Fun and eco-friendly periods!

Adventures in the menstrual cup!

My journey of eco-friendliness during my period began with searching for a menstrual cup. I have to be honest, I didn’t do too much research before I bought. I only knew of the Diva Cup and the Keeper. Now that I’ve been doing more reading I know that there are MUCH more different options, all of them awesome!

I found out about the Diva Cup a few years ago from a friend and was always tempted to try it. I never had the drive to try it, but now I’m at a point in my life where I think it’s necessary. If you read my story, my experience with tampons was always uncomfy, so I was kind of wary of the Diva Cup. But I’ve heard so much about it, I thought, why not? Only 30some dollars out if I don’t like it!

So I ordered myself the Diva Cup from lunapads.com!

Not too scary sized, and quite flexible! So I opened it up to try a test run…and let me just say, I was the most frustrated person. EVER. They give you a handy little insert with two different fold positions to put it in, which was somewhat helpful. But there’s no one there telling you how to know that it’s popped open or anything.

So here’s how I kind of learned. First, this is a great resource for anything menstrual cup related, but here is the link to the different folds: http://community.livejournal.com/menstrual_cups/453392.html

I use the punch down fold that’s shown in that link. (The example pictures are what a Keeper cup looks like!)

That puts the cup’s size down majorly and helped a ton when learning how to get it in. So, once inside, you have to get the thing to pop open. I think the one thing I learned fast is to trim your nails. You don’t want to pinch yourself like that. It just sucks. Another trick is to run it under hot hot water. Silicone gets even softer when warmed up, and the water gives a little lubrication.

At first I was pushing the Diva Cup up way too far. It doesn’t go up as far as a tampon. The best way to describe this in non scientific terms is that it sits like, just above where you can feel your pubic bone. So you start putting the thing in horizontally, and let it sit right below that and twist it around. When I start feeling it start to open, I let my muscles do most of the work and it just kind of sucks itself up there! There’s a little bit of a sucking sound sometimes, so that’s kind of a handy way to do it.

Now I don’t know if any of that made sense, but I did a lot of research on different forums and different people who have been successful. And most other people’s descriptions are about that weird too haha. Make sure you read the insert. It’s really helpful to know where to put it. But other than that, it’s kind of just fidgeting around with it until you can turn it all the way around comfortably. Once you can turn it in a circle, you’re golden! I found that the punch down method was the easiest and the best way for me to make it pop open. But don’t be discouraged and try some other folds if one isn’t working for you.

Once I finally got it in correctly, it was amazing. You should not be able to feel it at all when it’s inside. And I’m not lying about that. You won’t feel it at all. You might feel the stem sticking out a little, but you are allowed to trim it. I haven’t yet, because it’s making it easier for me when I have to pull it out. But WOW. You can leave it in for 12 hours! No worrying about waking up to change it. And it is so comfortable, I just cannot believe I never know about this option.

Cleaning the Diva Cup is really really really important. You should clean it after every use, but if you’re in a public bathroom you can just dump it in the toilet and wipe it out with a tissue. When you can clean it, I do recommend the Diva Wash. It’s totally natural and smells like oranges! No chemicals or fake scents which is very important for the Diva Cup. If you use other cleansers, it can eat away at the cup or leave residue which will cause odor. You have to use an unscented, pH balanced, natural soap to clean out your cup!

If you have other questions, websites of all the different cups are a big help too! I will make a post with most of the menstrual cups that I know about.

You get a real cute storage pouch and pin too :) Eco-friendly periods are so cute!!

If you have any questions about getting it in, ask away! I’ll try to answer in an understandable manner :) And if you need any more convincing, I cannot stop talking about the wonder of the menstrual cup!!