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Women's underwear gets an upgrade

artinfactmag.com

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Re: Women's underwear gets an upgrade

#21

Post by BrandonMarc »

peterwwillis wrote: post #10

This is an interesting yet drastically different take on a similar story from India. Some of you may remember articles about Arunachalam Muruganantham, an uneducated man who lost his family, friends and whole way of life in order to bring affordable sanitary pads to girls and women in India. Now he helps rural villages install, run and make money off of machines which produce sanitary napkins for pennies on the dolla…

If they really wanted to help women around the world, donating a small portion of sales to one African country is not what I would consider a realistic approach to that goal.

... but it's a good start.

Re: Women's underwear gets an upgrade

#22

Post by trhway »

Mz wrote: post #13
trhway wrote: post #6

would be interesting to hear a woman's opinion here. My understanding was that panties are usually bought on the merits of fit and, especially, quality of material. Is the built-in pad an improvement or gimmick?

Having not tried it, I do not know the answer to your question. But, as a woman, I know one issue that is common for women is that pads often fail to cover, get accidentally repositioned, etc and then you end up bleeding onto your panties. This can lead to an unfortunate mess (leakage) even if you are not bleeding very heavily. Plus, some women have very heavy periods and find it a challenge to keep everything clean…

>So I am kind of grossed out by the idea of buying underwear with the intention of bleeding into them and then washing the blood out and then doing that again.

that probably it. Back in USSR times the single use pads were a luxury, and women frequently were getting by with kind of self-made and somewhat reusable pads. The moment [western] single-use pads/tampons became available they stopped using anything else.

In particular, i think, there is an issue with washing out as it is not only blood there, and all the stuff wouldn't be washed out completely, especially from inside built-in padding material. Things change of course, yet 30 years ago regular detergent in regular cloth washer wasn't enough.

Re: Women's underwear gets an upgrade

#23

Post by stinos »

trhway wrote: post #22
Mz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having not tried it, I do not know the answer to your question. But, as a woman, I know one issue that is common for women is that pads often fail to cover, get accidentally repositioned, etc and then you end up bleeding onto your panties. This can lead to an unfortunate mess (leakage) even if you are not bleeding very heavily. Plus, some women have very heavy periods and find it a challenge to keep everything clean…

>So I am kind of grossed out by the idea of buying underwear with the intention of bleeding into them and then washing the blood out and then doing that again. that probably it. Back in USSR times the single use pads were a luxury, and women frequently were getting by with kind of self-made and somewhat reusable pads. The moment [western] single-use pads/tampons became available they stopped using anything else. In p…

The moment [western] single-use pads/tampons became available they stopped using anything else

Which is a shame, as it is not exactly ok for the environment. Same goes for diapers. Tons and tons of throw-away material every single day. Which is the reason my wife uses reusable pads and our (future) children will use reusable diapers. My wife has no problems with the pads whatsoever (not claiming no women will ever have, but it definitely indicates it can be a proper substitute - although in might be in contradiction with what marketing tries to make one believe) and none of the parents we now who are using cotton diapers have problems either (again, same remark).

Re: Women's underwear gets an upgrade

#27

Post by xorcist »

stinos wrote: post #23
trhway wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So I am kind of grossed out by the idea of buying underwear with the intention of bleeding into them and then washing the blood out and then doing that again. that probably it. Back in USSR times the single use pads were a luxury, and women frequently were getting by with kind of self-made and somewhat reusable pads. The moment [western] single-use pads/tampons became available they stopped using anything else. In p…

The moment [western] single-use pads/tampons became available they stopped using anything else Which is a shame, as it is not exactly ok for the environment. Same goes for diapers. Tons and tons of throw-away material every single day. Which is the reason my wife uses reusable pads and our (future) children will use reusable diapers. My wife has no problems with the pads whatsoever (not claiming no women will ever ha…

Reusable cotton diapers are great, if you have access to a washing machine. Doing it by hand is not an option and you don't want to let them sit unwashed for long.

Another thing that's great, if they work for you anatomically, is the little plastic mentruation cups. They are to the tampon what the cotton pad is to the single-use one.

Re: Women's underwear gets an upgrade

#28

Post by Fomite »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #8
trhway wrote: post #6

would be interesting to hear a woman's opinion here. My understanding was that panties are usually bought on the merits of fit and, especially, quality of material. Is the built-in pad an improvement or gimmick?

Not a woman, but its well known they buy several pairs of "period panties" as to not ruin their nicer ones. This seems to be tapping into that market by making an explicit "period panty" that'll last longer, come in dark colors, has a pad, etc. So instead of buying a cheap set of disposable panties and using those, you'd buy a few pairs of these that are specialized for the task. No idea how pricing works out. In the…

You'll find, watching the video again, that the luxury panties are not actually what they're doing in Africa.

Re: Women's underwear gets an upgrade

#29

Post by Mz »

stinos wrote: post #23
trhway wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So I am kind of grossed out by the idea of buying underwear with the intention of bleeding into them and then washing the blood out and then doing that again. that probably it. Back in USSR times the single use pads were a luxury, and women frequently were getting by with kind of self-made and somewhat reusable pads. The moment [western] single-use pads/tampons became available they stopped using anything else. In p…

The moment [western] single-use pads/tampons became available they stopped using anything else Which is a shame, as it is not exactly ok for the environment. Same goes for diapers. Tons and tons of throw-away material every single day. Which is the reason my wife uses reusable pads and our (future) children will use reusable diapers. My wife has no problems with the pads whatsoever (not claiming no women will ever ha…

I have seen conflicting reports regarding the environmental impact of cloth vs disposable diapers. Cloth diapers have to be washed. They use water, detergent, etc. It isn't a clear "win" for the environment to forego disposable diapers.

For me, I have a genetic disorder. Treating it conventionally is extremely expensive (~$100k or more annually, which grows the older -- and sicker -- that you get). I have found that throwing out contaminated clothing is a drop in the bucket compared to what the medical expenses are supposed to be and far more effective in terms of giving me high quality of life (a la "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" -- it is just so much better to protect myself than to let myself get sick and then try to treat it).

Also, I am somewhat skeptical of self-reported anecdata concerning "we do x and it causes no problems" when someone has a stated up front agenda because of the tendency humans have to attribute "bad" outcomes to something they have decided is "bad" and "good" outcomes to something they have decided is "good" and do not confuse them with the facts. I have seen way too much of that in life. People are seldom objective or logical.

Re: Women's underwear gets an upgrade

#30

Post by zasz »

This is actually a really good replacement for pads. They say their underwear can hold one to six teaspoons. There are five milliliters to a teaspoon, and according to Wikipedia, the average period produces one to six tablespoons total. There are three teaspoons to a tablespoon. So their underwear should be able to easily cope with one day's worth of flow, since it should be able to cope with half a period to an entire period's worth.

Assuming their manufacturing process isn't too toxic, this could be vastly more environmentally friendly than pads and tampons. The downside of reusable, durable items of this nature, is that it's gross and requires handwashing.

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