First cycle with DivaCup and mamacloth

            So my DivaCup arrived the day before my cycle started, thank god. I figured it was best just to jump right in and pretend that i knew what i was doing. I read all of the information that comes with my DivaCup and it was very helpful but reading and understanding something is very different from actually DOING it. I had read some pretty terrifying reviews about leaking, getting stuck and all sorts of hassles so i am not going to lie i was quite intimidated but i figured its better now than never.
-Day one
            Woke up to my lovely aunt flo knocking on my door and figured that it was time to try all my new stuff out. I inserted my DivaCup according to the directions [so i thought] and put on one of my brand spankin new cloth panty liners from TheCrazyElephant and i went on my merry little way. About 6 hours later i figured i should probably check the whole situation out and i was pretty surprised. There was some leakage, but my liner took care of that, but really it wasn't all that bad. I removed my cup, washed it, and reinserted it. I was very proud of myself for not having as hard of a time as some of the other consumer reports i have read.
-Day two
. . . still leaking, isnt this thing supposed to not leak unless its full
-Day three
STILL LEAKING, being a green diva is sound pretty stupid right about now and im out of panty liners. So i open up to my trusty friend GOOGLE to see if this leakage is a result of user error. Turns out that yes, yes it was user error. Turns out i was not inserting the cup at a horizontal i was trying to insert it up like you would a tampon. I changed this and the leaking stopped [yay]
-Day four
            I have now mastered the DivaCup so i decided to give my trusted cup a break for the night and try out my heavy absorbency pad. So i dig through my closet find my good, old, ratty, period sweatpants and i put a dark sheet on the bed [just in case] I go to the bathroom to remove and wash my DivaCup and put on my pad. First thing i notice is that i dont feel like im wearing a pad. It feels like i am just wearing my underwear. It was so nice to not feel like i was wearing a diaper. I go to bed with a cautious but still postive attitude.
-Day five
            I wake up. The first thing i notice is that i feel very. . . dry. In a very good way. No slimy, sticky, papery feeling. No squished up ball of cotton hanging out between my legs. So i get up and asses that my sheets are dry, my pants are free of any [new] stains. And i head to the bathroom to see the damage done to my underwear. . . NONE not one leak, not one spot. And may i add that my last cycle before mamcloth i would get cramps bad enough to leave me bedridden. . . As my aunt flo settles down for another three week nap i realize that through this whole cycle i have not had one measly cramp. No backache. No discomfort at all.

So there you have it. I am a real person with a real period who REALLY will never go back to disposable menstrual products. If you have any more detailed questions feel free to message me on facebook

Paper-less?

Just a small example of our endless disposable products

            Has anyone ever really sat down and asked themselves WHY IS EVERYTHING DISPOSABLE. In my opinion it is just plain laziness. Laziness is killing our planet and our desire for prettier paper products is exposing us and our children to dangerous chemicals. Really, for five minutes sit down and try to think of all the paper products we use everyday and then IMMEDIATELY put into the trash to go spend the next 30 years decomposing and leaching chemicals into our earth and water supply. And we do all of this damage to try and save miniscule amounts of time out of our day. Let me make a point real quick, are we saving time or are we killing time. Is our need for ease of use so dire that we are willing to destroy our planet. Our gift to our children should really be a healthier planet and an inner sense of responsibility for this world that we all live in.

We are filling landfills far faster than our waste is breaking down 

            Now that my rant is over i will get to the point, my goal is to eventually live in a home that is completely free of any unnecessary paper products [i.e. paper towels, toilet paper, pads, tampons, disposable diapers, grocery bags, . . . etc.] I plan on achieving this one step at a time. It is a rather large transition if you are coming from a disposable home but don't worry. You really can do it, if you take it a step at a time. Instead of diving into this head first why don't you start with something simple. Try investing in some nice kitchen towels and stop buying paper towels. If we all started making small steps to improving our lifestyles we could be capable of changing this world for the better.

I love this picture

             My first step in this goal was to start cloth diapers, now that i have done that and completely cut out disposables [not even allowed in the house] i decided to find my next step. I decided that mama cloth was the next step for me, it just felt right. I am very new to that but i did not just go out and buy a full stash and throw out all my pads and tampons. I bought enough to transition me over, after trying these products i plan on filling my stash slowly until i have everything i need. I truly believe that so many people give up on going green because they try to just jump in rather than taking small steps and sticking with them.
            After mama cloth i plan on switching my entire household over to un-paper towels. I plan on making them myself so that i can match them with the decor of my house.  I am very excited about these steps i am taking even though most of my family thinks that i am a crazy hippie haha and i am but i embrace it, you should embrace your inner hippie too.
            Finally somewhere along the line i will be making my own grocery bags, produce bags and also making the family cloth for my house i will be moving to next summer. Family cloth is pretty much cloth toilet paper but i will do a post explaining that soon.

I will be linking with the pistachio project.

Why use mama cloth?

           
            The reasons to use mama cloth are very similar to the reasons to cloth diaper. Quite honestly i cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would switch from soft cotton for your baby or yourself to some unknown bleached, paper-plastic product. Oh did i mention all the chemicals inside tampons, yea those things that actually go INSIDE your body. But i am getting ahead of myself, allow me to explain in full.

regular tampon vs. organic cotton tampon

-Harmful ingredients in disposable pads and tampons.
             Many women do not realize the amount of chemicals within their store bought disposables, or how they may correlate with gynecological concerns. Disposable pad and tampon companies are not required to list the ingredients on labels. Some irritating or toxic ingredients found in disposables include: aluminum, alcohols, fragrance additives, and hydrocarbons. Tampon bleaching processes leave behind dioxin. Dioxin is a toxic chemical (chlorine-compound) linked to cancer, immune system suppression, ulceration, pelvic inflammatory disease, reduced fertility, changes in hormone levels and endometriosis. Try this simple test: Place a regular tampon in glass of water and return in a few hours. You will find the water cloudy and filled with residue - all things that your body is otherwise absorbing into the soft tissues of the vagina.

-Cost
             Cloth pads = Savings:
The money you save using cloth pads will be worth it in the first year alone! Figure you spend $8/month on pads and another $6/month on tampons ~ that is $14/month or $168 a year! You could buy over 20 cloth pads for that amount…and still have them to use for another 4-6 years! That is a savings of $672-1008! I know that I have better things to spend my money on

 -Environment
             Environmentally, there are two main issues at stake: the impact of production, and the impact disposal. A typical woman can use anywhere between 8,000 to 17,000 tampons in her lifetime. This depends on individual usage of course. I hate to sound cliche here, but every woman is different, and the numbers available are all over the map. Think about it though, a handful of products a month, 12 months a year, for 30 to 40 years, multiplied by the female half of the population… It really does add up. According to the book Flow: The Cultural History of Menstruation, the average woman throws away up to 300 pounds of feminine hygiene related products in a lifetime. In the grand scheme of things this makes up only about 0.5 percent of personal landfill waste. But even so, when you see that there are alternative options available, it becomes difficult to rationalize. In the United States alone, an estimated 12 billion pads and 7 billion tampons are disposed of annually. Each of those tampons and pads has an environmental impact of the waste of not only the product itself, but the packaging, plastic or cardboard applicators, as well as the less visible costs of transportation and production.

If you can just get over the mental ick factor the decision is just plain obvious

 -Just plain comfort
            On average women who switch to mama cloth find that their flows are lighter and they have significantly less cramping each month, I mean really who doesn't want that. All in all, it again comes down to common sense. Which would you really want to wear something that feels dry and velvety soft or something that feels slimy and crunchy. I for one always used disposables because i thought that was my only option. Once i found out about mama cloth i was slightly put off by the idea but after doing the research i have found it to be the logical option not just for comfort but for all of the reasons listed above.

i will be linking up to the pistachio project 

Mama fluff arrived

            So my mama cloth from TheCrazyElephant arrived yesterday and i am SUPER impressed at how quickly everything got here. Let me add that i also ordered a Mei Tai carrier and a DivaCup on the same day and i tracked them and they will not be here for another several days. This is everything that i ordered from them and let me say that they are really really soft and way thinner than i expected. I figured that the heavy absorbency pad would be about as thick as a disposable maxi pad but even the heaviest absorbency is about as thick as an ultra-thin disposable.

            This is the heavy absorb short peanut pad in magenta cloud. It is velvety soft and super thin. I may actually be okay using pads if this mama cloth works as well as everyone says it does. I hate disposable pads because they get slimy and feel like a wet diaper. . . yuck. One of the benefits of mama cloth is that it should breathe and not trap moisture the way that disposable pads do. I am excited to try them out. This looks exactly like the medium absorbency pad except that the heavy has a layer of zorb in the center. And the medium absorbency is the peace and love pattern.

            These are my two teardrop thong liners. I am really really hoping my DivaCup arrives before my next cycle or else it will be almost two months until i get to try this stuff out. These are also very soft and thin. All of these products are a wingless design so the are not as bulky but they are backed with fleece to hold them in place while you are wearing them. TheCrazyElephant also doesn't finish the edges of any of their products, instead they cut them with pinking shears so that they will fray and be thinner on the edges but they are sewn so that they will not completely unravel.

            These are the plain panty liners that i ordered. They are freaking adorable and so soft. They are made up up of i think two layers of super soft flannel and backed with the fleece so that they wont slide around.






I will be linking with the pistachio project.

Mama cloth

            So i just ordered my DivaCup and a few mama cloth items. I do not like using pads so i felt kinda like there was no crunchy option for my aunt flo but then i discovered the DIVACUP. It was like a revelation to me that being crunchy has moved into the 21st century. I ordered my Divacup and some panty liners and a few pads from The crazy elephant. I ordered off of their etsy shop but they also have a facebook  and a blog Their products are adorable and they look super soft and are very reasonably priced. I loved their shop and will definitely be shopping there again. I will be posting reviews for these products as soon as i get them and am able to use them.

           So for anyone who does not know a DivaCup is a soft silicone cup that you insert into the bottom of your vaginal canal that catches menstrual flow, you empty it twice a day and you can use it for as long as you want. It is recommended to replace it every year but if you take care of it, it should last way longer than that. I have read many reviews of women still using the same cup after 5years. The only complaint i have seen is that they do get a little stained [obviously] but if you mix 1 part hydrogen peroxide to 2 parts water and soak your cup overnight, it will not only remove stains but will also disinfect your cup

            I ordered a pack of 3 regular panty liners to use with my DivaCup. In the reviews I have read everyone has said there is a bit of a learning curve with quite a bit of leakage in the process. These are called the Little peanut panty liners and they come in a set of three. This set is Neapolitan dot but I ordered a bumble bee pattern.

            I ordered four minimal coverage liners because I hate wearing real underwear. . . TMI maybe but whatever haha. I ordered a few different patterns. These do not come in a set but they are only 1.99 for one so it is not a big deal to order a couple of them at once. These are called tear drop thong liners.

I only ordered two actual mama pads because other than giving birth to my daughter I could count on one hand how many times I have used a pad but just in case I ordered one medium short peanut pad and a heavy short peanut pad. They look exactly the same but the heavy pad has a layer of zorb [a super absorbent fabric] in the center of it.

So since my daughter is still in her cloth diapers I plan on having a bucket in my bathroom with a lid that will have 1 part hydrogen peroxide and 2 parts water inside of it for soaking my mama cloth and then I will just be washing my mama cloth along with the diaper laundry. As soon as everything arrives I will post pictures and as soon as I get to use everything i will post my reviews. 

I will be linking with the pistachio project.