to Richards, the brand identified a gap in the market for a truly green diaper—one that goes beyond marketing claims. “A lot of brands use terms like ‘plant-based’ or ‘eco-friendly,’ but when you read the fine print or run a materials analysis, it’s clear most of the diaper is still plastic,” she explains. “Some brands include a small amount of plant-based plastic, such as PLA, but it is often encased in conventional plastic—making it more of a marketing gimmick than a genuine environmental benefit. Even though PLA starts as a plant, such as corn, sugarcane or sugar beets, the heavy chemical processing involved turns it into a synthetic plastic that can break down into microplastics. In addition, this process often relies on metal catalysts and petroleum-based inputs that are typically not disclosed to consumers.”
Cottonsie diapers recently launched.
Richards says Cottonsie takes a completely different approach by using real, natural cotton—not just as a marketing hook, but as the core of its product. “That means we’re not just adding a trace of cotton for feel-good appeal. We’re building the diaper around cotton because we believe it’s best for babies and the environment.
Meanwhile, Freestyle, which debuted a baby diaper engineered with a proprietary 100% tree-free organic bamboo core in 2022, recently launched its newest product, the Skin Shield diaper. Designed with high-performance, non-toxic absorbent materials, the diaper is up to 14 times more absorbent than leading brands thanks to a proprietary seven-layer superabsorbent polymer matrix. The diaper also features “cloud-like softness” and super-stretchable sides for a secure fit, and dual wetness indicators for easier changes.
While Freestyle’s BambooTek diaper is positioned as a premium product, the brand aimed to deliver similar performance and meaningful sustainability benefits with the Skin Shield diaper, at a price point closer to mass retail, according to co-founder Russ Wallace.
In a traditional diaper core—typically made of fluff pulp—the SAP is dispersed somewhat randomly and handles the bulk of the absorption, Wallace explains. Pulp surrounds the SAP as a substrate, but because pulp tends to release moisture while SAP does not, this construction can lead to rewetting when a baby sits on a fluff pulp core.
Freestyle developed a different type of substrate that allows SAP to be distributed evenly just beneath the topsheet, which the brand calls an SAP matrix, and is part of the patent-pending construction of Skin Shield. “It is the ‘shield’ in Skin Shield,” Wallace says.
The SAP Matrix has five layers: a distribution layer on top, a layer of SAP evenly distributed across the whole SAP matrix, then a cotton layer to hold it all together as the substrate, plus another layer of SAP and a final distribution layer underneath. That, plus the topsheet and the added pulp layer, gives the diaper an industry-leading seven layers of absorption.
“What that does is as the moisture comes through the topsheet, the distribution layer spreads it out across this shield of SAP,” Wallace explains. “SAP absorbs more slowly than fluff, so there is some fluff underneath, and that allows the overall absorption of the diaper to be truly exceptional.”
Once the liquid passes through the SAP layer, Wallace says it does not come back out.
Freestyle’s Skin Shield diapers, launching this month at Walmart, will be priced competitively with Pampers Swaddlers and Huggies Little Snugglers.
Freestyle’s new Skin Shield diapers feature a unique core.
The growing movement toward safer, more sustainable diapers isn’t limited to materials and absorption—it also includes efforts to address plastic waste and ingredient transparency.
In October 2024, HealthyBaby launched SmartyPants, the first-ever EWG verified safe and plastic-neutral newborn diaper and diaper pants. The launch builds on the brand’s ongoing commitment to developmental health and safety, following its 2020 release of the first EWG verified safe diaper, which is made free from 2800+ chemicals and materials linked to health harm in diapers by the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
Mothers today ingest up to 12 plastic bags worth of plastic a year in the form of microplastics and nanoplastics found in water, consumer packaged goods and other daily consumer products, as per EWG, a leading environmental research and advocacy group. Recent research has also discovered the presence of microplastics found in the human placenta and its impact on fertility.
In partnership with RePurpose Global, today all HealthyBaby Diapers are plastic-neutral. According to the brand, being a plastic-neutral diaper means that for every amount of plastic used to make and package the product, an equal amount of plastic waste is removed from the environment. The partnership with rePurpose Global works to recover and responsibly process plastic waste, helping to balance out the environmental footprint. For eco-conscious parents, plastic-neutral certification signals that the brand isn’t just aware of its impact—it is actively working to reduce it in measurable ways.
To date, HealthyBaby has prevented over 1 million pounds of plastic from entering into the environment with diapers designed with technology and materials that are pushing the limit on plant-based materials for diapers. In 2025, HealthyBaby will reclaim an additional 1 million pounds of plastic from the environment by funding the recovery of nature-bound plastic waste.
“Unfortunately, plastic is still a necessary part of making disposable diapers functional, but we are focused on removing plastic from our materials when/where we can without sacrificing performance, such as the switch to 100% paper packaging,” the company said in a statement.
Plastic-Eating Innovation
While sustainability has been a major focus in the diaper industry in recent years, it’s reported that disposable diapers can take over 500 years to decompose in a landfill. To tackle this issue, manufacturers have explored composting, recycling and other circular strategies. Now, a new brand is introducing an entirely different approach—one powered by fungi.In April, Hiro Technologies announced the world’s first MycoDigestible Diapers (meaning “digested by fungi”), a first-of-its-kind product designed to break down in a landfill thanks to fungi-powered decomposition technology. Co-founded by entrepreneurs Miki Agrawal, the founder of Thinx period underwear, and Tero Isokauppila, Hiro’s launch marks the debut of an entirely new category of sustainability—a natural end-of-life solution for plastic waste, beginning with baby diapers.
“Diapers are the number one source of household plastic waste and the third largest contributor to landfills overall,” says Agrawal. “Each baby goes through ~5000 diapers. The very first disposable diaper ever made? It’s still in a landfill today. We knew there had to be a better way.”
Agrawal was given the idea for the MycoDigestible Diapers by her two-year-old son Hiro Happy. While appalled by how many disposable diapers she was going through with her new baby, Agrawal had a realization: if breast milk is liquid gold, then baby poop must be fertilizer gold. “What if we could harness this fertilizer gold to help enable something to grow and help break down all these diapers?” she thought.
At that moment, her son ran to her with a book, asking her to read it to him. In the book it said, “there are certain fungi that can eat plastic.” From there, Agrawal met Isokauppila, the mushroom guy, and they founded Hiro Technologies in 2021 with the mission to launch the world’s first MycoDigestible diaper by 2024.
While plastic-eating fungi were first discovered by scientists over a decade ago, their potential had remained locked in labs—until now, according to the company. Hiro has pioneered a commercial, shelf-stable fungi technology that targets plastic at a molecular level, breaking it down into soil and mycelium (the root system of mushrooms) without harmful emissions or energy-intensive processes. This patented innovation won the 2024 Hygienix Innovation Award, the highest honor in the nonwovens industry.
Hiro Technologies’ MycoDigestible Diapers are designed to break down in a landfill thanks to fungi-powered decomposition technology.
Each MycoDigestible Diaper comes with a small packet of shelf-stable, plastic-eating fungi. Parents simply throw the packet away with the used diaper—no extra steps required. Once the diaper reaches a landfill, the fungi activate in the presence of moisture and begin to break down the diaper’s materials from the inside out. These fungi secrete enzymes that target and sever the carbon bonds in plastic, transforming the waste into mycelium and nutrient-rich soil over time. Traditional landfill conditions are typically too dry, oxygen-poor, or contaminated for decomposition to occur naturally, but Hiro’s innovation brings its own biological degradation system directly into the waste stream—no industrial composting or special infrastructure required.
According to Agrawal, fungi have evolved over billions of years to break down lignin with their enzymes, or the hard bark on trees. “It turns out that the chemical composition of this lignin is similar to the chemical composition of plastics,” she explains. “Researchers first discovered certain decomposer fungi growing on plastics in the Amazon around 15 years ago, and since then, scientists have been studying them and their enzymes in labs. Once the ‘macro’ plastics break down, they first become ‘micro,’ then ‘nano,’ and then soil. Obviously, this is the current understanding of plastic degradation, and maybe over time, we can also detect ‘pico’ plastics.”
Hiro fungi’s lifecycle is variable depending on the landfill conditions. The brand typically observes that the fungi begin growing around two weeks once in the landfill, and it has seen significant degradation start occurring in as little as three months. Hiro hopes to publish its first white paper in early 2026 and get a compostability claim soon after. “At this point, we can’t make specific degradation claims and times of breakdown until we’ve repeated the process enough in various conditions within one standard deviation,” Agrawal says.
In terms of diaper components, Hiro intentionally defeatured the Hiro Diaper, stripping it down to only the necessary components needed to create a high-performing diaper. Additionally, it uses an unbleached TruCotton backsheet and unbleached softwood fluff pulp core.
“We believe that bleach is a nasty chemical that should not be anywhere near our children,” says Agrawal. “Additionally, we chose not to use a wetness indicator either because of the harmful chemical compound, bromothymol blue. The Hiro solution allows us to create a high-performing diaper that includes the necessary components to have top absorbency while also having an end-of-life solution that is also gentle on our planet, thanks to our friendly, plastic-eating fungi.”
Meanwhile, Hiro is working with waste facilities and landfill operators to embed fungi more broadly across their systems, with a long-term goal of creating an ecosystem where fungi can help accelerate the breakdown of other plastic waste at scale.
“It’s literally in mushrooms’ DNA to break down complex carbon materials,” explains Isokauppila. “They already break down lignin which has a similar carbon backbone to plastics. We’ve simply re-trained them to do what they already kind of knew how to do.”
“We’re not waiting for policy to catch up. We’re not waiting for corporations to change on their own,” adds Agrawal. “We’re doing it now. With our hands in the dirt, and fungi as our partner.”
The company’s long-term vision is to become a global supplier of plastic-eating fungi, partnering with manufacturers, brands and waste management companies to address plastic pollution at scale. Hiro is actively building an international fungi-powered infrastructure—designed to serve the industries most in need of viable, sustainable disposal methods.
“In the absence of effective recycling, we’ve built a circular, scalable alternative,” says Isokauppila. “We believe the end of plastic begins with mushrooms—and with Hiro.”
