To envy young girls their period pants when I remember the hammocks and belts ...?

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Isn't it great how much more choice there is, and how much more discreet products are now?

I hit Meno before mooncups and period pants were a thing, so they are totally next generation. I'd have loved them.

My mum gave me a ghastly belt with enormous cotton wool hammocks ('bunnies') and safety pins when I started, which I didn't realise were already obsolete - she'd had an early hysterectomy so wasn't aware of the stick on variety! 😂

My grandmother muttered about 'rags' having to be washed every month

Then I discovered Dr White's bricks with the sticky strips.

Then I went over to the Vespre brand which came ready bunched into that weird curvy shape towels take on after a bit of wear - I liked those.

It wasn't til I was 18 that I first tried tampons - I was already at uni and for some reason a bit nervous of them. All those toxic shock syndrome warnings in Jackie magazine. But there was a sense of 'If I can't use these am ever going to lose my virginity??'

I remember reading an article about an ancient Egyptian mummy of a young girl who'd been buried with a supply of what were quite clearly tampons ready to take into the next world. They're nothing new.

These days, done with all that, it's just the slimmiest slim little liners I can find.

But what's with the PERFUME??

I bought some before Christmas from a company called 'Period.'
I'm learning to trust them, but it does worry me. I came off the pill for HRT so not had periods in years until recently.
I know they will be fine, but mentally pulling up a pair of knickers without any other protection does take some getting used to!

Stick on pads that rubbed you raw oh the agony of my first six years of periods.

Do the Modi overnight pants work when your flow is heavy and tends to somehow leak right up the back? I use Always nighttime which stretch quite a long way back.

@Justleaveitblankthen

Did anyone else's female rellies call it "Being unwell"? Bless my DM, mortified if I ever used the word "Period."

A few more conservative families I know still say "I'm sick".

But back in the day I do remember taking pads along to school, and the having to put one into my blazer pocket while I went to the bathroom. They were so thick that you couldn't fold them in half, so I would stick it in the inside pocket. Cue the biggest gust of wind which blew open the blazer. I have no idea why it was so embarrassing then if someone else saw... an actual pad.... but it just was.

I am so pleased the times have changed.

I wore a belt and hammock in the early 60s and also had to negotiate a suspender belt and thick school stockings! The only upside was you were let off games. Nice girls didn't progress to tampons as they took your virginity apparently.

I remember my mum talking about the belt with horror!

With the period pants, how do you wash them, as in do you make your DDs rinse them themselves and then wash one on its own? Or save them up and wash them after a few days? Or in with the regular clothes?!

I've been wanting to ask this for ages (but thought people might think I was a period troll if I started a thread ), as my DD is 12 and I imagine not far off starting. But I've not had a period in 10 years, so the period pants weren't nearly as prevalent then...

Also, how do the swimming costumes work? Can it genuinely keep everything in the costume? (I always imagined that the baby swim nappies we used never actually contained the urine, so am imagining the swimming costumes to be similar!).

I'm another who first heard of Ye Olde belt gizmos when reading Are You There God, It's Me Margaret circa 1989 aged 10. Couldn't really visualise how they worked.

Im not sure if this is one of those things that didn't happen at all schools, but the tampax lady came to mine before I started and was so informative I managed to switch to them after my first few periods. My mum didn't want to explain anything and she made my sister buy the tampons for me when I built up the courage to ask after trying the free ones. Still very grateful for the tampax lady 😂 (that was her official title at school).

Mooncups are not great either.

They are so hard and they just really physically hurt me. I was sad.

I'm going to try period pants.

It is great that there is more available now

@Aprilx

I am 51, too young for the belt and hammock thing but I remember wings coming in as a new thing. My periods stopped a few years ago and so I have only recently heard of period pants and certainly never tried them. Don’t really understand how they work, sounds like a recipe for disaster to me!

We are a similar age. You’re really not if you had a mother like mine. She bought me a belt. My friend took me to get some press on towels and my mother insisted these were burnt on the fire as they weren’t flushable - the belt ones were considered to be at the time…

Im 52. My mum put a belt and a pack of Dr Whites pads in my chest of drawers when I was 10. That was it - she has still never uttered the words 'period' or 'menstruation' to me. I knew she used Lillets but despite several attempts could never get them to work. Luckily I was capable of looking round Boots myself and found Vespre slim stick on pads. Only the start of my problems, as back then they had 2 tiny strips of glue on them and on me they just walked up the back of my knickers and out if I wasn't careful. Despite being fairly useless, the glue strips stuck deathly tight to my public hair - OUCH. So I started pinning them into my knickers, which would have been fine if bitch Karensa hadn't decided to take the piss out of me for it (hi if you're on here, you cow). They usually leaked. On reflection the belt might have been better. It was such a relief losing my virginity (ouch again) and then discovering applicator tampons. Switched to washables a few years later.

@Hayisforhorse

Do the Modi overnight pants work when your flow is heavy and tends to somehow leak right up the back? I use Always nighttime which stretch quite a long way back.

They are brilliant for just that! They’re a bit weird looking - huge and slightly ‘swimming costume’ material, but the absorbent but is really big compared to pads and goes right up the back. I wake up with absolutely no leakage and feeling clean, and my periods are really heavy. Such a relief. Wish I’d had them all through my life (am 44). Would’ve saved a lot of stained clothes & bedsheets!

@TravellingWanabee
My dd has both. I don’t expect dd to do this and rinse the in cold water myself if sodden. Otherwise just chuck them in the machine. The swim ones work because you don’t bleed much in water I suppose as they are ultra thin so only for a relatively light period if using all day. Dd has a few pairs so can change if necessary. They’d be fine to be rinsed and washed with a bit of soap if reusing on holiday.

absorbent bit

Wish I did have an ‘absorbent but’

@Hayisforhorse
Dd uses the heaviest modi bodi for night time. They have a wide panel up the back of them so great for sleeping.

Wish I’d tried them when I had periods.

sueelleker

Anyone remember when Nikini came out? I thought they were wonderful after using a belt.

YES! They were an improvement on the belts but…because they had a plastic lining, they would rustle and make you sweat in the summer! The whole pad thing I’ve always found revolting though. The feeling of the blood glooping out and never being sure you weren’t leaking. But - worst of all - was how my mother made us dispose of them. My sister and I shared a bedroom and we had to put the used pads into a bag hidden away at the back of our shared wardrobe. Every couple of months, father would have a bonfire and mother would take us aside and whisper secretively “have you got any things for you father’s bonfire?”! We would then have to wait until he (discreetly) left the bonfire alone and hurry to chuck our stinking haul onto the fire. 😲. Let me tell you, during the summer months that wardrobe got mighty smelly 🤢

Is there an equivalent for elderly ladies with severe incontinence. We get pads supplied for mum.but they are huge and uncomfortable. Anything reusable which can handle large quantities of liquid?

Thank you @CrazySnakeWoman and @Mummyoflittledragon I will definitely give them a go now.

@TravellingWanabee

I remember my mum talking about the belt with horror!

With the period pants, how do you wash them, as in do you make your DDs rinse them themselves and then wash one on its own? Or save them up and wash them after a few days? Or in with the regular clothes?!

I've been wanting to ask this for ages (but thought people might think I was a period troll if I started a thread ), as my DD is 12 and I imagine not far off starting. But I've not had a period in 10 years, so the period pants weren't nearly as prevalent then...

Also, how do the swimming costumes work? Can it genuinely keep everything in the costume? (I always imagined that the baby swim nappies we used never actually contained the urine, so am imagining the swimming costumes to be similar!).

DD rinses in cold water then puts them in a waterproof bag. Next time I do a dark wash, I chuck the lot in.

I usually use a laundry egg, but switch to washing powder when I know there's period pants in there. It makes me feel as though they're getting a more thorough wash which will help them remain fresh for years.

My tea and tampax presentation, aged 11, described a belt.

By the time my periods started, I used 'press on' towels (Dr Whites, of course).

My Gran (born in 1912) used to tell me that, as the youngest in her family, it was her job as a teenager to wash the period rags for all the females in her family.

I started my periods on a Church organised holiday and had to go shopping for pads with a nun. She and some of her fellow nuns prayed with me to help me cope when I woke them in the night with period pain.

@HappenstanceMarmite

sueelleker

Anyone remember when Nikini came out? I thought they were wonderful after using a belt.

YES! They were an improvement on the belts but…because they had a plastic lining, they would rustle and make you sweat in the summer! The whole pad thing I’ve always found revolting though. The feeling of the blood glooping out and never being sure you weren’t leaking. But - worst of all - was how my mother made us dispose of them. My sister and I shared a bedroom and we had to put the used pads into a bag hidden away at the back of our shared wardrobe. Every couple of months, father would have a bonfire and mother would take us aside and whisper secretively “have you got any things for you father’s bonfire?”! We would then have to wait until he (discreetly) left the bonfire alone and hurry to chuck our stinking haul onto the fire. 😲. Let me tell you, during the summer months that wardrobe got mighty smelly 🤢

That is disgusting and degrading, even more horrifying than my mother insisting ours went on the open fire. My father knew it was happening as well. The shame.

I was caught short at school and had to get some sanpro from the nurse. She handed me a brick a towel that had some weird loops at each end. I had no clue what to do with it.

This was in the 90's, they must have brought a job lot.

In the end I cut the loops in half and tied it to my knickers and went home for something from that century more appropriate.

Mine used to go on a bonfire my dad would light but they were wrapped in newspaper and put right at the bottom of the laundry basket and soon as I finished, they would be burnt.

Can't tell you how mortifying it was when the fire was burning, thinking all the neighbours probably knew why and what dad was burning

@dementedma

Modi Bodi do an incontinence range. Don’t know if they’re any good but they have a few different styles.

www.modibodi.co.uk/collections/pee