For the tenth episode of Period Story Podcast, I had a wonderful conversation with Lauren Derrett, the founder of Wear ‘Em Out reusable period pads.
Lauren shared the shame she felt about her first period and why she kept it a secret. She shares a funny song her friends used to sing and says that her friends used to joke about periods, but that she couldn’t remember any proper menstrual health education.
Lauren credits her 15 year old daughter for giving her the impetus to learn more about menstrual health. She says that she knew that her daughter needed to be better educated than her in this area and more equipped to deal with her period when it arrived.
We talked about periods as a feminist issue and Lauren says that we are duty bound to educate and support each other in order to make this a normal conversation and share our knowledge.
Lauren talks about how she tracks her menstrual cycle, notices the shifts in her energy and how she’s got her husband to pay attention to where she is in her cycle. Wonderful!
Lauren uses a powerful mantra, that she’s passed on to her daughter, that helps her reconnect with her body and feel more grounded. She says that she maximises her self-care right before her period and allows herself a timeout.
We discuss Lauren’s new reusable menstrual pad company, @wearemout and she shares some powerful statistics about disposable menstrual waste and the chemicals in them.
She says that each year, over 200,000 tonnes of menstrual waste is sitting in landfills, each disposable pad has the equivalent plastic of 4 carrier bags and 4.8 pieces of menstrual waste is being found in every 100 metres of beaches. Don’t flush your pads and tampons!
Lauren says it’s so important for us to educate ourselves on the menstrual health products we’re using and I completely agree!
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Lauren’s Bio
Lauren Derrett is a mother of four, a public speaker, a published author, podcast host and founder of Wear ‘Em Out reusable period pads. Lauren is a lover of all things female empowerment and is sharing her message, via her podcast Periodical and social media, that any change we can make individually to help make our personal and planetary health better is a change worth considering.
Get in touch with Lauren:
Website
Instagram
Facebook
Twitter
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Show Notes
Suzy Reading – The Self-Care Revolution
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Show Transcription
Le’Nise: On today’s podcast we have Lauren Derrett, who is a mother of four, a public speaker, a published author, podcast host and founder of Wear ‘Em Out reusable period pads. Lauren is a lover of all things female empowerment and is sharing her message, via her podcast Periodical and social media , that any change we can make individually to help make our personal and planetary health better is a change worth considering. Welcome to the show.
Lauren: Hi! Thanks for having me on Le’Nise, it’s great to be here.
Le’Nise: Thanks for coming on. So let’s start off by getting into the story of your first period. Can you share with us what happened?
Lauren: Oh my god, do you know what? I’m one of eight children and I have three older sisters and I still had no idea what was going to happen or when it was going to happen. I was so ill equipped for it and all I remember, this is really weird, I don’t remember the blood. I don’t remember any physical symptoms, the only thing that stays with me, bearing in mind I’m 45 now so it was quite a while ago, 30 years because I was 15. The thing that has stuck with me the most is I remember going into the bathroom and thinking, ‘Jesus what do I do with this’? But I can’t see the blood in my head but anyway, I remember there being some tampons in the cupboard under the sink and I mean your first experience with a period and you going straight in for a tampon is pretty brave, I’d say, but it was all I could find, there was no pads so I got the instructions out, I navigated this tampon in and I felt smug as hell because now, not only was I a woman, like I’d caught up with all my friends but I’d also managed to get this tampon in which meant I was really grown up.
I felt very alone to be honest, because I didn’t think I could tell anyone or share it with anyone and I just had to navigate it myself but it was a real moment of crossing over and a real moment of ‘I’m now part of their gang’, I suppose, my older sisters, that would’ve been and my friends because they all started really early and I started relatively late, so it was that moment of ‘I’ve made it’. It was quite a positive thing but I did feel really lonely and isolated, it was a secret that I kept, which felt a bit ick.
Le’Nise: Why did you think you kept it a secret?
Lauren: Shame I think, just embarrassment. I’m a very lone creature anyway, which is weird now because I will tell anybody anything, I’m not ashamed of anything anymore. We just didn’t talk about it, there was never a conversation about it, there wasn’t a segue way to me talking about it, you just tidy it up and get on with your day. It wasn’t ever something that was discussed, apart from around my mates jokingly, but I’d already pretended I’d come on about three years before I did, just to be part of it. So there was no big reveal.
Le’Nise: You mention the word shame. Where do you think that shame came from?
Lauren: A lack of knowledge, a lack of understanding, a lack of conversation like this, Le’Nise, thank you so much for holding this podcast because my daughter is going to be listening whether she likes it or not. There was not enough conversation around it, back then there wasn’t even adverts I remember, you know, all these new funky adverts with the hot pants and DJ and all that, none of that was available back then. It was really shrouded in mystery and when it’s something like that, you know, you have to assume there’s shame to be applied to that because why is no one talking about it? It’s just a really natural thing that it must be shameful because no one talks about it.
Le’Nise: You mentioned that you put on a tampon the first time that you got your period which is amazing.
Lauren: I mean that’s pretty hardcore now looking back, it’s like wow.
Le’Nise: And so if you didn’t talk about it to your sisters or your friends, how did you learn about kind of the admin around menstrual health?
Lauren: From that tampon leaflet, really. Thinking back to our sex ed classes which were minimal let’s say, I remember there being a banana representing an erect penis for us to put a condom on, I remember that. I do not remember any education around periods at all, like I said my friends used to joke about it. I had one friend who made up a song about it which was just hilarious and we used to sing it all the time and I played along like I was part of that gang although I wasn’t, and I had another friend who always used to talk about her pubes being stuck to the pad she was like “Oh God, my pubes have got stuck to my pad again” so I heard that and I started saying that and I hadn’t even got my period at that point but this was kind of the education I had. A song about lily of the valley, Dr Whites’ came along, it was like all the branding back then was that so she took all the branding, and made this little ditty about it that we used to sing and then the only other association I knew about periods was “oh I’ve got a bit of cramping and my pubes are getting stuck”. Do you know what Le’Nise, when my friend was saying that, I didn’t even have pubes, I was a late developer but I would be going around going, “my pubes are stuck to my pad”, because that was the education that I had, it’s what happened when you had your period, it’s what you talk about. But beyond I literally, I’ve wracked my head ahead of this podcast and I don’t remember ever having a conversation about it or knowing anything about it other than the box of Tampax in the bathroom cabinet, that was it, that was my education, that’s shocking.
Le’Nise: I think that’s quite common, I hear that a lot, women read what’s on the back of sanitary towels or the leaflet in the box of tampons and then that’s it, there’s no conversation. What about as you got older? Did things change or did you just go on the knowledge you gained from when you were a teenager?
Lauren: Yeah, I kind of just learnt to facilitate it once a month and that’s it, it was just like oh it’s here, deal with it, get over it and it was just really a separate part of my being. I didn’t consider it part of me, it was just an inconvenience that would just rock up every month, do its thing and then leave, but I didn’t have any understanding about what it was for, I mean obviously I knew, actually I don’t think I had any idea it was linked to having babies, actually if I’m honest. It just came and went and it was just one of those things, swimming got a bit trickier, but it’s not until I’m older now and I think one of the biggest impacts for me about learning about this stuff and getting fully involved in it was my daughter, having my daughter.
So I’ve got a 15 year old daughter now, around the same kind of time I got my period and I knew that she had to have a better education than me around it because it’s only me and her, she’s got three brothers and she lives with her dad half the week. So I knew that she had to be really well equipped to deal with it because she wasn’t going to go into the bathroom cabinet and find tampons. I found it was really important that she had a better education and she understood the power of it and what I do now is kind of make allowances for your cycle and for what your body needs during the month not just deal with the blood and get on with it. She’s leading me really, I’m looking at her and thinking what does she need, which is sad because we never consider what do we need? It’s taken my daughter to wake up to the fact that you know, I don’t want her to feel shame around it, I don’t want her to feel like she can’t ask me anything, so yeah I’ve been doing the reading for her really, which is kind of sad.
Le’Nise: Did you start having this conversation when she got her first period or before that?
Lauren: Before that. I was always really open about it. I think as women, we have a personal duty to all the women in our lives, I really do. We all know women get the real rough end of the stick, we all know we are living under the patriarchy which is a whole other podcast and I think we are duty bound as women to educate and support each other through all the feminist issues. Periods being one of them because if you look out into the wider world, you’re going to get a male slant on it and that’s what happened to me, that’s where the shame sits, that’s where you feel kind of lesser of a person, when actually it’s a bloody powerful force and if you use it right it could really propel you as a person but if you look out into the wider world and look out into the patriarchal state as to what periods are and why we have them then you’re kind of scuppering yourself so I do feel that that as women we have a duty to our sisters, our children, our friends to make this a normal conversation and share our knowledge, which is what you’re doing perfectly and I applaud you.
Le’Nise: So you mentioned the shame around when you had your period as a teenager, do you think your daughter feels those similar feelings with the conversation with her friends or has that totally changed?
Lauren: I think there’s still an element of secrecy around it, I do, I mean they’re much more liberal than I ever was at that age for sure, around these topics but it’s still such a personal experience, you’ve got to kind of want to go there to share it on a level that you’re actually living with because like me you can pretend your pubes get stuck to your pad but that’s not really what’s going on.
I wouldn’t know how deeply she shares with her friends, I know they’re very open, I know she’s very open with me but it doesn’t come easy to her. I think she’s open with me because that’s what I promote and because I create a space where she feels safe enough to start opening but I think as a 15 year old girl, often it can still feel that you’re exposing too much of yourself, that vulnerability and again, and us as olders, older women, we have to create that space for our young girls to be able to explore and to converse and to share but I don’t think it’s her natural state, to be honest, I think it’s a lot of me not forcing the issue but opening the conversations and kind of backing her into a corner with it so she does share, because the more you share, the easier it becomes, this is something that I have learnt through life so it’s kind of like eking it out of them a little and saying “look, the word didn’t stop turning, let’s keep this conversation going “. So yeah, I think she’s kind of begrudgingly open but that’s where we all start right? You’ve got to know that you’re safe and that safety takes time to build so let’s keep building on it.
Le’Nise: So the ongoing conversations that you’re having with your daughter and the way that you feel about what you know about your period now, what do you wish you could change about your experience as a teenager with regards to your period?
Lauren: I think I just knew, this is a game changer that your period isn’t just for 7 days a month. Like I said, we compartmentalise this week and everything changes in that week but actually it’s happening every single day of the month, there are hormonal shifts, your body is changing. Now, I’ve got to the point where I can tell when I’m ovulating just by the physicalities of my body or where my hormones are, or if I’m a bit hotter, or if I’m feeling a bit sexy which only happens a couple of days a month if I’m honest. I can tell from my physical symptoms and my emotional state where I am in my cycle and when you lock that stuff down and when you become aware of those times, you can really use every single day of the month to propel you, like I said, rather than just locking yourself down for one week of the month and struggling through the rest, not knowing why you’re feeling XYZ but just feeling grotty, it is kind of a superpower and I’ve spoken to a lot of women who are now doing the cycling and the charting now where there actually curating their month’s work around their cycle and becoming much more powerful because of it.
I wish they talked about things like that, I wish it wasn’t just a rag week, you know when I was growing up it was rag week that was it, not really, actually you’ve got a month where you can utilise every day of your cycle and work with it and support it rather than just dread that one week a month where you’ve got to go underground and just hate everyone. I think we need to talk more about the power in it.
Le’Nise: I think what you’re saying is so interesting and this idea of it being a superpower and you being able to know how your body changes and your mental state changes throughout your cycle and not just thinking about your menstrual cycle as just your period, it’s more than that and you mentioned that you know exactly when you’re ovulating and the power in that. Can you give us some examples of how you might structure your life around the feelings that you have around each phase of your cycle?
Lauren: I think firstly, you’ve got to start and charting and you’ve got to start being aware of it. I will get to that, but the reason that it is so important, this charting and acknowledging every part of your cycle is because the current climate would have us believe that we are weak and that our periods weaken us. We have to change that story, we have to take the power, now this sounds like a feminist rant, but it’s not about that it’s honest. We have to start looking at ourselves as powerful humans and the one thing that we’ve got above everybody else is that fact that we have these cycles. And we have to rewrite that whole internal monologue that we have going on: ‘oh God, it’s shit being a woman’, ‘oh God, the curse’. Every time we give power to those stories, where we are the underdog and ‘FML, it’s shit being women, I’m coming back as a man’. Every time we reiterate those stories, we give them power and we become the victim. Actually, we need to use that and rise above and say do you know what, actually, fuck you patriarchy because I bleed, I can create, I can do all of this stuff.
So, your original question was how do I know the signs? Well, I know that the week leading up to my period, I have to stop, the overwhelm becomes extreme. I know that I can’t book a lot of stuff in, I’m an emotional wreck, I’m very emotional around that time so I have to be very, very careful with my energy because I’m a natural empath anyway and when you’ve got a really heightened state of emotions, as an empath, it can take you down. I’m really aware of the week leading up to my period that I have to really up my self-care game, I have to be really choosy whose energy I’m in because if it’s a negative energy, it will take me down. I have to ground; I literally have to stop because otherwise I lose myself for 3 days in just a heap. Once my period comes the relief, I get that ‘huuuuhhhh’ it’s here, my hormones are shifting again, I’m feeling a lot brighter, I’m feeling stronger, my brain feels clearer but I know that the week leading up, not to plan too much stuff because I cannot cope and it’s ok to say that because the rest of the month I am kicking it. One week a month I have to be really mindful of my energy and energies that I’m absorbing from others.
Le’Nise: How long did it take for you to acknowledge the shift in your energy?
Lauren: Do you know what, I’ve only just started noticing this about a year ago, that’s the tragic thing, I’ve wasted so much of my adult life, I’m hitting perimenopause now, so all this newfound knowledge is going to be wasted on me but like I said, I’m passing it to my daughter, I can see her cycle, I can see her moods change, I can see her energy shift, I can help support her though it so the other day, she had massive overwhelm, she was crying and she didn’t know why she was like ,“I don’t know why I’m crying” and I’m like, “you don’t need to know why, just allow it to happen” and I said when I feel like that, I get in the shower in the morning and I, sounds a bit weird, but I touch my whole body and reconnect with my body, kind of absorb all my energies. I’m literally like: ‘I am safe, this is me, this is real’, because when you’re in that overwhelm and you’re stuck on Instagram or whatever and the whole world is in your head, you need to bring it back to you as one single human being and I tell her to do that. I asked how she’s getting on with the shower thing and she said “I’ve been looking in the mirror every day at my whole body and just saying this is you, you are safe” and that’s what we can pass on, and it’s a shame I’ve only learnt that in the last year but I think it’s only just becoming available and accessible now that you didn’t see this stuff before. Amazing women like you and Maisie Hill are talking about period cycles, who else is there? Women with Sparkle, she’s an amazing advocate for it all, it’s so accessible to all different people now that different people that are listening and are absorbing it. For the younger generation, whatever we learn, just feed it back to them so they’ve got it early door, you know?
Le’Nise: I think that’s such a powerful gift that you gave to your daughter, the knowledge that it’s ok to connect with your body because thinking about back to when I was a teenager, there was no connection to my body, I hated my body and to have something like that where it’s been just looking and the mirror and saying ‘this is you, you are safe’, I think wow, it gives me chills just thinking about it.
Just going back to what you said about your energy and how you’ve been able to connect with it. Do you ever feel you resist this time of either slowing down or on the other side thinking about when you’re ovulating when your energy is at its highest, do you feel like you need to fit everything in to that week?
Lauren: Do you know what I’m human and sometimes life is busier around that week where I’ve got nothing to give, I just have to really up the self-care. Everybody has just one minute a day when they can just lie flat on the floor and actually Suzy Reading who wrote The Self-Care Revolution, I had her on a podcast once and she said to me, “Everybody has a minute a day when they can lay on the floor and say, ‘For now, the world can wait’, and that’s for one minute a day the world can wait”. It’s about those tiny moments of joy that Three Sixty [Tamu Thomas] talks about, that finding your tiny moments of joy and maximising your self-care when you can, I’m not talking about hot baths, I think we’re well beyond knowing that self-care is not just about a bloody bath with petals in it, I’m talking about making a nice cup of tea and sitting in silence with my favourite mug.
The most simplistic acts of self-care can still have some kind of impact. When I’m in that slow week and I’ve got a load of stuff booked on, I have to do it, I still have a life I have to live out, but I also have to be really mindful of just lying when you can. The ovulation thing, yes I do feel like when I’m in my spring/summer cycles [follicular and ovulatory phase], I know I’m so creative then that I do try and bulk load a load of work content and stuff because I know that it’s going to dwindle out which also does bring with it a frustration, don’t get me wrong, I’m not the biggest lover of the cycles the whole time, sometimes I’m like ‘… sake, I can’t afford to crash right now’, I’m too busy I can’t afford to have winter [menstruation], but I got to keep going and can be like you said, a bit of resistance, not so much resistance but frustration that I can’t just keep charging ahead 24/7, 30 days a month, that I do have to allow myself a time out, but do you know what, what are we going to do? It is what it is, we have to expect it, we have to acknowledge it, we have to respect it, it’s not going anywhere babe, work with it, don’t work against it, there’s no point, it’s futile.
Le’Nise: I think it is really powerful and I think that we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have some sort of resistance, especially knowing that the culture that we live in really puts a lot of emphasis on this work, work, work, the entrepreneur grind and so taking a different perspective on that there’s going to be resistance probably not only from inside yourself but others saying, ‘why aren’t you working right now’, capitalism demands it.
Lauren: Not just capitalism, feminism demands it. Feminists, we are all fighting to have it all, I question that I want it all actually, I don’t think that I do want it all I think I’m quite okay just having bits of it because to be what is expected of us as women is pretty unachievable when you can factor in our cycles. We cannot be on it all day, every day, we can’t and actually I use the Flo app and on there, you can give them your partner’s email address. This is the best piece of advice I can give to anyone, you give your partner’s email address and they work with the cycles and they will email your partner where you are in your cycle and how best they can navigate that, and that has been an absolute relationship game changer. One, in that he completely understands that it’s not biased information, it’s not me going, “I’ve got my period, be nice to me!”. It’s proper education for him and it’s non-biased, so he knows it’s not me just pulling on him.
Secondly, for me to be validated in my feelings, you know because can quite often we dumb it down and say ‘for God sake, I can’t just take a day off work because of my period’, it sounds ridiculous blah blah blah but actually validates what you’re feeling it’s like of course you’re tired, your body is doing overtime right now, trying to release these eggs and doing what it needs to be doing, your uterus is twice the size, you’re lugging that around, that’s why your belly feels like it’s exploding, but it validates everything that you’re feeling which gives you then the permission to say okay, this is why I’m feeling like this, it’s okay for me to stop or slow down but the genius, the other day I was totally woman down, I spent the whole day on the sofa, I was fortunate enough I could block everything, I spent the whole day on the sofa eating digestives, my husband comes home and he’s gingerly around me because he knows something’s going amiss and he said something and I snapped at him and he was like “jeez are you alright?” and I said “did you not get your email?!” and that’s it, the conversation could end there because he’s like “I’ll just go and check my emails now” and it gives them a really good understanding, so for a relationship, it’s genius in all areas.
Le’Nise: I think that’s really interesting and I love the idea of the email being sent to the partner. The other thing is sometimes, it can lead to the area that creates expectations around behaviour, so we’re supposed to be moody cows before we get our period and ‘oh I just got the email so you’ve just got your period so I’m just going to watch what I say around you’ and some of the work that I do is really focussed around the fact that you don’t have to feel like that, you don’t to be a moody cow, your energy might dip but it’s not necessarily inevitable. So, I think it’s such a fascinating way for your partner to have a better understanding of what’s going on with you and your cycle, but sometimes what I see, and I’ve seen this is workshops that I’ve given is this expectation of, ‘I’m supposed to be in pain, I’m supposed to be moody and that’s just the way it is because I am a women and I have a period.’.
Lauren: Yeah, you’re so right and I’m just sat here wondering if, and sometimes I do use it as an excuse, I may not even be feeling those things and especially with him because I’ll just be like “Bloody men, you don’t have to deal with this” and I do ham it up a bit sometimes that’s for sure and sometimes I’ll be like you need to go and get me a Big Mac because I feel really rubbish. Yeah, you’re right, that’s given me a new slant on it for next month so thank you but let’s not tell him. Can we not tell him please because I quite like the martyrdom sometimes?
Le’Nise: So you mentioned that you use the Flo app as kind of what I call part of your menstrual health admin. Are there any other things you use as part of your menstrual health admin that you’d like to share?
Lauren: To be honest, no. I’m reading Maisie Hill’s book. I’m just getting involved I think, just read whatever you can, follow the accounts that, I mean your account’s amazing and you know that I love what you do. Your little tiles about nutrition, you know, just absorb information when and where you can, there’s so much accessible information available to us about our menstrual cycle. Podcasts. There’s loads of amazing podcasts around menstruation. Just find those people and educate yourself and be willing to listen to what’s going on with you and like you say it’s not a one fit fits all, we all fit differently.
Definitely some kind of charting, however you choose to do that, there’s loads and loads of different apps out there, I know there’s drawings you can do, mindful colourings in and stuff like this. Number one is chart, chart your mood, chart your discharge, chart your libido, and chart your food, everything just to get an idea of who you are and how your body is functioning. But I like to keep it basic babe, I’m Instagram and Flo app.
Le’Nise: Is there anything else you’d like to share with our listeners about what you’ve learned about your period or what else you want to know about your period?
Lauren: Do you know what? And it’s an obvious one I really want women to be talking about is the disposable menstrual products. It was obviously about to come up in this podcast; I am just about to launch my reusables.
Since I have started the process about having my reusables designed, which are made in the UK by the way, they are manufactured in the UK, I’ve got a designer, we’ve laboured over the design for the last 9 months, and we are just about ready to order the first lot. The research that I’ve done in that time about the effect of disposables is horrifying, horrifying not only to the planet which is where I started, I was all about the landfill and oh my God in the UK alone, per year 200,000 tonnes of menstrual waste is sitting in landfill, which when you consider the weight of a tampon or a pad that’s a huge mass of substance sitting in landfill, emitting to the atmosphere. They take 500-800 years to decompose; those figures alone are enough to make you think, ‘Jesus, what are we doing’. Four carrier bags per period pad, if you are not using carrier bags with your supermarket shop because of the guilt, really consider that there are 4 carrier bags worth of plastic in your sanitary pads, the current disposables.
The other option is of course is the organics which biodegrade in 12-18 months and don’t have all the chemicals but we need to talk about these chemicals. There are up to 3,000 chemicals in disposable products, there are micro plastics being absorbed into our bodies by our vulvas and vaginas and we are taking them in as a chemical disruptor into our endocrine system, which I know you know about and that is affecting our personal and feminine health.
It is a massive massive issue that we need to start looking for alternatives around, now I’m not like ‘buy my pad, buy my pad, buy my pad’, my message is, have the conversation with women, make informed choices. If you are happy to use those disposable products and you can get your head around all of that then knock yourself out my darling, I don’t judge, this is your life. But if you’re open to the idea of looking for alternatives, menstrual cups are not as scary as they seem. There’s an Instagram account called Put a Cup In It and it’s completely unbiased advice, in fact my daughter done there little quiz and got herself a cup and she bloody loves it.
There are obviously the period pants and the reusable pads which I’m bringing out; by the way, Wear ‘Em Out pads by the way.
But please please educate yourself on what menstrual products you are using. The impact that’s it’s having on your body, sitting on those chemicals and those plastics, every single month for up to 7 days is having a detrimental effect on your feminine health, there’s no two ways about it. Also, cocking up the planet big time, so you know your personal responsibility on the planet but yeah that’s a conversation I really want being shared. We’ve got to stop looking away now; we’ve got to stop trusting the big disposable brands and actually start saying what’s best for me on a personal level.
Le’Nise: I think what you’re doing is amazing, but you already know that and I think this is such an interesting angle to get people thinking more about what they use because before it was about ‘try these different period products’ because they are better for your menstrual health and they are, but I think the environmental angle is interesting and I think that actually has the chance of getting more women interested or people who have a period interested in shifting what they use, because when you put it like that, the amount of products that are sitting in landfill, the amount of tampons, women still flush them down the toilet. Don’t flush!
Lauren: Don’t flush. 4.8 pieces of menstrual waste are being found in up to 100 metres of beaches. For every 100 metres of beach, 4.8 pieces of menstrual waste is being washed up because people are still flushing and not only the beach issue but actually that means that it’s getting into our water systems, that it’s getting into our water ways.
Your water bill is paying for emptying the sewers of fricking menstrual waste, so let’s just stop flushing. Don’t do it. I’m so surprised how many women still don’t know that, innocently, and in a completely no judgmental way, because the information isn’t being shared. There’s a little line on the bloody Tampax box, ‘oh by the way, don’t flush’, that should be the very first thing. Toxic shock syndrome and do not flush, that’s the two pieces of information that you’re going to make an informed choice around. Don’t flush it because that’s costing us all a fortune in the old Thames waterways.
Le’Nise: Not to mention that the water needs to be cleaned, all the chemicals, the tampons and even women are flushing pads which I can’t believe and all of these have an impact, the health impact and the environmental impact. I think this is a great angle to get women thinking about what they’re using in their bodies, on their bodies and actually having this as a starting point for thinking about other products that they are using. This whole area, I find it so fascinating because I’ve seen the shift from it being very hippy, the products not being very good, people using crocheted pads, which, more power to you, to it being more professionalised, sleek, better options, more absorbent options. Make up is better, skin care is better in this whole natural green space. So I’m really excited about what you’re doing and I’m really excited about the changes that are happening in this area. Where can listeners find out more about if they want to order your pads?
Lauren: We are doing a 10% off of your first order which is a great saving because we need to honest and realistic as well they is an initial outlay to this change but it’s about prioritising, looking at your life as a whole and prioritising and making a shift where you can and like I said I think your menstrual waste is the environmental and physical shifts you can make, I therefore think it’s worth investing it but just to help you out, 10% off your first order if you go to the website which is wearemout.co.uk and I’m all over the socials at @wearemoutpads so come and find them.
My podcast is Periodical which is on ITunes, Spotify, Podcast, Acast, and Podbean. Just come and talk to me, I’m open for any kind of conversation, no question is too stupid and I’m not going to give you a hard sales pitch, I just want women to chat about these topics and then make their decisions beyond that, it’s entirely up to them, no shame babe.
Le’Nise: No shame, no judgement, I love it.
Lauren: Absolutely. Who am I to judge?
Le’Nise: Who are any of us to judge? Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today, I’ve really loved chatting to you.
Lauren: Yeah, cool. Amazing. Thank you so much Le’Nise.
