Green Girl Action of the Month

I am always on the hunt for what I can do next to do my part in making our world a safer, cleaner, happier place. Because I have to take all of my personal waste to the transfer station, it makes me more conscious of what I am leaving on this earth to collect and someone else to deal with in the future.

We live in a throw-away society, so a majority of things that are normally thrown in the trash can often be replaced by something that is easily cleaned and reused. One thing that I haven't been doing is using something that can be reused for monthly menstruation, and I knew there were options out there, but I just hadn't taken the time to look. I decided it was time to dig in and find out what I should be doing instead of throwing this crap away every month.

FIRST: I looked into the reusable menstral pads, in which GladRags is a popular brand.I did a lot of research on them...cleaning them.... all the cute patterns, colors, price ranges, etc... However, I wasn't convinced this was my cup of tea--- I didn't want to have to wash those "rags" every day of my period. I could just imagine a "tea" brewing of bloody rags... Ew...There were some that stated they just threw them in the wash, but that just didn't seem right at all!

I would like to avoid that messiness as much as possible. There is nothing pleasant about your period, however if I was going to do the reusable thing, I was going to have to deal with the yuckiness regardless. I just didn't want the yuckiness to be on an absorbant fabric.

NEXT OPTION: Reusable Cups! I found SoftCup. Here is a menstrual cup that would give me a "test drive" of the whole experience of a cup without investing $20-50 on a reusable cup I didn't care to ever use again.

First, I bought the ones that you threw away every day, just to get a feel for what it was like to have that cup inside me. I could have the whole experience of a cup, but I wouldn't have to clean it when it was removed. My main concern was spillage, messiness, etc.. I had no issues with inserting, but surprisingly had a difficult time getting the suckers out. Overall, my experience was pleasant-and I liked the fact that I didn't have to change it out every 3-4 hours for a new one. It could be in all day, and I couldn't even tell.

The even bigger plus was I could use it even on my lighter days. I usually only have one sometimes two heavy days, and the rest are just spotting. So, I normally wear a pad, because tampons are too uncomfortable on those light days. But the Softcup wasn't uncomfortable at all.

Next, I gave the resuable Softcup a try. It was for two menstrual cycles-so I experienced cleaning it out this time around.  (2 per box) The cleaning out wasn't a big deal, so I think I can handle doing this on a monthly basis.

Unfortunately, the reusable Softcup is not available in stores yet (order online only).....another bummer was, I was still throwing something out every month.....But the good thing is the experience was very tolerable, more tolerable then I ever expected. So, I would check out the greenest option available-AND it would save me about $10/month not having to buy tampons/pads/panty liners. Cool! I hadn't even really thought of the cost savings!

NEXT UP: Reusable Menstural Cup! There are three major brands out there...meaning More Research!!! Luckily, I found lots of reviews on Lunette, DivaCup and Mooncup.

After all that reading, it seems like it was a toss up between the DivaCup and Mooncup. I found over 87 reviews alone on the Mooncup, and eveyone seemed very happy with it.

So, that's what I chose. >>>>

MOONCUP is the winner.

I will let you know what it's like, if you are interested.....

A HILARIOUS VIDEO with a talking vagina which talks

about menstrual cup alternatives.