How menstrual cups work: 5 truthful reviews from Lifehacker's editors

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Someone will never take it in hand again in their life, and someone has already bought a couple more.

What are menstrual cups

A menstrual cup is an alternative to traditional menstrual hygiene products. It is actually a silicone bowl or mouthguard 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, rigidity and colors.

The girls of our editorial office decided to check the menstrual caps on themselves and honestly tell everything they felt.

How menstrual cups work

Story 1, about the first pancake lumpy

Natasha, 28 years old

Bowl: MeLuna Classic Stem S, 1299 rubles.

Menstruation is a real torture for me. I can't really 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 quite insidious and often strive to leak. The menstrual cup seemed like the perfect solution: minimum fuss. I inserted it and forgot it for the next 12 hours.

Easy to say. First, the bowl must be inserted correctly.

In words and pictures, everything is simple, but those two minutes, while I tried to shove the bowl where it should be, could be accompanied by a soundtrack from The Benny Hill Show.

As a result, I sorted it out in half. And then a surprise - she hoo how it is felt inside. From the smallest size, I did not expect such meanness. It's not even the tail, about which I had suspicions. There are just no problems with him - I cut it to the desired length, and that's it. It's just that you really feel that there is some kind of garbage of a decent size in you. Not gurgling, and thanks for that.

The bowl passed the test by the gym with conditional success. There were no particular inconveniences when doing the exercises, apart from the very sensation 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, there were no problems with the extraction and washing, since the process is elementary.

Perhaps I should have opted for a softer silicone model. Perhaps I should have tried another manufacturer's bowl. 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 will try further, suddenly I get used to it. If not, hello, nasty pads.

Story 2, dramatic, with a happy ending

Anna, 30 years old

Bowl:Yuuki Classic 2, 1,470 rubles.

When the girls took out the bowls from soft bags of pleasant colors, and I from a huge red glass, I sensed something was wrong. I ordered the largest of our "batch" size: for large women in the pelvis giving birth over 30 years old with heavy bleeding.

I saw a lot of things, after all, a woman giving birth in her 30s with a wide pelvis, but the size scared me. At the same time, my cup turned out to be the densest and hardest, in comparison with other soft and almost silk cups. It was annoying.

On day X, according to the instructions, I disinfected the bowl right in the glass in the microwave (here hello to the glass, it's very convenient, quick and hygienic) and went to try it. To begin with, in order 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 am a woman giving birth over 30, I, of course, forced her.

And then I made a fatal mistake.

According to the instructions, the cup must be inserted folded into the vagina, and then opened, after which it is already necessary to check how it is located there. I let go of the hard-folded structure too early. Feelings … Well, as if I were at the reception of an evil gynecologist. Very angry, and it is at me. How I got her out of there, I don't remember. But it became clear that it was necessary to shove from the heart and keep it under control to the last.

The second attempt was successful, but the size … Yes, I have very heavy bleeding, I need a large bowl, 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 squeezed this foreign object, reassuring myself with the fact that it is useful in all respects.

The process of removing the hard bowl each time resembled a fight "who wins". Of course, I won, but this is not at all the battle in which I was going to participate. Because if you first pull on the tail, it seems that you will stretch everything up to the uterus. And if you first fold it down a little to remove the vacuum effect, then this is still acrobatics. I think the too hard silicone is to blame.

The bowl was leaking a little. The pads for every day were completely enough to save the linen from one speck, but I would not dare to put on white lace panties without such a pad.

Although, compared to tampons and pads, this is generally an insignificant minus - usually I bother and go much more crazy.

The bowl provides protection from leaks much better than the largest pads resembling skis and the thickest tampons that resemble logs. Better a bowl.

I even did bowl dances, went to the gym to swing and played laser tag. And she did not disappoint. Once this toadstool has 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 splashed (by the way, I sometimes felt the blood splashing there - not for the faint of heart), overflowed the banks. I did not expect such meanness and missed the doctor's rounds in the hygiene room.

But you know what? I'll order myself a smaller bowl. Even two different samples at once. Because with all the acrobatics, inconveniences and stands, the bowl created ten times less problems for me than a standard set of pads and tampons for women with heavy bleeding. The bowl let me down once, and the pads and tampons do it all the time.

So this is what I want to say: a bowl is great if you just choose the right size. I vote for.

Story 3, scary

Lena, 25 years old

Bowl:LilaCup Premium S, 899 rubles.

From the very beginning of my puberty, I am a confident user of pads. Yes, this is not very comfortable, especially in the last days of menstruation, when the amount of discharge is minimal. But other methods did not work for me. At sea, I once tried to use tampons. And the desire to replace the gaskets with them 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, they still talk about them! And they say mostly positive things.

I’ll say right away: the big mistake was that I didn’t practice inserting the cup before the start of my period.

On the first painful day for me, I did not want to inject a silicone thing into myself. I started a little later. I inserted it on the sixth try.

It was very unpleasant at first. Well, as at first. For about 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 mouth guard. And this for me, as for a person who cannot bear the sight of blood, was a quiet horror. After that, I could not overcome my disgust and the bowl remained there. Apparently, until future times. When I grow up mentally and learn how to choose the right size.

Story 4 full of hope

Polina, 29 years old

Bowl:MeLuna Classic Ring M, 1299 rubles.

I didn't really believe that the cup would fit. Due to crooked hands and the eternal lack of time, I switched to tampons with an applicator a long time ago: it is impossible to make a mistake even in a matter of seconds. And yet the cup was too attractive.

Here's what I realized after 5 days of the experiment:

1. You will have to prepare for your period. These are not tampons that you can buy at every corner if you forget to put a couple in your backpack ahead of time. The bowl must be washed, boiled for 3 minutes, put into a clean bag and do not forget to take it with you.
2. It is better to insert the bowl for the first time in the bathroom, or rather, in the bathtub. It might have been worth experimenting before my period started, but I forgot as usual. Okay, at least lucky to be home at time X. The 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 leaked slightly.
3. If you're unlucky, you'll have to train. For a long time, perhaps. Over the next few days, I never learned how to always pop the bowl quickly and efficiently. That turned out to be positioned in 15 seconds. That poked about for 10 minutes, freaked out, and after half an hour or an hour, when the hope of auto-sealing the bowl left, I went to redo everything. In general, it is not surprising that outside the house I never dared to play with the new hygiene product.
4. There will be no problems with the extraction. Before the experiment, I rummaged on the Internet and found a life hack for those who are crooked: buy a bowl not with a ponytail, but with a ringlet, tie a string to it and sleep peacefully. They say that the cup will not be lost, anyone can pull the string without spilling the contents in a panic. In short, I did just that. And for the first time I realized that I was worried in vain and the rope was definitely not needed.

I will continue the experiment. The bowl was felt only in the first half hour after the introduction, then I happily forgot about it. Leaving also did not bother. Now it's up to the small thing: to learn how to quickly and correctly position the bowl. And you can forget about tampons. Probably.

Story 5, final

Masha, 32 years old

Bowl:Mooncup A, 2,191 rubles.

I chose my Mooncup made of transparent and fairly dense silicone. The material is pleasant to the touch. When I looked at the bowls in the pictures, they seemed to be larger in size. In fact, the bowl fits easily in the palm of your hand. It came with a cotton storage bag.

Despite the small size of the bowl, it was not easy to install. First, I folded the cup in the simplest way, with the letter "C", and it opened at the very beginning of the vagina. It was very painful, and I pulled it out with screams. Having caught my breath, I decided to make another attempt, folding 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 to facilitate the opening. I didn't feel the bowl itself inside, but the tail got in the way. I ended up shortening it in half.

Using a bowl is definitely more convenient than using pads. You feel cleanliness and freshness.

My cup did not leak during use, although I even walked with it at a fairly active pace. Compared to tampons, they still seem more convenient to me, but this is more likely because they are more familiar.

My cup, apparently, turned out to be too big for me, because some time after installation, I began to feel pressure from the inside. Because of this, I walked with her for only 2 hours, then washed it, put it in again and went on for 1, 5 more hours. When I tried to go to the toilet with a bowl, it seemed to interfere. I tried to put it more deeply, but it was unpleasant. Therefore, I decided that the size is still not mine.

When I took out 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 that difficult, but skill is required. It is necessary 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 opened up sharply again at the very exit, and I don't want to experience these sensations again. I still have no idea how I could remove the bowl in a public place.

I want to order myself a smaller bowl. Perhaps from a different brand. They differ in shape, density of silicone. It is a pity that the cups are still quite expensive, a little sorry for the money to try everything and find the perfect option.

On the other hand, if you use the bowl all the time, you can save a lot on hygiene products.

What is the bottom line

Hygiene products are individual. So to decide if menstrual cups are right for you or not, you just have to try. Don't give up right away if you feel uncomfortable: handling this thing takes some skill. Perhaps you will be satisfied with the result and will no longer return to the usual gaskets.