Period Positive
Several companies
are lining up sustainable products for menstruation. It is largely a movement
by women for women
It matters. Period.” When
26-year-old firstgen entrepreneur Tanvi Johri came up with this tagline for her
premium, 100% natural and biodegradable sanitary napkins, Carmesi, the
inspiration came from within. For years, Johri had struggled with painful
periods. Skin rashes were a recurring problem, caused by the plastic sanitary
napkins that she used and what were commonly available.
By the time she was 22, and nearly
a decade or so into her menstruating life, she decided to take stock. “I had
tried various products, soft and plastic, to manage my periods. But the
discomfort was universal. Then, four years ago, while interning at a startup, I
decided to research on organic pads.” In May 2017, Johri designed a sanitary
pad made up of cornstarch and bamboo. In November 2017, she and friend Rikshav
Bohra launched the product. “We first used our savings. Then we got seed
funding from a group of angel investors, including Sunil Kalra and Arun
Venkatachalam from the Murugappa Group.”
It has been a thrill ride for
Johri. “Women write to us with their user experiences. So many of them have
shared stories of discomfort, rashes and allergies they have suffered due to
conventional pads.”
Carmesi made a revenue of ₹1 crore last year and is targeting ₹7-8 crore
this year. This cannot be compared with the Indian sanitary napkin market’s
2017 valuation of $441 million, according to market researcher IMARC. But the
fact remains that period product options for Indian women — which have largely
been either pads or tampons — is increasing.
The growing conversation around
menstruation, the fight for an exemption from the goods and services tax (which
just came through), and period-positive movements — a lot after the movie Pad
Man — have made sure companies don’t ignore the need for innovative, functional
and accessible sanitary products. In short, a new-wave femcare is coming up
with products largely designed and made by women for women. The focus here is
on bodysafe, eco-friendly menstrual hygiene solutions.
Sample this: Companies like
EcoFemme makes reusable cloth pads, while Saathi and Purganics make 100%
biodegradable pads. Adira and Clovia offer period panties. Shecup, Boondh Cup,
Silky Cup are trying to get women to use menstrual cups.
Bengaluru-based Bharti Kannan of
social enterprise Boondh found out about menstrual cups in 2011; she was, as a
student of Tata Institute of Social Sciences specialising in gender studies and
public health, researching on ways to manage periods. She and Sonal Jain, who
operates out of Chennai, have been promoting Boondh cups through social media
initiatives and their menstrual hygiene workshops. The cups, produced in China,
retail at ₹590. From selling 70-80 cups a month in 2016, it now manages to sell
700.
Unlike pads, menstrual cups are
made of medical-grade silicone and fit right inside the vaginal canal, and
collect the blood. The cups can be cleaned easily and reused. The product lasts
for 4-5 years and is environment friendly. “Yet, in a country of 300 million
menstruating women, only 30,000-40,000 use cups. We have not even scratched the
surface yet,” Kannan says.
The lack of awareness might have a
lot to do with social and cultural issues, too. “Could be due to one of all of
the following,” says Ashish Malani of Mumbai-based Shecup, “lack of information
or access, a pad-heavy mindset, or the fact that physical insertion is
considered a no-no for unmarried women.”
Malani, along with his brother
Bharat, entered the market commercially in 2010 with menstrual cup maker
Shecup, after they lost a close relative to cervical cancer because of
unhygienic practices. Bharat, a medical equipment professional, decided to
import cost-effective cervical diagnostics kits. When that didn’t take off, the
brothers researched hygienic menstrual products and decided on the cup for
their self-funded venture.
To avoid “medico-legal issues”,
Malani had to create a gynaecological prototype and approach doctors for
certification. Words like insertion or implant couldn’t be used, as they knew
it would face immediate rejection. “We built a base slowly, through workshops
with corporates and with NGOs.
Even so, the big companies used to
ask if we had ‘ladies’ to hold the workshops,” he adds.
But that situation has changed in
10 years. Malani, who works as an accountant apart from running the social
enterprise, says, “We have seen a jump in our sales in the last two years.
About 500-600 units sell every month as opposed to 50-60 earlier.” What needs
to improve is the level of education. The educated urban woman is as clueless
and period-shy as her rural counterpart, Malani says. “Ignorance and shame are
across the board — at all settings. Our 30-minute corporate sessions have often
run into well over two hours as women have so many questions about their own
bodies.”
This does not surprise social
entrepreneur and cofounder of Ahmedabad-based Menstrupedia, Aditi Gupta, who
has been fighting for creating a period-positive narrative for six years. She
and her partner Tuhin Paul has created a multi-channel educational resource on
menstruation which includes web, comic book and audio visual aid. “Even in schools,
the reproductive chapter is often skipped or covered in a hurry. A study has
found that 3 out of 10 girls don’t even know what menstruation is at the time
of their first period,” she says.
The idea behind Gupta’s venture —
the Menstrupedia Comic — was to be able to discuss menstruation in a
non-threatening way and without the shame. The comic has reached more than 50
million users through online and offline efforts. Four state governments have
adopted the comic and 250-plus schools in India use these books. It has been
translated to 11 regional languages and 4 foreign languages (Spanish, Nepali,
Bulgarian, Russian and Portuguese).
But all these are only a mere drop
in the ocean, says Gupta. “The myths and myth creation around menstruation and
a woman’s growing body is enormous and has to be chipped away slowly.
Thankfully, conversations around period-positivity are catching up and there’s
a zeal to explore alternative period management.” A cup user herself, Gupta
says period management can’t be a fight of products. “Sustainable is the way of
the future. But the burden of the environment can’t be placed on the shoulders
of a 13-year-old menstruating girl,” she says. Gupta wants to create an
informative guide for boys on their puberty, and also to encourage healthy
conversations about sex.
Conversations are required to
change the mindset, says Bengaluru-based entrepreneur Deepa Kumar. “Not
cocktail conversations or ‘trying to trend’ talks, but healthy discussions.” In
2008, Kumar invented the period panty and started online sales through My-Adira.com . She holds a patent
in the US for the product. The self-funded venture sells 5,000 units a month.
A period panty is a fortified
underwear with leak-stops for better stain protection. It is not a substitute
for a pad. “Haven’t we all have asked friends to check for stains when we get
up or avoided wearing white during our cycle,” Kumar asks. This shame is what
she wants to erase. The mother of two daughters says early puberty experiences
can set the course of a girl’s personality. “Her self-esteem and self-worth can
all be affected by the experiences in these formative years.”
The cofounder of lingerie brand
Clovia, Neha Kant, wants to go a step further. After all, she says, innerwear
has to match the advancements in outerwear. Kant and Suman Chowdhury, who heads
product design, founded Clovia in 2015. They decided to launch their first
range of period panties in February of that year. “The insight was from a young
gaggle of design interns who talked of a product to help them manage the fear
of getting stains,” she says. Through an online exercise, they decided to not
make the products in boring old colours. So came panties with a character, and
sporting slogans such as “Not today. Period”, “Dear uterus, f@3k off” or “I
scream, Ice cream”.
Kant says women wrote in thanking
them “for making periods fun”. The products, retailing at 3 for ₹599, were sold out in under three months. “More people are talking about
menstruation as more women and girls are now as active during their periods as
every other day. There was always an inherent need that was not addressed. Now
these needs are getting addressed, and mostly by women, as the problem is
intrinsic to us and we understand it better,” adds Kumar of MyAdira.com.
Nupur
Amarnath
ETM5AUG18
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