PHOTOGRAPH: JOHANNA PARKIN/GETTY IMAGES. FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 125
I have always hated the word ‘sanitary’ in relation to towels and tampons – as though there were some need to decontaminate this most natural and inevitable of processes. That a stigma should ever be attached to anything as commonplace as the monthly reproductive cycle defies logic – but when was the last time you openly took a tampon out of your bag and held it in plain view as you walked to the toilet? Precisely. There seems to be no good time or place for our vaginas – but feeling in the dark has done us all a huge disservice.
In last month’s column, Melissa and Jasmine Hemsley championed the use of organic cotton tampons and towels. Why? Because nonorganic cotton is grown with the use of pesticides; chlorine is then used to bleach it that ‘whiter than white’ colour, and chlorine contains a chemical called dioxin, which is an endocrine disruptor; then there’s the plastic applicator itself, which contains phthalates, also endocrine disruptors.