Hello, Plastic-Free Periods: the World's First Reusable Tampon Applicator

The average woman will have a tampon inside her for a collective 7.5 years. Celia Pool, Co-Founder of Dame.

2015 was hailed as the year of the period: a woman ran the London Marathon whilst freebleeding; there was outrage when a photo of a woman with blood on her knickers was taken down twice by Instagram; the Tampon Tax sparked global protest, and the tennis star Heather Watson talked publicly about how her period affected her game. After years of being shrouded in shame and fear, periods finally started moving into the public arena. As a result we have started to see innovation in the feminine care space which until this time had largely been ignored.

Investors are finally getting behind the space with a wave of new feminine care products hitting the market especially in the US, with market leader, Lola having recently raised a $24 million series B round. With the global tampon market estimated to reach $4.6 billion by 2020, tapping into the two biggest trends, healthy alternatives to existing products with strong environmental credentials, the latest product to hit the market, D by DAME, is revolutionary.

D is the worlds first reusable tampon applicator, and alongside it DAME have launched a range of organic, toxin free tampons. Launched on Kickstarter in March 2018, D exceeded its crowdfunding target by 500% from backers in 50 countries. It achieved worldwide media coverage and has caught the attention of bloggers such as Zoella and Niomi Smart, and is being stocked in Waitrose.

I chatted with Celia Pool, co-founder of DAME to understand the inspiration behind creating an environmentally focused feminine care company. Pool explained: We were already working in the menstrual product sector, delivering a range of high street products to women across the UK via a subscription service. But increasingly we couldnt ignore the waste produced by these products.

It is estimated that 100 billion period-related products are thrown away around the world each year.Great reusable menstrual products as menstrual cups have existed for decades, but very few of our customers were buying them. Our research showed it was the significant habit change that was preventing women from switching.

So we saw an opportunity to create a sustainable solution that was really easy for people to adopt - particularly for the 60% of UK women who prefer applicator tamponsPool and her co-founder Alec Mills spent 2 years of careful research and design to launch D, the worlds first reusable tampon applicator. D works like a normal applicator but is reusable - providing comfort and familiarity of using a tampon but without the waste. By switching to a D, the co-founders claim a woman can save up to 12,000 disposable applicators from reaching landfill or polluting our oceans.

Pool explained: We ensured the design was familiar and intuitive, so women did not have to compromise on the convenience of established rituals. For example, we knew that hygiene could be a significant barrier to entry, so we worked with leading microbiologists and medical engineers and used the best medical grade, anti-microbial materials on the market. As a result, the consumer only has to rinse the applicator in cold water after use to keep it clean.

These are simple steps, requiring minimal habit change, but that in turn contribute to significant environmental change.As the trend has moved towards a growing awareness and push towards health and well-being in what we eat, there has been a simultaneous rise in awareness by women about what they are putting into their bodies. Although there is no research to indicate that organic tampons are better for womens health, and organic tampons are not known to prevent Toxic Shock Syndrome, over the last two years there are multiple new brands coming to market boasting organic menstrual products with stores like CVS and Target putting organic tampons on their shelves for the first time.

Pool explained: For decades, the menstrual market has been dominated by a couple of major players, churning out synthetic products to consumers. In both the US and UK, these big corporations are under no obligation to list what goes into their products. Rayon, wood pulp, dioxin, fragrances, bleach are just a few of the ingredients in many popular products.

For decades, women have been given little to no information about what their tampons are made of, even though the vagina is one of the most absorbent parts of the body. The average woman will have a tampon inside her for a collective 7.5 years.

Thats a lot of time to have something inside you that you know relatively little about. We believe women should have full control over what theyre putting inside their bodies. That's why we explicitly make our tampons from pure, natural organic cotton and nothing else.

So what's next for DAME? After the success of D the team are looking at other single-use plastic spilling out of all of our bathrooms. With 80 billion plastic shampoo and conditioner bottles being thrown away globally every year, and only 50% of bathroom waste being recycled compared to 90% in the kitchen there is a lot of room for innovation.

As Pool explains At DAME, we believe the only way for sustainable alternatives to have true mainstream appeal, and thus ignite meaningful environmental change, is if they are convenient to use, high performing and aspirational.