Feminine Hygiene Products – Tested

My watching of a good TV programme the other day was rudely interupted by an advertisement for tampons. There they were with the old blue water ‘proving’ that their product was better than “the next leading brand”. I suddenly wondered if this had been tested independently, thinking it hadn’t I set to it, throwing my own homemade creations in to the mix.

For this experiment backup was called for in the form of my good buddy, Raf the Science Gimp.

Not being of the ‘laydee’ variety of human, we weren’t able to test any of these products for comfort so this series of tests is all about absorbency, just like the adverts.

First off, the contenders:

So we set off. The test is an easy one: stick them in a glass of a measured amount of the infamous blue water (250ml) and let them do their business. When it is determined they can soak up no more, we pull them out and measure how much water is left therefore determining their absorbency.

First up – Tampax

WHOAH! The moment it touched the water it instantly grew in size! I didn’t realise how fast these things worked. You never, ever want to try eating one of these fuckers as you will die. Remember, the human body is 70% water and these things could drain you dry. I’m surprised that once you open a packet of these all the water isn’t sucked out of the atmosphere!

After my surprise we got back down to science with the Sainsbury’s own brand.

The Tampax and Sainsbury’s both looked the same kind of size before they were immersed, but we immediately noticed that the Sainsbury’s hadn’t grown to quite the proportions of the Tampax once wet. Could this mean that it wouldn’t hold as much water? We would soon find out.

Next up – JimmerUK’s Fanny Plugs (something I’m very, very proud of)

Now, we had trouble totally immersing this bad boy. Not because it grew to the size of a moon and enveloped us all, simply because it was already huge in the first place.

A sturdy Raf finger was placed on the ‘tampon’ to hold it down. When these hit the shelves, a plastic Raf Finger will come with the box to enable laydees to insert the tampon a little easier. I think we might even put his phone number on the box aswell so laydees can call for the personal touch. How’s that for customer service!

Results:

Tampax
The tampax glass was left with 213ml meaning it had absorbed 37ml.

Sainsbury’s Own Brand
The SOB glass was left with 223ml, meaning it had absorbed 27ml.

JimmerUK’s Fanny Plugs
The JFP glass was left with 222ml, meaning that it had absorbed 28ml.

WOO YAY! My first attempt at making a tampon with three sheets of kitchen roll and an elastic band actually turned out to be better than the Sainsbury’s ‘professional’ version. I couldn’t believe it. Unfortunately both were left standing by the super-absorbency of the Tampax. That little bastard drained over a third more fake menstrual fluid than mine. Bah!

Having toyed enough with tampons, we turned our attentions to sanitary towels.

The contenders:

So here’s the test: Carefully measuring 10ml of blue water using a tablespoon, we poured the water onto the towels until they got the kitchen roll underneath wet, and then kept going until they had absorbed all they could. Clever huh?

First to go, Always Ultra

We poured on the water…

…and some more…

…and some more. This thing drank more than a cheap slut on a friday night! We checked the bottom to see if it had started coming through.

It hadn’t so we kept going until finally spillage.

Then we poured on more and more until this fanny pad had had it’s fill.

Like the good scientists we were we couldn’t understand how this demon thing was working so we destroyed it. Inside was lots of wet slime. Where had it come from? How did this thing make slime? Was this ectoplasm or something?

We moved on to the Sainsbury’s towel

and repeated the process

This one was filled with loads and loads of goo! On closer inspection it would seem that they were saturated crystals that had been sitting there quite happily until we started pouring blue water over them.

Finally, JimmerUK’s Lady’s Pants Protectors

Bah! this fucker fell at the first hurdle

We added another tablespoon and called it a day. It wasn’t going to take anymore.

The results:

Always
Took 60ml before spillage, and 80ml in total.

Sainsbury’s Own Brand
Took 50ml before spillage, and 80ml in total.

JimmerUK’s Laydee’s Pants Protectors
Took 10ml before spillage, and 20ml in total (complete failure).

It would seem that the leading brand is the leading brand for a reason, it works better (it also came with a handy fanny freshener wipe which no others did). The Sainsbury’s towels weren’t far behind, but didn’t look as attractive. Also, the Sainsbury’s towel was full of gel which would splurge all over the place, whereas the Always crystals were embedded into the towel. The less said about my homemade version, the better. It performed as well as you could expect three sheets of kitchen roll held together with packing tape would.

Happy with our contribution to science, we drew our conclusions.

Conclusion

If you’re a girl and you’ve got the painters in, on the monthlies, suffering from the curse, you can either go for Tampons if it’s not too heavy or you’re going swimming or something, or if there’s a heavy flow of blood pouring out of your front bottom you could go for a sanitary towel.

If you’re stuck without either, don’t fold up some bog-roll and stick it in your knickers, it’s rubbish. Roll up the bog-roll and shove it up inside, it works just as effectively as Sainsbury’s tampons and should keep you sorted until you get to the chemist. If you choose to hold it together with an elastic band as I did, I would recommend you pull it out carefully. I can only imagine the blood splatter all over the walls when it flicks out. It would probably resemble a scene from a Tarantino movie.

So there you have it. Science at work.