Ra ra skirt

[slemslempike]

Previously on slemslempike, I made a post about tampons with skirts.

I initially locked it because of paranoia about Tampax hunting me down for breaking the rather loose security thing I ticked and leaving me in a pool of (blue) blood). Now they are advertising it, according to notmarcie, so I needn't have, but since there are comments I will leave it locked, in case people didn't want to share.

Anyway, further to that post, in which I signed up for a trial, I have received my box of clothed tampons. I am to use them as I normally would, not allow my friends and family to use them, and send back any unused ones. They came with a sheaf of informative leaflets, the first of which told me brightly that these tampons were definitely not harmful! At all! The rest of the leaflets were mostly warning me about the dangers of Toxic Shock Syndrome.

Anyway, my lady time is not yet upon me, and so until I can report properly on the actual experience of using a tampon with a skirt, I bring you the experiments of slemslempike and the frilly tampon.




So here we have a filly tampon. It's less of a skirt, if you ask me, and more of a kind of useless bunch of material at the base. So there's the main bulk of cotton (or whatever it is) that is the tampon, and then over that there's another covering, which goes right over it and then has excess material at the string. It's sort of on one side of the string, if you can see that.

For my first experiment I got a glass of water, coloured it with red food colouring for verisimilitude, and dipped the tampon into it until the top half was quite heavily saturated, and then turned it upside down.



This wasn't a very good way of doing it, it turns out. The skirt thing held off bravely for a while, but then was entirely red. So I tried a different thing. I got a small toiletries bottle, filled that with blood-substitute, wedged the tampon in the mouth, and turned it upside down.



This worked better! Although I got a bit bored of holding it upside down, and wished I were a proper scientist with clamps and things. This time, the skirt thing did hold off for a bit longer, though I'm not sure how much time that would buy you, but then succumbed gradually.



So. Not that much of an advance, you might think. But I beg you to note that in both experiments the string remained spotless. At last an end to tampon-string-staining misery!

Now, bring on the bleeding, and I can try it out for realz.

Comments

[notmarcie.livejournal.com]

Very good scientific work. I think I might scout about in Superdrug this week to see if I can buy a box for my own scientific experiments as I have a normal tampon at home. We need to do a side by side comparison I think.
I am still debating how to test the scented ones for the ability to mask "odour" without having to actually use it during my special lady time.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

Dunk in Mooncup.

Leave.

Sniff.

Hope no one is watching.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Side by side would be good - I have no normal tampons around so couldn't do that.

I think you could keep the blood from the mooncup, soak the tampons in it, and then see about the scentedness.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

What actual difference is some flimsy porous stuff supposed to make, frilly or not? I am confused.

Maybe it is there to make the process of removing the thing nastier.

I am just grateful that scented tampons are not the norm in the UK. I lurk in that bit of Boots sometimes to see if the Mooncup section is still nicely at visible height (yes, very sad and a bit creepy, I know) and I have yet to see anything that sinister. I live in fear, though.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

It is for EXTRA PROTECTION. And based on the survey I filled in, keeping the string clean.

That's not sad or creepy! I think highly of you for it. Our local organic co-op stocks the mooncup, but I haven't checked to see if Boots do. My mum once tried to tell me what a funny conversation she'd been having with a friend that ended abruptly when she said "have you heard of a mooncup</i" and I sad "yes, I have one", and she stopped talking.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

I got mine in Boots in Newcastle, because I concluded that it was worth demonstrating to them that there was Demand. They don't even keep them on a bottom shelf or anything. I am a bit impressed, although obviously not enough to forgive them for testing on animals and bombarding me with ways of becoming a PROPER LADY every time I go in there which is lots more often than it should be.

*small pause to miss the Body Shop and be grateful their stuff always made my skin flake so I only needed them for cotton wool and such*

My mum went Urgh at first re: Mooncup, then Well I can see the point, then Really? when I mentioned the Lots Less Cramping, but says she is too near not needing one any more to go through the learning curve. So, um, almost success there I feel. And I owe her many thanks for never really doing makeup so that I grew up fully aware that it was not some sort of obligation and did not have to learn that myself after horrible teenage experiments.

I think the skirt seems less gleefully insane than those Lil-Lets that come covered in gel. Come on, P&G, you can be weirder than that!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

LIL-LETS COVERED IN GEL????

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

I saw them in Tesco once and read the box. As one does. It seems they are to enable one to insert a tampon more easily on those later hardly-bleeding days when wearing a tampon is at its least easy and most inadvisable. I think they were in a sort of sealed pouch. They would, um, at least stop that horrible dragging feeling of removing a not-that-damp tampon one probably shouldn't have worn in the first place?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

The dragging feeling is horrible, but GEL? Wouldn't that stop the tampon absorbing anything?

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

I did wonder that. Maybe it's water-based? And, um, magic?

I may apply for membership of a species that sensibly re-absorbs its womb lining. It is the only solution I see to the MADNESS.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Oh dear heavens, and also huh?

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

http://www.lil-lets.com/products/extra-comfort/

I didn't imagine them! I feel less insane now.

I stand by the being-anything-but-a-primate, though. I used to faint regularly out of blood loss as a teenager and it was not a clever way to run a menstrual cycle.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, the 'huh?' wasn't directed at your not-a-primate theory (which, frankly, would be a useful skill) - I'd meant to quote the water-based/magic line.

I don't wear tampons at all, ever - suspect it's partly due to having been a very impressionable age during the whole Toxic Shock Syndrome/Rely events - but even if I did...urgh, if there isn't enough blood then you shouldn't be wearing a tampon!

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

Oh, right-ho. That line was meant to be gibberish and to indicate my complete baffledness re: gel tampons. Oops.

I wore tampons for years because I got the Horror of Pads before I got the fear of tampons, and mere horrendous health risks could not compete with the reality of horrible squelchiness and (TMI approaching) the horrible pain of menstrual dreadlocks. Sort of like smoking even though you know it is utterly utterly dreadful for you, only with more womb lining involved. My Mooncup has made everything lovely, though, and the thought of tampons seems pretty horrid in retrospect.

[cosmolinguist]

"have you heard of a mooncup"

That reminds me; a friend was telling me that she got a coil fitted this week and asked at the doctors if it was okay to use a mooncup with it. Nobody there had heard of it, so they asked her to bring hers in when she came back to the fitting appointment. She did and said they held it like it was an unexploded nuclear bomb.

[notmarcie.livejournal.com]

According to TamBrands, it helps draw "fluid" into the bottom of the tampon to protect against leakage. In my experiment I will be seeing how much extra time it buys you compared to a normal tampon. I might even take bets. I think 2 minutes.

I really want to know what article is about, but I'm not paying eight quid . It seems that the it may not just be a skirt but a fluid wicking over-wrap skirt.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

I have visions of it splashing when removed. Lovely.

That article is one or more people pretending very hard that their life's work is not an embarrassment.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I used my academic log-in, and it seems that it's a patent listing. My search also brought up items for "highly deformable tampon" http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20060025741.html

But wait! I have found something better. It is an auxiliary product, that functions as FINGER PROTECTION during tampon use.

[aldenmacrae.livejournal.com]

Maybe it is there to make the process of removing the thing nastier.

Ooh, I hope its whole purpose is to fling blood everywhere during the removal process! That would be heaps of fun.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

It would fully recapture that "oops, I broke the seal a bit wrong" moment from the Mooncup Learning Curve. Good times.

[jekesta]

You don't need clamps and things to be a real scientist, because better than that you have a tiny monkey orangutan in the background which you are probably experimenting on AS WE SPEAK. Dude.

Generally you bleed all the time at the moment, don't you? Probably we won't have to wait long for pROPER BLOOD EXPERIMENTS. Good.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I do. Probably now there is an INCENTIVE I will never bleed again. Dammit.

He is there! In the second second experiment picture it even looks like he's holding the bottle up for me.

I WOULD NEVER EXPERIMENT ON A MONKEY ORANGUTAN.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I saw an ad for those on the telly. It was a horrid demeaning thing involving a woman with a very short white skirt tucked into her pants, with the tagline 'it could have been worse' since, presumably, the pants could have been stained with the BLOOD OF HER SHAMEFULNESS.

I haven't had fewer cramps since I started using the mooncup, but it is so brilliant in other ways that I don't care.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Oh, ew. There's a very cool bit in one of the Rosie Rushton books from ages ago where one girl's mum has a period emergency, but doesn't get phased, and just holds her handbag in front of the stain, and coolly continues arguing with the shop assistant.

I don't think I've had fewer cramps, but it is generally fab.

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Enough of my flist are using this mooncup that I'm intrigued. Don't know if it's available in Australia, but I could get one later this year in England... how much are they? Do they need to be sized? How do you tell if they're correctly inserted and when they're full, and what do you do when it is - tip the blood down the toilet, rinse it in the basin and reinsert?

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

menstrual_cups answer questions I hadn't even thought of.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

You can get them from Boots over here - I think mine was about £15.

They come in two sizes - one 'over thirty or have had children', one not - I've got the bigger one and it fits just fine.

You tell if they're properly inserted by running your finger round the edge to make sure it's not still folded, and I've never seen mine more than half full even on first day of period - I just empty it morning and evening.

And yes, tip blood down loo, rinse in basin, reinsert. Which becomes rather interesting if you are, for example, in your parents-in-law's enormous bathroom with about an acre of white carpet between the loo and the sink and you've already taken your lenses out, as happened to me last year, though fortunately no untoward spills occurred.

They need boiling in between periods to sterilise them, but other than that they're much less of a faff than ordinary sanpro.

Mooncup page here.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

When I first saw these pictures I thought you had actually posted pictures of your used tampons, and I was in awe of you.

Putting that initial reaction aside, however, I will note that although I have never been concerned about whether or not the string on my tampon gets "stained", I do care about whether it gets wet with blood, because then when I pull a tampon out blood gets all over my hands. And not that they can't and won't be washed, of course, but I just don't really like it. This may be because... actually, I'll wait for you to ask me further questions before I explain my problem here, as it involves rather detailed descriptions of my own menstrual issues.

Anyway, though. Your original post about this business is kind of horrifying, the questions they asked.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I would be interested to hear any of your menstrual issues you'd like to share, without getting too nosey.

I think a string wet with blood is totally a valid issue for tamppon manufacturers to address, but the survey was so specifically about staining that it is hard not to mock them for that. The survey was just so overloaded with ideas of the inherent awfulness of periods, and how we'd really want someone to take away the ick. Urgh.

I still might! Especially now I know that awe might be involved.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Awe would totally be involved if you posted pictures of your used tampons. I would have paramount respect for you for the rest of your life if you did that. Also, I completely take your point about their phrasing - "staining"? THE WHOLE TAMPON IS DRENCHED IN BLOOD, DUDE, WHY DO I CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THE STRING. But - this is My Issue With Menstruation - I tend to get these huge, gloppy, messy black clots that often work their way onto/get caught on the string, and when I try to grab the string and pull the tampon out, suddenly I've got a handful of black clot. And it's just gunky and messy and takes forever to get rid of. Now I don't know if the "skirt" would prevent that, but I'd be thrilled if it did.

I tried to use a mooncup once, but it didn't sit right on my cervix or something. I don't know exactly what the problem is, but I know it worked perfectly for 45 minutes, just long enough for me to go to bed, and then apparently when I shifted in bed at some point the mooncup shifted too, or something, and the bottom line is that it spilled everything out and stayed askew for the rest of the night, so it was like I had nothing in at all. It was the first day of my period, and my periods are always incredibly heavy. It looked as though there had been a massacre the next morning. I literally had to throw my mattress out.

I'm not sure why I thought you needed to know that story.

[tornyourdress.livejournal.com]

I so wish that you were a tampon advertiser lady.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I'm probably a marketing genius manque.

[aldenmacrae.livejournal.com]

1. 'Lady time.' Heeeee.

2. THANK YOU FOR USING RED LIQUID. Seriously. I can't stand it when advertisers use blue liquid!

3. So, does the skirt, um... no, ok, I have no real questions about the skirt because I am mostly just going: ~boggle~ at it.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Blue liquid is more versatile, because it can be blood and pee! TOTALLY INOFFENSIVE.

Yeah, the skirt is mostly for boggling.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

Science NEEDS you, Clare. And that thing looks diabolical. I think that's not so much a tampon with a skirt as a sort of half unravelled tampon that they never finished making. DON'T TRY IT. Well, do, but then write awful responses to it. Good.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I wish social science NEEDED me. There is less food dye in m line of work, which is quite sad. It's a very, very odd thing. I shall do more investigation, and possibly win a Nobel.

[ex-rita.livejournal.com]

What did you use as a blood substitute?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

It's water with red food colouring. I had toyed with the idea of making it more viscous and realistic, but then I envisioned the mess I could make in the kitchen and the possibility of staining absolutely everything I own, and I went with the water.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

I love the experimenting and am very impressed :)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I had great fun doing it.

How about THIS for a tampon?

[pisica.livejournal.com]

http://www.americaninventorspot.com/security_system

Re: How about THIS for a tampon?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

OMG I WANT ONE

Need not be female or menstruating to use effectively.