Tree Hugger Cloth Pads
May. 1st, 2021 04:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnSo I promised to talk more about my wonderful new cloth menstrual pads, whether you wanted me to or not :D I have several different types:
-two black pads from Etsy seller House of Kells
-one pad from Etsy seller FFSPads
-a whole bunch of pads (two "bamboo-topped" and a bunch of "minky-topped" ones) from Tree Hugger, which work WAY better than either of the others and as far as I can tell actually work about as well (almost as well, but really on the same level) as disposable pads, even the "overnight" ones, which I was very much not expecting!
In the below, I'm going to talk mostly about the Tree Huggers, which actually work (that is, are actually absorbent enough and form-factor large enough for my needs), with some small discussion of the others (which are not suited to my overall needs, but still work for very light days).
I use the Etsy ones mostly for pantiliners (for which they work well), and the Tree Hugger pads for the more heavy-duty stuff.
Things I love about cloth pads, specifically Tree Huggers:
-I have a fairly heavy flow for the first several days, and also because of the way my uterus is designed, I guess?? it comes out in a way such that I often get stains on everything unless I wear the very super long ones and the pads have at least as much padding in front as in back. It turns out the Tree Huggers "overnight/postpartum" pads for are long enough (both front and back! although I wear them backwards, I think) and absorbent enough (they use "Zorb," which is apparently a resuable diaper material) that they actually work for me just about as well as the super-long-"overnight" disposable pads I previously used. (They are probably a trifle less absorbent; see "cons.") Plus which in that awkward in-between stage where I don't have as much flow but it's still sort of getting all over the place so I still need an extremely long pad, it's so much nicer to use a long cloth pad than a super big long disposable.
( One of my "House of Kells" pads says it's for "overnight/post partum" but HA HA no. Maybe if you had a muuuuch lighter flow than I do and also it didn't get all over the place. I use it as a pantiliner and it's basically OK for that, but I would definitely NOT use it for the first two-thirds of my period. The FFSPads one is just too short, so I also use that one as a pantiliner.)
-They are quite a bit more comfortable than disposable pads, without (at least the Tree Huggers) being more bulky. (I also found some in my research that were pretty bulky, mind you. But Tree Huggers are not.)
-I don't have to think about throwing away all those pads every month! (Especially the part as above where mid-period I would think my flow wasn't heavy enough to justify it, which in practice meant I alternated between throwing away a super big long pad and getting stains on things.) And the marginal energy/water cost for these pads is minimal, as I just wash them in with laundry I was going to do anyway.
-Speaking of washing. I am, generally speaking, super SUPER lazy, so any solution that requires me to do no extra work, including (or especially) no CLEANING extra work, is a good solution in my book, and one of the reasons I was skeptical of cloth pads to begin with was that I was worried there would be extra work involved. Tree Hugger is the one place I found where it is literally no extra work; they just tell you to toss in the stained pads with the rest of the laundry. That is IT. (Mind you, I would probably not do this with laundry one was really invested in staying super white, but I've tossed them in with cream-colored T-shirts and white towels and not noticed discoloration. I'm not super picky, though, so ymmv.) No soaking; in fact they discourage soaking (because if you forget a pad and leave it in water, bacteria will grow... and I WOULD forget, lol) and there's no need for it.
-The "minky" pads in fact hardly even stain! It's like magic, I wash them and they're beautiful again :D I bought black bamboo pads (for the extra absorbency) as their site says they are more prone to staining; on black I don't notice if they do :P
-All the pretty patterns! :DD IDK, it's weird because rationally I know I can't see the pattern the vast majority of the time anyway, but just knowing that I have them... and getting to see them when I put them on... is nice :D
-I no longer have to devote a whole shelf's worth of space to ugly disposable pads! (Since I would stock up with a bunch whenever I went to the store because I haaaaate buying pads. I was at least very grateful that I by pure luck I stocked up in February of 2020.) Instead I have part of one drawer filled with soft pretty patterns in it that make me smile whenever I look at them. I had no idea how much better this would be. This is SO MUCH BETTER.
-I'd seen reviews of cheap reusable pads that complained about them flipping over in underwear. I haven't had any problems with that; the two snap buttons plus flannel backing on the Tree Huggers overnight pads seems to work really well. (The one time something like that did quasi-happen, it was because I got lazy and only used one of the button sets.) I have one non-overnight pad from Tree Hugger with one button set, and that one also doesn't flip. The Etsy pads are too light to have trouble with flipping (and I bought ones with flannel-like backing as well).
Cons:
-So the "postpartum/overnight" pads are almost as absorbent as disposable "overnight" ones, but not quite. I can't tell the difference unless I, um, get caught in a situation where I can't change it for a relatively long period of time, but it's happened once or twice. The bamboo ones are a little more absorbent than the "minky" ones.
-Tree Hugger pads are, to be honest, on the pricey side (though still less pricey than disposables when amortized over expected pad lifetime). I think they have soooooo many advantages over cheaper versions and are so much more absorbent and well-made (and they last longer, I'm told, but I can't speak to that directly yet) that it is totally worth it, but YMMV. I know that I probably would not have switched to cloth pads with a cheaper but less easy-to-use and less absorbent version, though.
As I said before, I do use the cheaper pads for pantiliners (I don't own any light/pantiliner pads from Tree Huggger) and think they work great for that.
-Tree Hugger pads come from Canada, so they take several weeks to get to me in the US. Not a huge con, just something I wanted to note.
-two black pads from Etsy seller House of Kells
-one pad from Etsy seller FFSPads
-a whole bunch of pads (two "bamboo-topped" and a bunch of "minky-topped" ones) from Tree Hugger, which work WAY better than either of the others and as far as I can tell actually work about as well (almost as well, but really on the same level) as disposable pads, even the "overnight" ones, which I was very much not expecting!
In the below, I'm going to talk mostly about the Tree Huggers, which actually work (that is, are actually absorbent enough and form-factor large enough for my needs), with some small discussion of the others (which are not suited to my overall needs, but still work for very light days).
I use the Etsy ones mostly for pantiliners (for which they work well), and the Tree Hugger pads for the more heavy-duty stuff.
Things I love about cloth pads, specifically Tree Huggers:
-I have a fairly heavy flow for the first several days, and also because of the way my uterus is designed, I guess?? it comes out in a way such that I often get stains on everything unless I wear the very super long ones and the pads have at least as much padding in front as in back. It turns out the Tree Huggers "overnight/postpartum" pads for are long enough (both front and back! although I wear them backwards, I think) and absorbent enough (they use "Zorb," which is apparently a resuable diaper material) that they actually work for me just about as well as the super-long-"overnight" disposable pads I previously used. (They are probably a trifle less absorbent; see "cons.") Plus which in that awkward in-between stage where I don't have as much flow but it's still sort of getting all over the place so I still need an extremely long pad, it's so much nicer to use a long cloth pad than a super big long disposable.
( One of my "House of Kells" pads says it's for "overnight/post partum" but HA HA no. Maybe if you had a muuuuch lighter flow than I do and also it didn't get all over the place. I use it as a pantiliner and it's basically OK for that, but I would definitely NOT use it for the first two-thirds of my period. The FFSPads one is just too short, so I also use that one as a pantiliner.)
-They are quite a bit more comfortable than disposable pads, without (at least the Tree Huggers) being more bulky. (I also found some in my research that were pretty bulky, mind you. But Tree Huggers are not.)
-I don't have to think about throwing away all those pads every month! (Especially the part as above where mid-period I would think my flow wasn't heavy enough to justify it, which in practice meant I alternated between throwing away a super big long pad and getting stains on things.) And the marginal energy/water cost for these pads is minimal, as I just wash them in with laundry I was going to do anyway.
-Speaking of washing. I am, generally speaking, super SUPER lazy, so any solution that requires me to do no extra work, including (or especially) no CLEANING extra work, is a good solution in my book, and one of the reasons I was skeptical of cloth pads to begin with was that I was worried there would be extra work involved. Tree Hugger is the one place I found where it is literally no extra work; they just tell you to toss in the stained pads with the rest of the laundry. That is IT. (Mind you, I would probably not do this with laundry one was really invested in staying super white, but I've tossed them in with cream-colored T-shirts and white towels and not noticed discoloration. I'm not super picky, though, so ymmv.) No soaking; in fact they discourage soaking (because if you forget a pad and leave it in water, bacteria will grow... and I WOULD forget, lol) and there's no need for it.
-The "minky" pads in fact hardly even stain! It's like magic, I wash them and they're beautiful again :D I bought black bamboo pads (for the extra absorbency) as their site says they are more prone to staining; on black I don't notice if they do :P
-All the pretty patterns! :DD IDK, it's weird because rationally I know I can't see the pattern the vast majority of the time anyway, but just knowing that I have them... and getting to see them when I put them on... is nice :D
-I no longer have to devote a whole shelf's worth of space to ugly disposable pads! (Since I would stock up with a bunch whenever I went to the store because I haaaaate buying pads. I was at least very grateful that I by pure luck I stocked up in February of 2020.) Instead I have part of one drawer filled with soft pretty patterns in it that make me smile whenever I look at them. I had no idea how much better this would be. This is SO MUCH BETTER.
-I'd seen reviews of cheap reusable pads that complained about them flipping over in underwear. I haven't had any problems with that; the two snap buttons plus flannel backing on the Tree Huggers overnight pads seems to work really well. (The one time something like that did quasi-happen, it was because I got lazy and only used one of the button sets.) I have one non-overnight pad from Tree Hugger with one button set, and that one also doesn't flip. The Etsy pads are too light to have trouble with flipping (and I bought ones with flannel-like backing as well).
Cons:
-So the "postpartum/overnight" pads are almost as absorbent as disposable "overnight" ones, but not quite. I can't tell the difference unless I, um, get caught in a situation where I can't change it for a relatively long period of time, but it's happened once or twice. The bamboo ones are a little more absorbent than the "minky" ones.
-Tree Hugger pads are, to be honest, on the pricey side (though still less pricey than disposables when amortized over expected pad lifetime). I think they have soooooo many advantages over cheaper versions and are so much more absorbent and well-made (and they last longer, I'm told, but I can't speak to that directly yet) that it is totally worth it, but YMMV. I know that I probably would not have switched to cloth pads with a cheaper but less easy-to-use and less absorbent version, though.
As I said before, I do use the cheaper pads for pantiliners (I don't own any light/pantiliner pads from Tree Huggger) and think they work great for that.
-Tree Hugger pads come from Canada, so they take several weeks to get to me in the US. Not a huge con, just something I wanted to note.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-02 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-03 05:25 am (UTC)Ha, in fact I have myself been wondering about period underwear (which I found out about after the pads). This sounds like it could work well for me for the heavy flow overnight -- which is manageable with the tree hugger pad alone if I am willing to change in the middle of the night, but it would be nice not to have to be committed to that. And I bet the combination would work great. Hmm, I might also look into combining these.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-03 11:10 am (UTC)I also use a cup sometimes for extremely heavy nights, which works very well. But I hate the way the cup feels when I'm moving around during the day, so it's only a night-time desperation solution.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-02 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-03 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-02 06:58 am (UTC)And since having kids, I also have the thing where day 1 and 2 of my cycle are like a massacre! It was never like that before kids, so I think something changed around inside me at that point. I really like the much wider range of shapes and thicknesses you can get with cloth pads.
I've been using the same set of cloth pads for eight years, if that's an interesting data point for you. They did get a slightly off smell last year and I soaked them overnight in vinegar solution and washed them on hot and dried them in the sun and that sorted them out again. Otherwise they've lasted very well. Getting ones with a flame pattern on top means that if there was any permanent staining I couldn't tell anyway ;-)
no subject
Date: 2021-05-03 05:29 am (UTC)That is a good data point, yes! Man, if I can use these for eight years I'll be running up against menopause (maybe; my mom was pretty late with hers). Also thank you for the tip about the smell, I imagine I'll have to use that at some point :)