How menstrual bowls work: 5 true reviews
'28.01.2022'
Source: Life hacker
Menstrual cups are experiencing a new wave of popularity. Someone will never pick it up again in their lives, and someone has already bought a couple more. Editorial Life hacker I checked on my own experience what this hygiene product is, and we really wanted to share this information with you.
What is menstrual cup
A menstrual cup is an alternative to traditional menstrual hygiene products. It is actually a bowl or mouthguard made of silicone with a tail. It is installed on the cervix and collects all the secretions, then it is removed and washed. This is a reusable product, that is, one bowl will last for several years. It can be of different sizes, shapes, stiffness and colors.
Story 1 - about the first pancake lumpy
Natasha, 28 years
Bowl: MeLuna Classic Stem S, $20
Days of menstruation for me is a real torture. I really can't use tampons: I constantly feel that there is a foreign object inside you - a dubious pleasure, and without that everything hurts. There is no such problem with gaskets, but they are rather insidious and often strive to give a leak. The menstrual cup seemed like the perfect solution: at least a fuss. Inserted and forgotten for the next 12 hours.
Easy to say. To start the bowl must be properly inserted.
In words and pictures, everything is simple, but those two minutes while I was trying to shove the cup where it was supposed to be, could be followed by the soundtrack from The Benny Hill Show.
As a result, I figured out the sin in half. And then a surprise - it oh-hoo how it feels inside. From the smallest size, I did not expect such meanness. It's not even about the ponytail, about which I had suspicions. There are just no problems with it - I cut it to the desired length, and that's it. You just really feel that you have some kind of garbage of decent size. Does not gurgle, and thanks for that.
The test of the gym was a conditional success. There were no particular inconveniences during the exercises, except for the feeling of a foreign body inside. By the end of the lesson you seem to forget about it, although after a decent load you can forget about everything in the world. Nothing leaked, with the extraction and washing of problems, too, there was no, the good process is elementary.
Perhaps you should have chosen a model made of softer silicone. Perhaps you should have tried another brand. Maybe it's me. One way or another, so far the ingenious invention, which is glorified on the Internet, has not made a positive impression. I'll try further - suddenly I'll get used to it. If not, hello nasty pads.
Story 2 - dramatic, with a happy ending
Anna, 30 years
Bowl: Yuuki Classic 2, $22
When the girls took out cups of soft bags of pleasant colors, and I - from a huge red glass, smelled something was wrong. I ordered the largest size of our “batch”: for large women in the pelvis who gave birth to older 30 women with heavy bleeding.
I saw a lot of things, after all, a woman who gave birth for a 30 with a wide pelvis, but the size scared. At the same time, my bowl turned out to be the densest and toughest compared to other soft and almost silk cups. It strained.
On day X, according to the instructions, I disinfected the cup right in the glass in the microwave (here hello to the glass, it is very convenient, fast and hygienic) and went to try. For a start, to insert the bowl, it must be folded.
Do you remember that I got the toughest one? She didn't want to fold. But I, who gave birth to a woman over 30, of course, forced her.
And then I made a fatal mistake. According to the instructions, the bowl should be folded into the vagina, then opened, and then checked how it is located there. I let go of the folded construction too soon. Feelings ... Well, as if I was at a reception at the evil gynecologist. Very evil and it is me. As I pulled her out, I do not remember. But it became clear that it is necessary to shove from the heart and keep it under control until the last.
The second attempt was successful, but the size... Yes, I bleed very profusely, I need a large cup, but I immediately automatically began to train the Kegel muscles, because, damn it, it was like very large vaginal balls. In general, all week I reflexively squeeze this foreign object, reassuring myself with the fact that it is useful in every way.
The process of extracting a hard bowl each time resembled a fight "who wins." Of course, I won, but this is not a battle at all in which I would like to participate. Because if you first pull on the ponytail, it seems that you will stretch everything up to the uterus. And if you first fold it a little to remove the vacuum effect, then this is still acrobatics. I think it's because the silicone is too hard.
The cup was leaking a little. The panty liners were enough for every day to save the lingerie from one spot, but I would not risk putting on white lace panties without such pads. Although compared to tampons and pads, this is nothing at all a minus - I usually bother and go crazy much stronger.
Bowl protection provides much better protection than the largest pads, resembling skis, and the thickest tampons, resembling logs. Better a bowl.
I even practiced dancing with a bowl, went to the gym to swing and played laser tag. And she did not disappoint. Only once this grebe leaked. I was in the hospital, I had to get up before going around the doctor, and I felt that the “vacuum” was broken (maybe because of reflex attempts to squeeze it?). And everything that was splashing (by the way, I sometimes felt how the blood was splashing there — not for the faint of heart), overflowed the shores. I did not expect such a meanness and missed a doctor bypass in the hygiene room.
But you know what? I'll order myself a smaller bowl. Even just two different ones to try. Because for all the acrobatics, inconvenience and set-ups, the cup created ten times fewer problems for me than the standard set of pads and tampons for women with heavy bleeding, the editor notes Life hacker. The cup failed me once, but pads and tampons do it all the time.
So what I want to say is that a bowl is fine, if only you choose the right size. I vote for.
Story 3 - scary
Lena, 25 years
Cup: LilaCup Premium S, $13,5
Since the beginning of my puberty, I have been a confident pad user. Yes, this is not very comfortable, especially in the last days of menstruation, when the amount of discharge is minimal. But other methods didn't work for me. At sea, I once tried to use tampons. And the desire to replace them with gaskets disappeared. The feeling of a log between my legs did not go away for a long time.
Why did I, such a conservative, decide to try menstrual cups? Well, everyone is talking about them! And they say mostly positive things.
I must say: a big mistake was that I did not train to insert a cup before the onset of menstruation.
On the first painful day for me, I didn’t want to inject silicone into myself. Started a little later. Inserted from the sixth attempt.
At first it was very unpleasant. Well, at first - somewhere within an hour. I tried to keep myself busy, but it didn't work. I had to take it out. And then the second trouble happened. It was necessary to pour out the contents of the cap. And this for me, as for a person who cannot stand the sight of blood, was a quiet horror. After that, I could not overcome my disgust, and the bowl remained lying. Apparently, until future times - when I grow up psychologically and learn how to choose the right size.
Story 4 - full of hope
Polina, 29 years
Bowl: MeLuna Classic Ring M, $20
She didn’t believe that the bowl would fit. Because of the curves of hands and the eternal lack of time, she long ago switched to tampons with an applicator: it is impossible to make a mistake even in a matter of seconds. And yet the cup was too attractive.
This is what I understood after the 5 days of the experiment:
Prepare for the monthly will. These are not tampons that can be bought at every corner, if you forget to throw a couple into a backpack ahead of time. The bowl must be washed, boiled 3 minutes, put in a clean bag and do not forget to take with you.
Inserting the bowl at first is better in the bathroom, or rather, in the bath. It may have been worth experimenting before the onset of menstruation, but, as usual, I forgot. Well, at least you were lucky at the moment X to be at home. Crooked hands did not suddenly become even, I fiddled for about 5 minutes. The bowl did not want to straighten out and seal inside, and then for another 20 minutes it slightly leaked.
If you're not lucky, you'll have to practice. Perhaps quite a long time. Over the following days, I never learned how to quickly and accurately put the bowl. It turned out to arrange it in 15 seconds. Then she tinkered for 10 minutes, freaked out, and after half an hour or an hour, when the hope of auto-sealing the bowl left, she went to redo everything. In general, it is not surprising that outside the house I did not dare to play with a new hygiene product.
Problems with the extraction will not be. Before the experiment, I rummaged on the Internet and found a life hack for Krivorukov: buy a bowl not with a tail, but with a ring, tie a string to it and sleep well.
They say that the bowl will not be lost, anyone can pull the string without spilling the contents in a panic. In short, I did. And for the first time I realized that I was in vain and I definitely didn’t need a rope.
I will continue the experiment. The cup was felt only in the first half hour after the injection, then I safely forgot about it. Care, too, did not strain. Now it's up to you: to learn how to quickly and correctly position the bowl. And you can forget about the tampons. Probably.
Story 5 - final
Masha, 32 of the year
Cup: Mooncup A, $33
I chose a Mooncup bowl from transparent and rather thick silicone. The material is pleasant to the touch. When she looked at the bowls in the pictures, they seemed larger. In fact, the bowl fits easily in the palm of your hand. A cotton pouch was attached to it.
Despite the small size of the bowl, it was not so easy to install it. First, I folded the cup in the simplest way, the letter C, and it opened at the very beginning of the vagina. It was very painful, and I somehow pulled it out screaming. Catching my breath, I decided to make another attempt - I folded the bowl in a more complicated way: one edge folds inward almost to the bottom of the bowl, as a result, it does not open so easily and turns out to be more compact, it is easier to insert it.
This time we managed to set it to a suitable depth. My bowl opened inside immediately, I did not have to scroll it clockwise and perform other manipulations that promote opening. I didn’t feel the cup itself inside, but the tail interfered. I ended up cutting it in half.
Using the bowl is definitely more convenient than gaskets. Feel clean and fresh.
My bowl did not leak during use, although I even walked with it at a fairly active pace. Compared to tampons, they still seem more comfortable to me, but this is obviously because they are more familiar.
My bowl, apparently, was too big for me, because after some time after installation I began to feel pressure from within. Because of this, I only spent hours with her 2, then washed, pasted again, and passed another 1,5 hour. When she tried to go to the toilet with the cup, she seemed to be in the way. I tried to put it more deeply, but it was unpleasant. Therefore, I decided that the size was not mine.
When I reached for the cup, I was relieved. I did not dare to sleep with her: I was afraid that after 8 hours of such pressure everything would hurt.
Removing the bowl is not so difficult, but skill is required. You need to firmly take the bowl by the base and, breaking the vacuum, slowly but surely pull it out. The first time I took it out, it reopened abruptly at the very exit, and I do not want to experience these sensations again. I can't imagine how you can remove the bowl in a public place!
I want to order a smaller cup. Perhaps from another brand. They vary in shape, density, silicone. It is a pity that the bowls are still quite expensive, a little pity for trying everything and finding the perfect option. On the other hand, if you use the bowl all the time, you can save a lot of money on hygiene products.
With the result that
Hygiene products - an individual piece. Therefore, to decide whether your menstrual cup or not, you just need to try. Do not give up immediately if you feel discomfort: handling this thing requires a certain skill. You may be satisfied with the result and will not return to the usual gaskets.
