Did you know that 700,000 panty liners, 2.5 million tampons and 1.4 million pads are flushed down the toilet everyday in the UK? Martha Silcott is the inventor of two products that aim to reduce the impact of disposable personal care waste: FabLittleBag and HyGeeni. This was a perfect week to release this episode of Period Story with a fellow Arsenal fan (#coyg!)
In this episode, Martha shares:
- The lightbulb moment that led to her inventing a brand new product
- The process of patenting and bringing FabLittleBag to life
- Why we need to stop flushing tampons and pads and the impact this waste has on our sewage system
- What terms the loo roll wrap, flushers, binners, and the handbag smuggle mean
- The Period Supportive movement in sport she started, in order to help periods be less of a barrier to girls’ participation in sport
- How a customer inspired the invention of HyGeeni, a larger disposable bag to help dispose of used stoma bags and diapers
- And of course, the story of her first period
Martha says that if you want to invent something or create something new, there is plenty of help out there to talk to and to give you guidance!
Thank you, Martha!
Get in touch with Martha:
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise Brothers: Hi, Martha, thank you so much for coming onto the show today. I am really excited to speak to you, hear about your fabulous invention. But let’s first start with the question I ask all my guests, which is tell us the story of your first period.
Martha Silcott: Okay, well, I think mine’s probably really dull and not very interesting at all compared to many others, and I don’t like remember real deep details.
I just remember waking up one morning, I was 11, I think, and there being blood on the sheet, and I had this dual reaction of kind of, oh my God, oh my god. Slight panic with kind of like, oh, I’ve arrived, this is the thing, this is the change. So there were, my recollection is that there was both of those feelings that happened at that moment, and I think I got the sheet and told my mum.
All very matter of fact, I was being like, being very matter of fact and grown up about it all, you know? Because I had obviously seen my mum use tampons and things, so I knew a little bit about it, but I, with hindsight, I probably didn’t know hardly anything about it, to be honest. So I kind of knew what it was and I knew it had significance.
And I remember thinking this means I’m kind of grown up even though I was so, so not grown up. And, uh, yeah, I just remember treating it very practically and almost not wanting to tell anybody else but like needing to communicate that to my mum. I then, I don’t know what happened, whether obviously when you first start your period, it’s not, you know, oh that’s it.
Every single month, boom, boom, boom on, you know, really regular. So I think there were some big gaps in between, but my, my better recollection is when a very convoluted story, which is a story for another day not on this podcast, but I ended up at a, a Quaker boarding school in Hertfordshire, which was vegetarian co-ed, very different kind of category of boarding school.
Anyway, I ended up there and I very much, uh, remember wearing Bodyform pads, which were, it’s a shame you can’t see me ’cause they’re, I’m, I’m explaining how fat and big they were. And they were absolutely solid like lumps of rock. And um, the fashion was like really skinny jeans. And so we’d squeeze into these jeans and then somehow we’d have to get this great big Bodyform pad in there as well.
So I do remember very distinctly with my kind of my roommate. ’cause when you’re in that environment, you all kind of do coordinate your periods quite a lot. And um, you know, we’d all kind of come on at the same time and then we’d be squeezing these Bodyform pads and can you see it? Can you waddling down the corridor, you know, in our tight jeans saying, can you see it?
Can you see it? And that’s kind of one of my earliest kind of proper period memory.
Le’Nise Brothers: I want to go back to what you said about feeling like you were grown up when, or grown up. Yeah. When you first got your period. I think that’s so interesting, this idea that getting your first period is a mark of maturity.
Whereas if you think back now as an adult, you think you were 11, you were still a child. Where did you get this idea that getting your period would make you feel grown up or mark you as a grownup?
Martha Silcott: Genuinely no idea. I’m surmising and I think it’s, it was probably because it’s something you associate with women.
Like at that age, I didn’t associate it with teens or like girls that were just older than me. I associated it with my mum, women grownups. So I think that’s where that feeling of assigning it, that, that label of being grown up really came from, because, you know, in the seventies that there was no communication, there was no, there’s some very weird adverts looking back.
But you know, there was no, there was no real communication about this topic at all.
Le’Nise Brothers: Hmm. So how did you learn about your period then, what you were experiencing?
Martha Silcott: I don’t think I did until I was a grownup, like proper grownup. I don’t think there was anything in my teenage years where I kind of understood it was effectively a hormonal cycle or what that meant.
It was literally that all the conversation was about levels of pain.
Le’Nise Brothers: Oh.
Martha Silcott: And whether you’d leaked or not. And those were the two. And then later whether, were you late and the panic that that would bring. So it wasn’t really learning about your physiology and what was going on in your body or anything really like that until I kind of, got a lot older.
But it was more the practicalities and how they directly impacted you day to day. And, you know, being obviously with a lot of girls, it was very much very much a case of comparing notes with each other. Mm. You know, again, historic, looking back, I’m actually quite grateful that that was the environment because there was a lot of opportunity to be like, oh my God, have you got a you know, paracetamol or whatever or do have you got a spare pad or, I’ve tried these new ones, they’re rubbish, don’t bother, or, you know, just chat about it.
And I remember distinctly I was quite sporty at school and I remember it wasn’t a sporty school at all. And, um, many, many girls would use being on their period as a, as a way out of doing sport. And it was obviously worked quite well.
Le’Nise Brothers: Mm-hmm. And you mentioned that experience of having those like communal conversations about, about periods and experience and whatnot.
And actually I feel like even as an adult when I go to events and then we end up all talking about our periods, it just, it’s still feels quite nice even though, you know, I’m an adult now, but that kind of
Martha Silcott: agreed
Le’Nise Brothers: communal conversation about, especially something that is still a bit of a taboo.
Martha Silcott: Mm-hmm.
Le’Nise Brothers: To be able to talk about it quite openly.
Martha Silcott: Mm-hmm.
Le’Nise Brothers: so amidst all of this conversation that you were having when you were at school
Martha Silcott: mm-hmm.
Le’Nise Brothers: What was your actual experience of your period like?
Martha Silcott: I feel very blessed looking back because I had very manageable periods on a regular basis once they kind of started. So from like 12 or whatever, I didn’t really suffer with PMT or like really bad pain.
It, I definitely had uncomfortable, you know, a day or two of uncomfortableness or maybe bloating or whatever, but it wasn’t anything on the level of many other people. So I always felt super lucky and I didn’t, really have I remember there being people who were, and there was actually thinking about it at university.
There was a, a good friend of mine there who every single month for five days didn’t, we used to take her food. Like we didn’t, she didn’t leave her room because she couldn’t, and looking back, she had endometriosis.
Le’Nise Brothers: Mm.
Martha Silcott: Which no one had a clue what on earth that was. It was just in very bad period pain. But we’re talking, you know, migraine blackout, unable to move.
And I remember thinking then, hold on, this can’t be right. This is like really not okay and not normal and she needs to get some proper help. But yeah, it was really, I personally kind of breezed through periods, I think, until I was 40 and then. I don’t know what happened, but it all got really horrible and suddenly I knew what PMT was and suddenly I, my boobs hurt, really hurt.
Like the day before I couldn’t, I remember the first time that ever happened. I was like, oh, my good. Like, something is wrong with me. Seriously. I need to get help, help. And then the next day I, I came on and, and I was like, okay, this must be what everyone’s talking about. And then my, my periods got really heavy.
I mean, they weren’t light before, but they got I hope this isn’t too kind of much go information, but yeah, they got, they got really heavy and, um, and pain and yeah, it all, all just was terrible from basically kind of 40 to 50.
Le’Nise Brothers: 10 years of very kind of tumultuous periods.
Martha Silcott: Yeah.
Le’Nise Brothers: And then like the run up to the period.
And so how did you then manage your period in your forties when you were experiencing all of this?
Martha Silcott: Yeah, I, um, I made sure I had much more of an array of choice of products. You know, all the different strengths. I kind of relied on what that, that super plus version quite a lot. And then sometimes even having to like double up with a pad as well, which, and I’d never been, like, apart from my very first kind of Bodyform experience, as soon as I transitioned to tampons, I never looked back on, I never wore a pad really.
Um, maybe at night sometimes, but yeah, and then I kind of had to re-embrace that as an option and just get used to having them in every single handbag, because I’d go through them at a much more rapid pace than I was typically used to. And I remember really kind of, I was working in an office at the time, and I remember always thinking at that time of the month, you know, what am I wearing?
Uh, I have to wear black on the bottom half, like always. And, um, yeah, I do remember having a nightmare experience where I was in a meeting and I remember getting up and I, I think I just brushed the chair and I was thinking, oh, I need to go and change. And there was blood on the chair. I was mortified, absolutely mortified.
And I kind of managed to, to like wing it, like make, I hung back and went, oh, after you, after you. And, um, you know, man, they didn’t know. But I had to leave the office, run to the nearest shop and buy a new pair of trousers.
Le’Nise Brothers: Wow.
Martha Silcott: Luckily I was wearing black trousers. So no one takes any, you think people are going to notice what you’re wearing.
Actually, they don’t care. So, you know, it was just one black pair of trousers for another black pair of trousers. But yeah, my goodness, it was absolutely mortifying.
Le’Nise Brothers: This reminds me of that episode of, I don’t know if you watch the Sex and the City remake And Just Like That, where Charlotte, she, all of a sudden she’s wearing a white skirt, and then in the show they call it a flash period.
I had never heard that expression before, but she got her period unexpectedly. She’s wearing this white skirt and she’s at this big event and how the friends help her, her help her manage that. But I think, you know, I think you, you learn ways to style these things out as a woman, because I think we have these experience there.
If it’s not periods, it’s something where it’s just a bit uncomfortable or unexpected, and you just have to figure a way out, a way to like kind of style it out. But I’m glad that you had a favourable outcome and that experience.
Martha Silcott: I did. I did. And the people that were there to this day, they don’t know that that happened to me in their presence at that meeting.
And it is kind of, it’s one of those things that when you think about the kind of the nightmare things, that’s right up there with one of the most kind of terrifying ones that happened to me. But uh, this is the wonderful, there’s so many wonderful things actually, weirdly about periods, and one of them is that it women come together naturally to support one another in that particular space.
You could go into any toilet anywhere and ask a complete stranger, oh my God, have you got a tampon? Have you got a pad? And if they do, they will give it to you. Yeah. And if not, they’ll go and ask their friend. You know, it’s just one of those, it’s like an unsaid secret rule, we help each other if we need to in this space.
And I kind of love that. And there’s many examples of, you know, of that also happening. I mean, I don’t need, I’m done, right. I’m out the other end now, and, uh, but I still carry them in my bag because you never know.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. You really never go. Never know.
Martha Silcott: You never know when someone might just need one, you know?
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. And actually, this, this makes me think so my family and I, we are really big football supporters and we go to the different stadiums and what I’ve been seeing more and more recently in the different stadiums is these
Martha Silcott: Yeah.
Le’Nise Brothers: Specific areas for tampons and pads. Yeah. And I just think that’s, so, that’s such an acknowledgement that, like you said, you never know when you need one.
But also the fact that these things, we shouldn’t necessarily have to pay for tampons and pads, you know, these are
Martha Silcott: necessarily, there’s no, there’s no justification for it at all. What are you talking…?
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. Being polite.
Martha Silcott: No. Well, I’ll not be polite on your behalf. No, I mean, this, this falls slap bang into my kind of work mode, you know, uh, with Fab Little Bag and what we’re all about and, and what we do every day.
And a big part of that is around period provision. And, as I say, frequently, men, we don’t expect men to wander around with their own toilet roll every day, everywhere. In case they might need to use it that day. We don’t expect anyone to pay for it either. It’s a given that it’s there and it’s free, and it’s there because why it’s needed to manage bodily functions that are natural.
Well, there’s zero difference between that and having a period which is a hundred percent natural and, and a bodily function, but there isn’t the ability to manage that wherever you are, whatever the circumstance is, free of charge. So until that is the case there, there is, I am one of many out there who is fighting for that to be normalised.
And as, as you pointed out, when you say football stadiums, which football are you talking about?
Le’Nise Brothers: We’re big Arsenal fans, so, okay.
Martha Silcott: Oh my gosh. So like, we’re instant, like this is a love fest. It’s just moved into a full on love fest because I’ve been a season ticket holder since 1998. I am a definite Gooner through and through.
Yeah. So, yeah when you say that like our mission in sports when all that research came out from Sports England and, and others in 2022, about how this exodus of teenage girls was happening in sports. I mean, there was a plethora of reasons why that happens, but a consistent reason is periods and being caught short in a situation where there’s only male coaches, there’s no facilities, or the facilities are severely lacking or horrendous, and you are put in a position where you’re going to leak through, or, you know, you have to make these decisions.
Do I stay or do I go? Mm. And if you stay and leak through and suffer those consequences, it’s a very brave teenager who’s going to do that and not be effective ne negatively by that experience.
Le’Nise Brothers: Mm-hmm.
Martha Silcott: And that whole thing of like constantly, every time you’re on your period, you’ve got to be like, well, there’s no toilet roll, there’s no toilet.
It might not have a lock on the door. I don’t really feel secure. You know what, I’ll just skip this session while I’m on my period. And like, go. And then before you know it, you’ve skipped a few and then you’re not getting picked for the team. And then you’re like, you know what? Whatever, you know, I’ll just not bother.
And this is terrible. And I just got really angry about it because I thought, well, although I there’s so many reasons that contribute to that, that one around period and period management can be solved very easily. So we created these coaches bags, which is literally like a first aid kit, but for periods it’s really not rocket science at all.
But nobody had done it. And we created a a kind of discreet black bag, which happens to go with our branding. But you know, it was really more about making it something that male coaches can feel comfortable picking up, holding up, declaring its existence and it becoming part and parcel of the normal kit bag.
So we created those full of tampons, pads and Fab Little Bags so that these products can be easily and hygienically and responsibly and all the rest of it, but mainly easily disposed of in situ. Even if you had to go around the back of the changing area and change your pad outside, behind a tree, whatever, you could do it with a Fab Little Bag ’cause it seals closed and it, you can’t see what’s in it and, and it can fit down your sock and, you know, all those practical things.
So we created the coaches’ bags and now, and out of that was the period supportive movement in sport. And now we’ve got so many, I’m proud to say sporting bodies, national sporting bodies, county sporting bodies, grassroots clubs across football, across rugby, across cricket, across tennis, across hockey, across volleyball, across athletics, triathlon, rowing, world bowls.
I mean, it’s just been incredible the response that we’ve got to our period supportive movement. And it’s one of the proudest things, you know, for me in this space. So our mission there is that periods must not be a barrier to participation in sport. There’s no reason why they should be.
Le’Nise Brothers: Mm.
Martha Silcott: So if we make sure that women and girls can always manage their period in a sporting environment, whether that’s as a fan you know, you’re saying at the stadium or whether it’s, you know, as a coach themselves or as an athlete at grassroots level or Olympic level, or whether it’s a parent coming to pick up her daughter and she gets caught short in that environment as well.
So we just need to normalise it. We need to normalise periods because they are normal.
Le’Nise Brothers: Absolutely. And thinking about your interaction with these male coaches and male sport figures in store, can you share some of the reactions that you’ve had to sharing these, these kits that you put together?
Martha Silcott: You know what, the vast majority of men out there, they’re really open to learning more about this topic, because let’s face it, the chances are they are intimately involved with a woman who has periods, whether it’s their, obviously they’ve got their wife, girlfriend, partner, whatever you want to call them, then potentially a daughter.
And I find that there is the enthusiasm is often heightened if they have daughters, right? They’ve never thought about it before, but the second they’re like, oh my gosh, this could be my daughter. They’re just like, boom, I’m in, all in. Tell me everything. Let me be a better person, uh, better dad. You know?
So that’s really nice. So I, I find like most men are very open to learning. They feel quite empowered after they feel like, oh, that’s how it works. Okay. Because like sometimes in these workshops, whatever, I’ll get out a, a tampon with an applicator, and I’ll be like, okay, you unwrap it and you try and figure out how it works.
You know? And they’re pulling it out backwards and they’re like, flinging it everywhere. And, and it’s the first time that these guys have ever handled an applicated tampon outside of its wrapper.
Le’Nise Brothers: Wow.
Martha Silcott: And they’re just like, yeah, I had no, I always wondered what that was for, you know? And I’m like, no, you don’t pull it out.
You push it through. And they’re like, well, where’s that bit going? And I was like, that’s inside the vagina. And then you push it through and it pops out and it’s hanging out there. And they’re like, oh, okay. Because no one’s ever explained that to them. No one’s ever sat down or they’ve never had the opportunity to you know, they might have handed a tampon to their partner.
They’ve never undone the wrapper, and like, figured out what is going on there with the, with the applicator and the actual cotton bit and what’s that stringy bit, you know, oh, that so you can pull it out. Okay. Right. So just the basics is really important. And if you. Yeah, I’ll come back to that. But, but basically, yeah, so I find most, most men are fantastic in their attitude approach.
And yes, there are some that effectively have a finger in the ears. La la la la la. I’m not listening, this is too ridiculous kind of approach as well. But they are in the minority in my experience.
Le’Nise Brothers: I think that’s important. And that’s actually, it makes you feel good to know that, you know, yeah.
You have these men, especially if they’re working with teenagers and young girls who are already, they’re vulnerable and, you know, this is such a vulnerable topic for so many of these girls and young women. And then if they’re then encountering a man who is very squeamish about it, it can set them up to feel shamed about what is a natural bodily function.
I want to just take a step back and go all the way back to talk about you as an inventor.
Martha Silcott: Mm-hmm.
Le’Nise Brothers: Because I think it’s so interesting that you’ve said that you were in a position where you never really knew what to do with your used menstrual products, especially if there was no obvious solution as like those bins that you see in the loos and whatnot.
And then you created a solution for the problem, which I think is amazing and it’s such a kind of great can-do attitude. Then it took you seven years to get a patent for your product. Can you, before we talk about the menstrual health side of this, can you just talk us through the process of inventing a brand new product?
Martha Silcott: I could tell you how it was for me. I obviously don’t know if it’s standard or I don’t know how people invent things, but I guess mine just came about almost with a life of its own, to be honest. Because I had this experience where I was, trying to put it in the bin in someone’s house and there was no bin.
So I was put in this situation where, okay, do I risk flushing it? What if it blocks the toilet? That’s like the ultimate embarrassing nightmare to go and explain to someone, oh my gosh, you know, blocked your toilet by the way, with a blood soaked tampon. Or do I do, uh, what I did, which is extra wrap it, smuggle it in my sleeve, back to the table, and then surreptitiously put it in my handbag and do the handbag smuggle.
And that experience was horrible. Like it didn’t feel good. I was on edge. It was, I was stressed out about it because I didn’t know if someone was going to start asking me questions or what was going on in my handbag, et cetera. And then it was the next day when I was like talking to friends and half of them were like, oh gosh, you know, I’ve got much worse story.
This happened to me. And I put it in a, there was a bin, but it didn’t have a lid. And then the dog got hold of it and it was chasing a dog of my friend around the house with a pad in its mouth. And it was like, awful. And I was like, okay, mine seems quite mild now compared to this, you know, this is crazy.
And then, other friends were like, Ew, you know, you guys are disgusting. Just flush it down the toilet. What’s wrong with you? And that was the kind of moment when I realised that actually not everyone does what I do. Like that’s the key thing. Everyone thinks that everyone does what they do because we do not talk about disposal.
It is like the taboo within the taboo of periods. And then I was like, no, this is there’s a whole load of people out there doing something completely different. And actually, the more I studied that, the more I realised that that practise of flushing was really a negative environmental issue because a lot of the flushed items were making their way into the rivers and the oceans, partly based on the fact that our sewage system is designed to overflow to, to help control flooding into the, so that’s one way.
And then, our water companies are very guilty of opening sewage gates and just letting stuff go out there. Raw sewage. So this is the pollution aspect. So then I was like, okay, I don’t want to be in that position, so what could I have? What do I need? And I, I was very tampon focused because I was a tampon user.
So I was like, well, I’m holding a blood soaked dripping tampon in one hand, so whatever it is, I’ve got to be able to do it with one hand ’cause I’ve only got one hand free. So that was the start of the thought process, I think. And then, you know, it took, I don’t even know how many months, but many, many, many months of just pondering and, you know, I had a young family.
I was working, I was, life was very busy. I wasn’t sitting around thinking about this for hours and hours. It was very much snatched moments on the bus, on the way to a meeting or on the train on the way back from work or in the shower or, just those odd snatched kind of 10, 15, 20 minute moments.
But it was a little bit obsessive. So I was kind of like, how do I create something that I can open with on one hand? How on earth do you do that? So. I was fixated on the, um, you know, those, um, sunglasses cases that you push together to open to like the pouch. You push the sides together and it opens and you take out your glasses.
Le’Nise Brothers: Right.
Martha Silcott: I was feeling like that’s, that’s kind of it, but it’s not it because you can’t, it’s metal, it’s thin metal that allows, that allows that opening and obviously you can’t have metal in a bag that you’re going to put in the bin. That’s crazy. Yeah, that was a, I got stuck on that for quite a long time.
And then it was, it was a kind of eureka blue Peter moment when I kind of figured out that it wasn’t pushing together, it was pulling apart. It’s a shame can’t see my hand. And uh, yeah, it was putting apart. So then, then it was like, okay. And then I think from there, the kind of finger loop, which is the patented part, like came, came to the fore and then I made it, I made the first one out of a sandwich, you know, like a sandwich bag, like a plastic sandwich bag, some staples, a little bit of nappies, uh, you know, the nappy ve velcro bit that you stick to the nappies.
Yeah. So that was like my kind of what is now glue. And then Sellotape. So that was my first prototype in this house here where I am now. That was my prototype.
Le’Nise Brothers: You came up with a prototype, and what happens next? Do you have to find a product designer and then get it kind of specced up and then go on to see, oh, does this exist or what’s the then process from?
Martha Silcott: I probably should have done that. Yeah, that sounds really sensible. What I did do at some point during that invention process is, which was actually sensible, is to go and like, speak to IP lawyers for free. There was a group called Ideas 21 back then, which did like talks and things about these things.
So I went to a few of those. Because if you share, if you are inventing something new and you share it with anyone, you are risking your IP. So the only person you can really discuss it with is an IP lawyer. So yeah, I learned about like how a bit, how that works and stuff. And then anyone that I was talking to later on about it, I’d get to sign an NDA agreement and so that bit I did, I did all the proper steps.
As for a designer and things like that. No, that was, that didn’t, it honestly didn’t occur to me. I didn’t know there were people that did that. I just thought well it’s on me. So I kind of, a friend’s dad knew a person that, that worked with black bin bags or something and I ended up getting a, a chunk of them made out black bin bags, but I had to do the bit that is the difficult patented bit, if you like and difficult to manufacture.
I had to do that by hand on my own, on the kitchen table, folding over the loops, getting double-sided sticky tapes, sticking it down for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours to make enough bags to be able to like show people, so yeah, it was a kind of, I know this time obviously I was working, so I had, I, I did commit to four days in the corporate world so that I had one day to think about this stuff.
So it was in that one day that I had to do all my, what is now Fab Little Bag, which was then didn’t really have a name project.
Le’Nise Brothers: Right. And it’s quite a big leap to then go from a corporate job, which, you know, we think of as stable. It’s steady to create, not not just creating your own company, but a company that has a brand new invention.
Can you talk about that side of it? That leap of faith that you made
Martha Silcott: leap of faith is one way of putting it complete madness is another way of, of putting it, I think yeah. I don’t know why, I can’t explain why it was such a driver in me. It kind of doesn’t make any sense even to myself now.
What on earth was wrong with me? Like what is, why was I so obsessed with it? I don’t, I don’t know. I think because I felt like this little bag could really help so many people. And it was only little, and it wasn’t going to cost very much, and it was going to be really straightforward. And of course, everyone would flock to me and ask to buy them, right?
So a whole heap of naivety on every level. I do refer to naivety as a superpower, and, and I stand by that because I think for many founders, inventors or not, or just founders of businesses, whatever, I think if you knew everything that was coming at you, you’d probably just stay in your well-paid job.
Thank you very much. And, you know, you, you wouldn’t take that leap. So that naivety is actually a good driver a lot of the time. And I think that I, I genuinely felt I could solve massive problems environmentally, on the one hand, with people flushing, I could convince them not to do that and to put it in the bin.
But if you try and convince a flusher to loo roll wrap, and they’re over the age of 14, they’re not really down with that because suddenly it’s, that is a disgusting option. Whereas if you’ve grown up doing that, you kind of get numb to the fact you are wrapping in blood and or it just doesn’t bother you.
Le’Nise Brothers: Right.
Martha Silcott: But if you are a flusher and you don’t even engage with that part of the process, and you’re not used to seeing the blood, dealing with the blood, acknowledging it in any way, it’s just zoom out of sight, out of mind, then that, that is quite a leap to ask. The, the loo roll wrap doesn’t change behaviour.
Whereas I was convinced that if I could give them a nice way in quotes of doing this that felt clean and in control and hygienic and easy, then why not? ’cause now you, you can’t unknow what I’ve just told you, IE that you are polluting the rivers and ocean. So, and that was the kind of how many flushes felt.
They felt guilty. Like they felt bad about flushing once they understood the impact that it was having.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah.
Martha Silcott: And they wanted to change. And then they’re like, well, what am I meant to do? And then you tell them about the loo roll wrap, and they’re like, oh, really? I’m not sure about that. And then you could say, oh, you can just fab it.
And, and they’re like, oh yeah, that’s fine. So I really felt like I could do, help with that change. And I really felt like I could empower a lot of women and girls who felt disempowered in so many scenarios. Right. Whether you are your mother-in-law’s house and it’s just got that uncomfortable poor old mother-in-law’s.
I’ve got a great one, but, you know, you or you’re just uncomfortable for whatever reason in that house, uh, the bin is like really pretty and it hasn’t got a liner and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Or you are going visit your boyfriend and he shares a flat with three other blokes and you just don’t want to leave that kind of, hello? Yes, I’ve just been here and I’m bleeding everywhere calling card, you just want to keep it and this isn’t about shame, by the way. This is, there’s a big distinction in my head between shame and privacy and feeling and being private about your own menstrual cycle is completely fine with me.
I don’t subscribe to kind of shouting about it and telling everybody as proof that you are relaxed about it. And I think that’s quite a common feeling that, it’s still my personal business that I can choose who I share that with. So there were just, and then, you know, when you’re travelling or you are on a train, I mean, how often are you on a train?
And those, those bins, I mean, come on, train companies, come and talk to me. Yeah. Yeah, so there’s just so many scenarios where binning is difficult slash uncomfortable slash unpleasant slash impossible. So in those scenarios, Fab Little Bag allows you to continue to be a dinner and do the right thing, but with no stress.
Le’Nise Brothers: What’s really interesting is, as you’ve been speaking, you’ve effectively created a new category, but then you’re also using this interesting terminology where you’re talking about binners and, and the loo roll wrap. And the disposable menstrual waste issue is quite a big one.
And I was never taught that you couldn’t, you weren’t supposed to flush your tampons
Martha Silcott: Yes.
Le’Nise Brothers: Down. I would never flush a pad. That felt obvious to me, but it’s, no, it’s not obvious to everyone. But yes, I was never taught not to flush my tampons and to prepare for this conversation.
I was doing some research and some of the stats are just like, they really are mind boggling. So these products, so tampons and pads, they’re the fifth most common product found on European beaches. It’s estimated that around 700,000 panty liners, 2.5 million tampons and 1.4 million pads are flushed on the toilet every day in the UK.
And disposal of menstrual products generates around 28,000 tonnes of waste per year in the UK. I mean, it’s clear this is a, a huge issue and you mentioned the water companies contributing to this waste through their, their methods. But what’s really interesting is that in creating a new category, you’ve also, you have the product, but then there’s also the education side of it.
Martha Silcott: Mm.
Le’Nise Brothers: Where, you know, I mentioned, I like, I didn’t know, and it feels so dumb saying that ’cause it’s just seems so obvious, but it’s just something that you don’t think about. Can you talk a little bit about the education piece that you’ve, that’s part of what your company does?
Martha Silcott: Yeah. It’s, as you say it’s a new category. It’s a new product in a new category, in a taboo subject.
I mean, this is where you just think Martha what are you doing, right? But wrapped around there, it’s crucial for the education. And that’s always been one of our most difficult aspects of the business is how do you educate the masses on this topic?
Because it’s not done in schools it’s not done anywhere really. Okay. And part of the terminology that you mentioned, the flushers, the binners, the loo roll wrap, the handbag smuggle, those were things that came to, to me very naturally in terms of being applicable terms to use in my educational communication with the general public.
Because as soon as you say that to someone, they understand exactly what you mean. They’ve never heard it before like that, but they understand it. And so that whole education piece about not only is it not okay to flush tampons and pads, but it’s the why, well, why not? Because a tampons only little. They’re only going to just you know, but people have never really got a tampon and put it in a glass of water and seen what’s happened. They’re there to expand and they expand and they, people don’t know that our pipes from our toilet to our drainage to our sewer is 10 centimetres in diameter.
And people don’t think, stop and think about and kind of why should they? But this is part of the problem that, particularly in hard water, water areas like London, those pipes are already furry. So that 10 centimetres has just got smaller and people don’t know that typically every three houses share a drain that then goes off and plugs itself into the bigger sewer pipe.
So even if, depending on where you are in the three, you could be doing everything right, but your neighbour next door but one is flushing stuff like crazy, and it’s your area that gets backed up with raw sewage, they’re fine because they’re number one in the, in the circuit. So all this stuff is educational and none of it is really delivered to anybody at any time.
So I don’t have the, I guess the money or the bandwidth to go and educate the world about this. So we do what we can with what we’ve got in the company in terms of creating language that sits well and is understood by people instantly when having this discussion on a mission to break down the barriers of communication around this so that we can talk openly and normally about periods or what we’ve seen is that the more you educate, it kind of has a ripple effect because you educate one person, they might then go and tell their mum or best friend or sister or boyfriend or whatever. Oh, this happened today at school. Oh, this happened today at work. Oh, work’s decided to go. And you know, they’ve got free tampons and pads in, in the thing now.
Oh I went to this toilet in this restaurant and it had these cool bags in there that you like, put your tampon in and you like put it in the bin and it keeps the bin clean and there’s no smell. And it’s like, oh my God. And all these conversations are exactly what has to happen. I cannot do it on my own.
We have to have a, like a grassroots movement of conversation going on. And that’s definitely what’s what’s happened since about 2020. Up until about then I honestly feel like I was having a conversation in a vacuum. I might as well have been just talking to my own hand. But since the tampon tax and the period poverty stats came out around that, those two negatives actually turned into the best positive for this topic because they catapulted this topic into normal conversations.
It was on the BBC News. The word tampon was said in the House of Commons out loud. It really forced its way through barriers at that point. And it wasn’t long after that that the corporate sector certainly sector the larger corporate sector area and the more boutiquey corporate sector embrace that wholeheartedly.
It is now becoming normal to walk into certain types of offices and certain types of establishment. And there be free period products right there.
Le’Nise Brothers: Mmmm.
Martha Silcott: And this is wonderful. And that has come about through a general education push in this space since a roundabout about 2020. And you know, when I first started Fab, there was one organic brand, Naturacare, that I was aware of pretty much.
I think there was one actually, I think TOTM was just started as well, so it’s like two. Within a very short space of time. There was about 21. It just went, boom. And the other wonderful thing that’s happened during this whole kind of evolution of this topic of periods in the last five years or so, is that the reusable market has also gained massive traction.
So there weren’t period underwear. That wasn’t a thing. There were some period pads that you could wash, put them in the washing machine and reuse them. And you know, that was a big thing for a while. It didn’t last very long ’cause probably ’cause the impracticality and the feeling or whatever.
But there’s still some out there now, but it wasn’t like this, it didn’t take over anything as a habit. But the period underwear movement is fantastic and it’s gaining momentum. And now there’s multiple suppliers in that space. There’s something for everybody. And the beauty of all of and the menstrual cup, had, it never went away by the way, but it was used by a tiny fraction of people.
But now that percentage of people using menstrual cups has really rocketed. It’s still small percentage wise, but in numbers, it’s a lot more than it ever, ever was. So this is all fantastic, right? Because. Now women and girls have a choice. They can mix and match. They can try out different things that suit them.
If sustainability and environmental stuff is passionate for you, you can move to solutions to manage your period that do not impact negatively in the same way that tampons and pads and disposables do ’cause they do.
Le’Nise Brothers: Hmm.
Martha Silcott: I’m really thrilled by that aspect that has happened through education and through normalising this conversation.
And that’s what Fab Little Bag as a brand really once, uh, has been like, our kind of lifeblood is just let’s normalise the conversation. Let’s talk about what you do with your used products.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah.
Martha Silcott: Let’s talk about those absolutely horrific experiences. ’cause if you, if you share them, maybe their impact will lessen for you a little bit.
I get people, obviously I meet a lot of people at different venues and stuff, and people will, once they know what I’m doing, they will literally pull me to one side and share their most intimate period disposal nightmare story with me. It’s like cathartic for them, they feel like by sharing they, I’ll say, oh, I’ve never told anyone this, but, and then they’ll tell me and it’s, I kind of love that because it’s um, it’s like a little period therapy, but, you know, it’s, all of this is really crucial to moving forward. So yeah, to answer your, that’s a very convoluted way of answering about education. Education is so, so important to move this conversation and practices forward. Where we are now has only come through forcing that education and forcing the normalisation of periods onto the agendas.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. And I also want to just take the time to ask about another another product that I, I don’t know if it, this is an invention, but this is another product that you sell, which is, it’s called the
Martha Silcott: HyGeeni
Le’Nise Brothers: HyGeeni. Yeah. Which is this bigger hygienic disposable bags, which is, is super interesting. And it made me think about when my son was a baby and changing his nappies and, you know, sometimes it would be that same thing where you are looking around, there’s no bin, like firstly finding a, a changing table, then trying to find a bin.
Or if the bin was too full, then you’re kind of looking around trying to figure some, maybe you have some of those, those bags that you could put the di, the nappy in. Yeah. But you know, sometimes you see people coming out and they have the, it wrapped up. So this is such an interesting, another really interesting product that it really solves this problem.
Like it’s a sticky problem that people have while you’re just, you’re bit stuck. You don’t know what to do. Oh, I’ve got this in my bag. Oh, thank you past me for buying these disposable bags.
Martha Silcott: Mm-hmm.
Le’Nise Brothers: Can you talk a little bit about that? Is there, has there been an education process needed for that product?
Martha Silcott: I’m just very excited and proud of HyGeeni bag because it’s a bigger version, conceptually it’s a very similar to Fab Little Bag. It’s like a bigger version disposal bag that seals closed. It seals like the glue on on Fab Little Bag is, is vegan glue. If I wanted to force open a sealed Fab Little Bag, I probably could, depending on how long it had been sealed. No chance with a HyGeeni, once it’s sealed, it’s completely sealed. And that is because it’s containing basically pee and poo. So it’s therefore baby’s nappies. Absolutely. But really my core focus for this product was for stoma users and for male leaks.
Le’Nise Brothers: Okay.
Martha Silcott: And this was something that I didn’t know. Credit has to go to, uh, a Fab Little Bag customer called Ali, who she had to, she contacted me ’cause she used fabs for her catheters, but she said, Martha, they’re are just a tiny bit small and you know, I have to self catheterize a couple of times a day.
Could you make them a bit bigger please? So I was like, well, can we just meet? Because I don’t really understand catheters and things. I don’t know. I don’t really know what you’re talking about. It’s a whole nother thing. And I would like to understand. So we met and she educated me on a whole world I had no clue about, which is people who are out there self catheterizing, which means that they can’t urinate them freely and therefore they have to insert things to help drain the bladder.
And then also people can’t poo. And they, for a whole variety of reasons, by the way. And that crosses both of these, obviously crossover men and women. It’s not gender specific. And I didn’t understand about, I’d never heard about a stoma or an ostomy bag or what on earth is that? So the education was immense for me.
And then I was like, oh my goodness. But what do they do? Like, how do you dispose of this? And once again, we’re in the exact same scenario where the manufacturers of the product, which is used for the purpose of completely disregard slash forget slash can’t be bothered with the then what? The disposal bit the afters.
I find it gobsmacking. But anyway, that’s where we are. So I was like, my goodness. Okay, so. That wasn’t a massive leap for me to just kind of go, okay, well we need a bigger one for these purposes and it needs to, and yes, there is a patent on that as well because you have to be very, again, opening it with one hand, but it’s much bigger so that the patent linked to the Fab Little Bag wasn’t going to work for this ’cause it was too big.
So yeah, I had to do more inventing. But the purpose of it is really about living life without limits. If I can summarise it like that, because people who they have a stoma. They have to use the ostomy bags and stuff and or have to have leak problems.
So they need a sheath or a pad to wear when they’re out and about in particular, it means that they don’t want to go out and about and their world starts to close in and loneliness and depression. And like, it has a massive effect on people, particularly if, for example, the reason, so people who’ve had chronic illnesses all their life and get a stoma are often quite joyful about their stoma and have a very good relationship with that because they’re suddenly not in a, that, that pain anymore. But if you’ve suddenly, like was diagnosed with bowel cancer or something, and then you wake up from surgery and you’ve got a stoma, there’s a lot of resentment about the change to your life as a result of that.
And that’s really difficult. And I speak with some knowledge of that because a very, very, very close family friend that happened to, and he never made friends with that. It was always a problem and awful and, you know, a, a real negative for him. So that was really interesting to me, the difference, it’s not just, oh, you’ve got a stoma, you feel like this.
There’s a whole range of feeling to do with that. The, the purpose of HyGeeni is to transform all those many awkward moments where you’re stressing about, well what if this and what if that? And it’s going to smell, and I don’t want this and I don’t want that. Transforming those awkward disposal moments into confident experiences so that you can live your life without limits.
You can live your life without restriction based on is it going to smell, is it going to leak? You know, all that kind of practical stuff. So the response we got when we went to our very first stoma conference last year was phenomenal. And I honestly was emotion, like properly emotional. It really was properly emotional.
I had one lady and she’s in the little video that we use, she’s like, thank you. Because now this just helps my 7-year-old who has a stoma going to school, it just makes it that much better, you know? And when, and you’re like, my silly little bag that seals up, you know, is actually changing the life of a 7-year-old and her mother to be more relaxed at school, taking away one, one aspect that is anxiety ridden, job done, happy, but, you know, that’s it.
That’s what it’s there for. HyGeeni is, I haven’t really talked about it much or focused on it much, but this is the year 2026 is welcome to the world HyGeeni. ’cause you’re out there to do some good and, uh, we want to spread the joy of giving people back their choices, enabling people to be out and about living their life, getting on with things without stressing about disposal.
Le’Nise Brothers: What’s so interesting is that your, so Fab Little Bag came from an insight, from your experience, and then HyGeeni came from an, a customer insight that you then created.
Martha Silcott: Yeah.
Le’Nise Brothers: A new product. And I think it’s so interesting that you are so connected with your customers that you’re able to say, okay, actually, can we meet, can we talk about this?
Like, how can, how can I help? And I think that’s what people, people love, love that. They love it when companies feel like they’re listening to them as a customer. Especially like when you are a really loyal customer to a product. That’s, I think that’s incredible. I could talk to you for, for ages.
I think what you’re doing is so interesting, but what’s the one thought that you’d love to leave listeners with today?
Martha Silcott: I think the thought I’d like to leave them with is, can I have two? Like one, one is if you are, if you’re sat on something that won’t go away in your head and it’s a niggle that you want to, you know, you want to invent something or create something, it, by the way, an invention doesn’t technically it has to be something brand new to be patented or whatever, but I believe that just improving an existing thing so it works much better is equally valid.
But if you are set on something and it won’t leave you alone, there is plenty of help out there to go and help to give you guidance and talk, take you through the steps and things like that. You can’t, I would say don’t jump in and make sure you really think everything through, because you know, it might seem a glamorous thing.
It is the furthest away from glamour you’ve ever experienced. And it’s the hardest thing you’ll probably ever do other than childbirth if you’re female. But so that’s one on the invention side, I guess. And then on the other side don’t ever feel restricted. There are always solutions to out there to help you to feel like you can live your life, how you want to live it.
Don’t sit on being in too much pain that if that get, you know, insist with your GP that you see a specialist you are, that is your right. Please don’t sit there with undiagnosed endometriosis for years. You know, really insist on that and, start fabbing. Give it a whirl. See what you think. And let me know, because like, as you say, like, we just absolutely love customer feedback.
We do listen, we totally listen and, um, listen, we’re always out there to try and take away barriers. That’s what we want to do.
Le’Nise Brothers: Fantastic. Where can people find you?
Martha Silcott: They can find Fab Little Bag at our FabLittleBag.com website. They can find us in Amazon and they can find us on Ocado if you use Ocado for your shopping.
And I hope if you do not have them in your workplace toilets, then get down to HR and is, and demand that they have them in there, because you will be all these businesses out there, they don’t even realise that they’re polluting the rivers and oceans because 40% of women flush. So you will be helping single-handedly to stop Little Nemo and his family hanging out with the tampons and the pads in the sea, which we want to avoid.
So you can play a really important role by getting your workplace to get Fab Little Bags in the loose.
Le’Nise Brothers: Thank you so much for coming onto the show today, Martha.
Martha Silcott: Absolute pleasure. It’s been a real pleasure talking to you. Thank you for asking such interesting questions.