By Susan Maccarelli of Beyond Your Blog
Have you shopped for feminine hygiene products lately? It’s easier to get a backdated purchase order from a government agency than it is to figure out which pads or tampons to buy these days. At this point, I’m ready to throw in the moist towelette and start using those horrific reusable pads or a menstrual cup, even at the risk of turning my bathroom into the prom scene of Carrie.
I remember the days of going into the store, grabbing one of two blue boxes and going on my way. Now I can stand there for a good 20 minutes and still come home with the wrong thing. This is one area of my life where I just don’t want or need options, including the following impractical choices:
1. Length
While extra long pads are sort of like a soothing body pillow for my crotch, they’re just not practical. I get that we’re all unique snowflakes, but isn’t the length of the pink canoe somewhat universal? If you’re bleeding onto the south pole of an extra long pad, you might want to get yourself checked.
2. Thickness
Sure, sometimes an extra thick pad is in order. What I don’t understand are the thin ones. My experience with the panty liner has been less than positive. No one likes to say (or hear) the word ‘panty.’ More importantly, while they might look dainty when first attached, when you check in later, they have typically turned upside down, folded into an origami flapping bird, and are nesting in your whatnot.
3. Scented
Can we agree that adding a scent to tampons is like trying to cover up the odor of a three-day-old corpse with a clove orange? If you’ve got so much airflow down there that the scent is wafting, you’ve got bigger problems.
4. Sport
I’ve never been good at sports, nor am I an avid exerciser. Do I need to be reminded of that every time I grab for the tampon box with that headphone-wearing female jogger? Is she trying to tell me that athletes need special tampons because the common couch potato’s tampon would just drop right out of their active jog boxes? They are all the same. Let’s not twat-shame with ‘sport’ descriptors.
5. Wings
Before they invented wings, it was simpler time. A time when I didn’t need to spend 5 extra minutes in the bathroom peeling off stickers and swaddling my crotch panel with weak adhesive for no particular reason. My pads were always wide enough to protect my dainties from flying debris without being mummy wrapped.
6. Everything Else
Super, super plus, pearl, gentle glide, chlorine-free organic, slender, silk, overnight, odor-lock, leak-guard, extra heavy, unscented, tween, ultra, jumbo, infinity, eternity, extreme, glow in the dark, toile, chevron, pumpkin spice, salted caramel and gluten free. No. No. No!
Don’t reach for the re-useable pads just yet (or without plastic gloves and a pair of tongs). Stay focused and try your best to filter out the flexi wings and cardboard applicators. If all else fails and you end up accidentally buying the scented extra long sport tampons, just get some headphones and go for a jog.
This post was originally published on In the Powder Room.
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About the Author
Susan Maccarelli is the creator of Beyond Your Blog, a resource site that focuses on helping bloggers and writers successfully submit their writing to websites and anthologies. In order to make sure my fans think I am credible, I occasionally submit very academic original pieces like this one to be published online. If I can help just one blogger…