Let's talk about periods

Ready for a bit of a rant? Because I want to talk about a topic which is important to me: periods.

Yep, let's all blush and put on our embarrassed pursed lip faces as we pretend nobody bleeds from their vagina. Or we could take that face off and settle down with the knowledge that about 50% of people (that being all the women) will do this at some point in their lives. In today's disposable society, we think the best things to use for absorbing our periods are disposable tampons and sanitary towels, yes? Well, I think not. I use cloth pads. Mmmnhmmn. I know the idea of this tends to gross people out. because we've been brought up to consider that unhygienic. The most hygienic thing to do would be to use bleached materials which we throw away straight away, not fabric like that which we put near our vaginas every other day of the month!

By all means, it's your vagina, you do what you want with it. But I have plenty of reasons why I use what I use. I've been given the chance to think about what other options are out there for me, and to make an informed choice. A lot of women try not to think about their periods at all. But seriously, stop and consider for a moment: do you know why you use what you use? If you reason that you use disposable because it's better, do you know why you think it's better? Does it seem more hygienic to you? Do you actually know whether it's more hygienic or not, or have big disposable tampon/ sanitary towel brands told you it's more hygienic? What supposedly makes disposable more hygienic?The bleaching process used in making them? This makes them that shiny, unnatural shade of whiter-than-white which we associate with hygiene, cleanliness and purity. It also produces a toxic chemical called dioxin in trace amounts.

Another issue is that tampon companies are not required to tell you exactly what goes into their products; and we don't ask, do we? Another effect of our not wanting to have to think about our vaginas is that we don't think about what the products we use are made up of. We don't ask; we just assume it's all perfectly safe and nothing to worry about. I found some store own brand tampons which said, "These tampons are made from either cotton, rayon, or a mixture of cotton/rayon absorbent fibres". So either the company doesn't know either, or they don't want to tell us. which in itself is a little worrying, since usually people try to avoid telling us things like that because we wouldn't like the truth if we knew it. Another large company said nowhere either on the box, in the leaflet inside, or on its website what went into their tampons. And another large company said, "They’re made from combination of cotton and/or rayon, rayon/or polyester, and cotton/or polyester". Again, this answer, whilst specific in possible contents, is vague in actual contents. Rayon itself is not actually a harmful substance. BUT, both rayon and cotton are fibrous substances which means that tampons will almost certainly leave fibres behind in the wall of your vagina. Lovely. And that means that any dioxin is embedded in the wall of your vagina with it.

Plus, there are all these new products with things in with flashy names or which are meant to appeal to us, like certain odour-neutralising pearly type things mentioned by a few different companies - different things, same kind of advertising slogans. but nowhere do they actually say what these pearly things are which neutralise odour. Many come with a 'fresh scent'. But nowhere do they list the chemicals which go into that fragrance, such as phthalates (chemicals linked to hormone disruption which can affect development and fertility) - and why would you want a chemical fragrance to be coming out of your vagina, anyway?! They're constantly coming up with new additives to tampons and sanitary towels which sound flashy. But the names tell you nothing of what they actually are, nor are there any actual explanations of what they are or what they're made of. They're simply advertising slogans designed to appeal to the stoopid in us all. Companies aren't actually allowing you to know what's in the products you're buying at all!

The companies advertising their products to us are making us ashamed of our period. They tell us to be proud of our period, and in the same sentence reassure us that their product is so discreet nobody will know about it. They tell us that periods are a beautiful part of nature (gack!) and then describe their product as  'protection'. Since when did we need protecting against our vaginas bleeding? The advertising makes us feel ashamed about our periods, like they're something to be embarrassed about and to hide about ourselves - or to fight against. Let's be honest, they can be frustrating. They can be painful. But 50% of the world is in sympathy with our pain. And they're entirely natural and normal for 50% of the world too - at least at one stage in their lives, anyway. We shouldn't have to be ashamed of them. We should have access to information about alternatives. And we shouldn't be being taught that disposable are the only options, never mind the only 'clean' options.

There are some great alternatives offered to the standard route. Firstly, and for the most squeamish people, you can stay in your comfort zone and simply get unbleached, organic cotton sanitary pads and tampons. You may have fun trying to find them, though, considering all that non-communication the companies are doing about tampon contents. There seems to be a well-known company called Natracare who do these, though.

Then there are a few options. There's the menstrual cup, in both disposable and reusable forms. This is a medical grade silicone cup which sits in your vagina - the same way a tampon would - and catches the blood. You take it out, empty the blood, rinse it - although that's not necessary - and reinsert it. If it's disposable, you throw it away. If it's a monthly one, you reinsert it but at the end of your period for that month, you throw it away. These are completely safe, hygienic, and are cheaper than disposable products. If you buy the standard menstrual cup, it can last years and is approximated to cost the same as 3 months' supply of disposables, either tampons or pads. These do tend to have the downside of not being recyclable. But that's the same as all the disposable products out there.

Then you've got your cloth pads. You can make your own, you can buy them - there is a wealth of great information out there. I love mine. I've been making my own for almost 2 years, and I've been using them for longer than that. They feel like normal underwear, they never leak (which the plastic disposable ones often did for me), they're pretty(!), and I just chuck them in the wash with all my other clothes. Sure, lots of people recommend soaking them, or adding extra stuff to the wash, or doing a hot wash. But I don't bother. I just put them through like everything else. They hardly add to the laundry load, so they're very cheap, and they come through it almost entirely stain-free, despite 2 years of use. I love the pretty tops they have, in gorgeous fabrics. They make me feel special! Mine are made from a pattern by Luna Wolf, which is where my first cloth pads came from. She's no longer making any more cloth pads, but she's still selling the tutorial. There are millions of places on the web for buying cloth pads, though - etsy, for a start! They aren't available in stores, unfortunately - yet.

Then you can get reusable tampons - again, you can make your own or buy them. They can be made from fabric, or knitted. Along with this is something called an interlabial pad. There's not much about them, and I don't know very much; but they're sort of a cross between a pad and a tampon, and sit between your labia, hence the name.

You can use sea sponge - used like a tampon. Again, I don't know huge amounts about these. But the information is out there. It seems that you moisten them with water, and then just use like a tampon. Some people tie floss round them to act like the cord on a tampon. They seem to be less long-term than cloth pads or tampons, but longer term than disposables - some recommend using it for a few months then throwing it away.

And finally, there is something I have heard of only very briefly: free bleeding. It's really not discussed very much at all. But some women are perfectly comfortable with, say, sleeping without anything to mop up the blood; or wearing dark underwear on a light day and just not worrying about it. And some women say, apparently, that they can hold it with their vaginal muscles and let it out into a loo. I don't really know. It's not an option I'm interested in trying right now. But it might be for you. By all means, think about it!

I don't want anyone to feel ashamed if they use disposable products for their period. As I said earlier, it's your vagina so do what you want with it. And currently, the disposable products are the most easily available. But I do want you to be informed of all the choices out there, and to research into them, and not to dismiss them because the disposables companies tell you that their products are the only hygienic ones. Many of the options out there have been in use for millenia already. They've had plenty of testing. Go, research, read. Try out different options. I have a menstrual cup which I love, but rarely use because most of the time I find it to be too difficult (being an unmarried 19 year-old). But I tried it, liked it and disliked it, and will probably return to it in the future. Give other options a go. Then decide. If you still prefer disposables, stick with them. But you've got a heck of a lot of periods ahead of you - probably - so trying something new for a month or two isn't going to hurt!

Please love your vagina - it's a part of you! I'm not saying you have to spend all your time talking or thinking about it. But don't ignore it completely.

Love love xx

Busy, cardigan, ice cream, fancy dress, games, tribe, cloth pads, camping, mum

Busy busy busy since the last time we spoke, I think...! Let me see if I can't piece together the past few days in a way that makes sense...

Okay, so I have some photos for sharing from the recent projects I blogged about last. These include:

A lovely picture of my cardigan:

See how nicely it's gone together! I know there are still loose ends to be sorted and I haven't quite finished as I need to find the perfect buttons for it; but I've tried it on, and I feel amazing in it! The colour is wonderful, i think photos really don't do it justice. And with finishing I've found that I have quite a lot of yarn left over to play with and find something else to make. This does excite me.


I also have pictures of the two ice creams:

The strawberry buttermilk...

...And the vegan strawberry.

I think that they would be better if I had made them in an ice cream maker, which I don't have. Having said which, they've turned out fine, but a little hard. They taste brilliant. the vegan ice cream somehow tastes more like a sorbet, which is refreshing and lovely; and the strawberry buttermilk is really creamy ice cream. On the whole I would consider them to be a success, but in future I would go round to my grandparents and bribe a use of their ice cream maker from them.

So those are the crafty bits I've done. Since then I went to a fancy dress party, which was great fun! I might actually have a photo of that too... let me look...

Yep! My mum took one when we finished the costume:



The last touch to this was the painting of two rouged circles on the apples of my cheeks for a real fairytale look. It was a brilliant night, great company and some very funny games. We played flour mountain, a classic laugh; pass-the-parcel, which was oh so grownup; and a new game to me, of which I don't actually know the name. I'm gonna call it apples and satsumas. Basically, you took a pair of nylon tights and you shoved a satsuma into each toe. Then you tied the tights round your waist so the satsumas hung down in front of you, prompting many jokes about how low people's satsumas swung. Everyone lines up and puts an apple on the floor, then it's a race to see who can get their apple to the finish line first simply by whacking it with the satsumas. It's hilarious but soo difficult!

So that was a lovely night, and I slept at H's house afterwards to save confusion with the taxi and... well, just 'cause I wanted to, and that way we would be able to watch the next two episodes of Tribe, which I happened to know were major in terms of plottage!! The looks on her face were priceless, the shock and excitement crossing it were well worth the money spent on the box set.

Afterwards, I went home and finished the cloth pads completely. So now I have a pile of them just waiting to be given to new homes! Very exciting! I experimented a little with these ones; my mum's new sewing machine has lots of pretty embroidery stitches, so I added a line of one of those to each side of the flaps. It will require fine tuning in the future, but I'm very happy with the dainty little bit of pretty.

Having finished the cloth pads, I packed my bags for the following day. this pretty much leads into the camping... experience. But it's a long, long story, and deserves its own blog entry, which it will get most likely tomorrow. For now, let it suffice to say that it was not the biggest success with me. It has left me exhausted and in a bit of a low place right now. But I was just looking through the camera, and I found a beautiful picture I'd taken of my mum, so I'm going to put it up here as a lovely finish:

Isn't she gorgeous?!

So I'm gonna leave you now. this has been mainly about catching up on photos and B's eighteenth. Tomorrow you will see the account of camping. Be warned!

Love love xx

long time, exams, Norland, travelling, work, pads, cardigan, vegetarianism, ice cream, TRIBE TRIBE TRIBE, fancy dress, camping, Fangella

Long time no see people! Sorry I haven't been here, it's just I was mega busy with exams and leaving, then I just plain couldn't be bothered. That's right, I was lazy. But I have soo much to tell you, and since I seem to be unable to sleep tonight I thought I'd catch us all up!

First of all: my exams were a triumph! I think, anyway. I actually loved the philosophy exams, found them really fun, and almost wished for more time, because I felt that there was so much more that I could say!! Now that's a first! Spanish was fine, I actually had masses of excess time, so we'll see how it turns out - hopefully it will be fine.

This of course leads on to College. I don't recall if I told you where I was applying; if not, I was applying to a nanny college. I had an interview, and I was waiting to hear back from them whether I had a place or not. I waited for months. Finally, I decided to call them and see when I could expect to hear back. Turns out they sent a letter to me months ago. All that waiting for nothing! But the lovely lady on the other end of the phone confirmed that I have a place for September 2012! So as long as I get the grades, 2 C's, I'm in! I'm feeling pretty confident about this, so my future is sort of set.

So now I just have this year between to figure out what to do with my time. I really want to travel still, although I know I can only travel for the second half of the year. But I really, really want to do something worthwhile, you know? Teaching children somewhere like Africa, or China. That would be ideal. At the moment I'm thinking about asking my high school if I could use their connection to a school in South Africa to work there for half a year. But I don't know if it's feasible or not.

My parents really want me to get another full-time job. I'm already working my 6 hours at Currys. I know, I know, 6 hours isn't much. But it's all the company can afford right now. And I agree, earning more money is important. But I still want to be able to do everything I want to, and I don't know how keen any companies would be at my taking the second half of the year off to go to a completely different country. I doubt they would pay me. or hire me, in fact.

So that's how future/career is looking right now. As to my own, personal life? Well, it's looking pretty peachy! I've been doing plenty of sewing, mainly of the pile of cloth pads I've been doing for a while. I'm getting there last bits of actual sewing to do and snaps to apply, then they're done! I'm planning to give a lot of them away as gifts and such to various people. I may keep one or two of the shabbier ones for myself. I have quite a collection of them now. And I still adore them, they still come in really handy, and I haven't used disposable menstrual products in months. Score one for the environment!

I also finished the sewing up of the last side seam of my cardigan I've been knitting since forever! Now all it needs are some tiny buttons, and it's done! At last! So many exclamation points, but I'm really psyched about this particular cardigan, I've had the wool since October, and been knitting it since about Christmas or something wacky. Admittedly, most of the time I haven't been knitting, which is why it's taken so long. But now i feel like the end truly is in sight for an awesome cardigan!

Not to be ignored are my cooking efforts I think. I've been doing a lot of cooking recently, probably to pacify the father more than anything. Since I decided I really wasn't going back to meat he decided he wouldn't be cooking for me anymore, as he refused 'to cook extra meals for somebody else'. Up until the point at which he realised that yes, I did mean it, and no I wasn't going to eat the first meaty meal he'd put in front of me in weeks, he'd been fine with cooking lots of vegetarian food. And he had no problem with cooking the meat separately to the rest of the meal and adding it to the plates of those who wanted it. But once it was actual and definite, suddenly it was a major issue. So I've cooked a lot of the meals recently, and he's eaten lots of vegetarian meals without complaint. And when he has cooked meat I've done my own thing. And it's been fine!

In addition to all the cooking, I also found time to try out some ice cream making. We had masses of strawberries int he fridge, so I figured it couldn't hurt to try my hand at a couple of recipes. I tried one vegan recipe, courtesy of David Lebovitz, and one normal sort of strawberry buttermilk recipe, the link to which I found on Gidget Goes Home's blog. Now, I have no ice cream maker, and I think they would have turned out better if I had one. But as far as these things go, I actually think they turned out pretty well! The vegan ice cream is more like a sorbet in texture and flavour, but very nice, if a little solid. The buttermilk is like real, creamy ice cream, again a little hard to get out of the tub, but rather yummy. I fully intend to ask for a cheap ice cream maker for my next birthday, since I think it may produce a lot of fun, and allow me to develop my crafty side in a new direction that I'm rather enjoying.

Usually when I get all crafty another side of my life suffers. Often it's my social life. But I'm pleased to say that this time it isn't at all. I spent Thursday afternoon and evening at H's house, having cycled there; and we started watching Tribe, season 3. I feel this needs explaining. When I was young, there was a program on telly called The Tribe. It was on channel 5, on either Saturday or Sunday mornings, I can't remember which. It was crap. It was terrible! the writing was awful, the acting was pretty poor, although to be fair it improved to some extent over the seasons, and direction was pretty missing too. And I loved it! I adored the whole thing, not seeing how bad it was at the time. And at some point years later, about 3 years ago I think, I rediscovered it and started watching it all over again. So cool of me, I know. And this time round I could see how bad it was. But I didn't care. As an original fan I remember how awesome it was to me; and even though now I see how awful it is, I still love it as much as I used to!

And what I can say is good about the program, is the concept. It's based on the idea of a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has wiped out all the adults and left only children who have to survive alone now by forming tribes. Amazing, right? Right? Okay, just me then! But I have the same love for the characters that I always had, so even though the whole thing is a shambles in all honesty, I still adore it, and know everything about the characters!

Anyway, how this links to H is that at some point in the last year we would have been talking about tv, and I'm pretty sure I was the one who mentioned this old program I used to love, my secret, shameful love. Of course, then she would have gasped and gone, oh my goodness! I used to watch that! And that would be where it all started. My sister ordered season one and, having watched it over, left it at home in my care (but remembering, of course, that it is hers!). And so H watched season one with me. Having done so, she promptly ordered season two, which we both then watched. We'd been putting off season three until after exams so that we could study - putting it off for months, you must see. And, knowing H finished her exams first, and knowing how hard she'd studied (particularly compared to me), I ordered season three as a gift for her and had it sent by amazon to her house. This meant that I received a phone call from her one morning which pretty much went:

Me: hello?
H: Why has Tribe season three just come through my door?
Me: oh... eh heh heh heh...

H and myself, with her permission

She was delighted, of course, but we hadn't had chance to watch it due to majorly busy schedules. But Thursday arrived, and having spent Wednesday evening thinking about the season to come and salivating in excitement, I texted H telling her hoe psyched I was and how much I wanted to watch it. And she was all, well, why not come round this afternoon? We can watch some then. To which I was like, There! And I brought my cardigan with me, which is where I did my last seam on it, whilst watching Tribe and clutching H's hand desperately in our thrilled, tense excitement as the event of the season happened! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one hell of a story!

But, back to my social life not suffering, I'm going round to H's tomorrow afternoon, where we will watch more of Tribe season three and get ready for a fancy dress party, themed 'Princes, princesses and fairy tales'. I'm going as Gretel. I thought long and hard about costumes. I have a long gold dress which I could wear to go as Belle from Beauty and the Beast. But it is an eighteenth, and I know how rowdy we can be and I want to be a bit more free moving. I still don't want to look like an idiot, however. So the dress I have is great, it comes to the knees in a full skirt made of curtain material, so it's plenty free moving. Pictures of it after tomorrow evening. And of course it's a different costume, since i think many people are going as fairies, and since when did I ever want to do what everyone else was doing?

Also, on Monday I leave with the same friends to go camping for three nights in the Lake District. This should be fun, if a little... interesting. Photos of that when I get back too, I promise! So you can see, my social life is pretty sweet right now, despite all the crafty stuff I've been doing!

So that's pretty much it, a full catch up. One last thought to leave you with, though. My mum has started calling my denture Fangella. It irked me the first time, and I had no idea what she was talking about; but it's growing on me. I can see me mourning the denture when it's no longer necessary as much as I mourned the teeth coming out in the first place. Poor Fangella.

Love love xx