Dr White's looped sanitary towels

[florriepeck]

I didn't know these were still a thing!
DM used to buy these for me when I first started my periods in the 70s.
Saw some today on the shelf in my local chemist while I was hanging around waiting for my prescription to be dispensed.
I was tempted to buy some: remember them being so soft and comfortable .Didn't see any of those belts to wear with them, though.
Set me wondering: does anyone use looped towels these days?
Must be a market for them if they're on sale.

OMG They must be ancient very old stock, were they dusty?

I first discovered these when I unexpectedly got my period at school in the late 1980’s. I had to go to the school nurse for sanpro. She handed me one of these looped towels, I asked what the fuck I should do with the loops. In the end I cut the loops and tied them onto my knickers and then went home to get the proper pads like a civilised person!

Where did you live @roundturnandtwohalfhitches ? I started my periods when I was 12 in mid 70's and only ever wore stick on pads. Perhaps the stick on's were more expensive?

Lol at @jaffacake2 's tale.

I remember reading about these in a Just Blume book and being confused! Think it may have been in Deenie?

@JangledBat, my goodness, I can imagine the risk of it sliding down the leg! I remember these, but weirdly I can't remember having any problems with them, but expect I had such short light periods then iyswim. Certainly made up for it later in life, very heavy ones became the norm.

Judy Blume books put the fear of periods and period belts into me as a kid 😱

They wer huge, I'm surprised we didnt all do a John Wayne walk

@fairypiggy 'Are you there God, it's me, Margaret' by Judy Blume.

I would have read it in late eighties when I had a vague idea what periods were but the belt stuff sounded horrifically confusing!

Reusables are the way forward. I remember these. Ghastly things. So demeaning.

I also only know about them because of Are you there God, it’s me, Margaret

Is it one of those very old individually owned chemists? There’s one round here which puts out random stock dating decades back (God knows where they store it); last year they had Linco beer shampoo in the little plastic barrels.
That was discontinued about twenty years ago!!

I think the legend that is Judy Blume had to update Are You There God? since the original referenced looped sanitary towels!

I expect it's a vintage revival.

I remember DM using these, she used to leave her belt hanging up in the airing cupboard. When stick on pads came out she moved onto them - our chemist used to sell cheapo ones called Pennywise!
I went for tampax when I started, always thought towels were yuk although I use them now.

MrOnions I bet the trendy types wearing 50s and 60s vintage clothing don't go this far.

My mum used to wear these. I am 54, have never worn them, they were old fashioned when I was 13, and I no longer have periods so exactly who does wear them these days and for what?

Oh my goodness 'Are you there God...' was a completely secret book when I was at school. I had forgotten all about it.

My first pads were stick on but the size of a mattress, they were awful. I had to go into hospital for a minor op when I was 13 and I remember the list of what you could bring with you included sanitary belts. I had no idea what they were. I was born in 1979.

My mum still likes them. She puts them in her tights without a belt. She has never worn knickers. She's 83.

This comment is fascinating to me. I don't know which question to ask first...

You can't fool us OP, there have been various things popping up on the internet over the past couple of weeks about using looped sanitary towels as face masks for coronavirus given the facemask shortage. You're hunting them down aren't you

They were SO uncomfortable. Really bulky, like wearing a rolled up tea towel between your legs.

My mum bought me a pack of pads and a belt to keep for when my periods started. In the event they started when I was staying at my grandparents farm in rural `Ireland and my supplies were hundreds of miles away in London. The local shop had towels but to keep them up my gran had to cobble a belt together out of one of her old suspender belts.

One of the few good things about being old and menopausal is no longer running the risk of getting caught short like that.

I only know about them from Judy Blume too

Those belts were awful as they didn't really hold the ST in place, they would slide up and down especially when you were active, as I was. I can remember the hell of riding my pony with a large dr whites slipping and sliding up and down inside my knickers. They used to disintegrate! I think women were expected to sit still if they were on their period. I know it's foul, but they also used to get really stinky really quickly.
Then there were the little brown bags (which, as far as I remember had an picture of an edwardian lady on them) hanging on the back of the school loo doors, so you could wrap your minging piece of cotton wool and gauze and stick it in the fearsome incinerator, which used to belch out poisonous smoke.
We were discouraged from using tampax because it would remove your virginity(?!). However, I ignored this and started using them when I was 12 a few months after I started and encouraged by my peers. It certainly made horse riding a lot easier.

Does anyone remember the new, exciting stick-on pads which gradually became unstuck and worked their way round to your back so that you just bled on to your knickers?

The first wave of stick-on pads were utterly useless.

My DM bought me a "Nikini Garment" when I started my periods and after the first month, I just bought Boots tampons, as I worked there on Saturdays.

My mother was concerned when she found out. She was suspicious of tampons but I never really worked out why.

Ugh. The Nikini Garment could fuck off to the other side of fuck, IMO.

Oh I'd wiped these from memory!
Trussed up and swinging

Oh God they were awful!

I started around the late 1960s and hated them.

They were like walking with a pillow between your legs.
They ponged a bit.
The top cover was very fine and meshy and your hair would get stuck to it.

The belt thing was like a suspender belt - round your waist with the bits coming off it to attach the pad too.

I think I made do for about a year then swapped to tampons.

Also at school, you either had to carry the used ones in your satchel all day, or put them in the incinerator in the loos - one on the wall by the door- where everyone could see you, if they were using the loos.

Ghastly, ghastly things .

AND let's not forget there was no such thing as panty liners, so you had to keep using these damned things till every drop of your period was over.

I seem to remember something called Kotex Freedom?

You had to buy special knickers which the pads threaded into.

What a fucking FAFF.