(Bloomberg) -- Tampon use is sinking as soaring prices along with health and environmental concerns spur more women to turn to alternatives.
The decline has upended the $3.5 billion menstrual care industry in the US, according to consumer research firm Circana. Playtex says its unit sales have been flat for the past five years. Kimberly-Clark Corp., Procter & Gamble Co. and others are spending millions to acquire startups and businesses that make alternatives like Thinx underwear and organic period items. Kotex, owned by Kimberly-Clark, has focused its marketing on new ultra-thin pads and liners.
“I don’t buy any more tampons,” said Christine Chin, 44, who works as a program director in New York. “I was motivated for environmental reasons, and then, financially, I was like, ‘this should work out over time.’”
One reason is the cost. US tampon prices have jumped 36% in the past five years, more than the overall inflation rate during that time, and sell for roughly a third more than pads or liners, according to Circana. On average, women spend about $20 a month on period products — nearly $10,000 over a lifetime.
Chin says she’s done the math, and is saving “hundreds” not buying tampons. Instead, she spent about $40 on a menstrual cup, and recently bought a couple pairs of Jockey period underwear for about $20 each — purchases that can last years if cared for properly.
The number of American women who reported using tampons in the past six months fell 27% to about 28 million last year from 2010, according to data from consumer researcher MRI-Simmons USA.
Health concerns are also driving the move away from tampons. There were already growing concerns about the safety of these products that are put into the body. Then earlier this month, researchers announced they had discovered metals, including concerning levels of lead, in all 14 different tampon brands sold in the US and Europe they evaluated. Arsenic was found in nearly all the samples.
The US Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the study, and will “take any action warranted to safeguard the health of consumers who use these products,” said FDA spokesperson Amanda Hils. She added that all menstrual products are subject to quality regulations and that while the agency does not test products, “the FDA expects the manufacturer to conduct the testing necessary to demonstrate the safety and performance of the device.”
Since the 1970s, the US has regulated tampons as medical devices, which requires them to go through more rigorous — and expensive — testing.
In 1980, P&G recalled its superabsorbent Rely tampons after they were linked to toxic shock syndrome, a bacterial infection that caused 38 deaths in the US. Since then, tampons are no longer made with high-absorbency materials such as carboxymethylcellulose and polyacrylate rayon. Instead, they now use cotton and rayon.
Covid Experiments
The pandemic-era lockdowns gave many women the freedom to try out different options that can be washed and reused, like period underwear, menstrual cups and discs.
Risa Becker, a senior vice president at MRI-Simmons, said with so many people working at home, “the conditions were perfect” to try tampon alternatives. In addition, she said, the Covid-era restrictions meant women weren’t doing as much of “the types of things that tampons were good for,” such as indoor swimming and team sports.
In addition, there is increased use of long-acting reversible contraceptives, like IUDs, which can make periods lighter or stop them altogether. And more high-school girls and college-age women are suppressing periods through continual use of estrogen-progestin birth control pills.
The lack of workers during the pandemic also led to short supplies of menstrual products in 2022, spurring more to look for other options.
“Women got very angry if they couldn’t find exactly the kind of tampon they wanted,” said Pricie Hanna, a founding partner at Price Hanna Consultants, which specializes in absorbent products. “They just couldn’t believe that Tampax would not be there.”
While there’s no longer a shortage, tampon sales have not bounced back since then. Pad sales have been more resilient.
“Pads have become so effective, while being thin and comfortable to wear,” Hanna said.
Pads and liners are faster absorbing, softer and are increasingly designed to catch all sorts of moisture, including bladder leaks and sweat.
In fact, a 2023 study by researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University found that pads held as much blood as tampons and menstrual cups.
Some big brands are even trying appeal to the environmentally conscious. Environmentalists warn that the plastic in both tampons and pads can take hundreds of years to decompose and pose special threats when flushed down toilets, since they can end up in the ocean. Carefree, owned by the same company as Playtex, has a new pad with a plastic-free top sheet, though it contains plastic elsewhere. And Viv bamboo pads claim to biodegrade in 150 days.
“Pads have benefited from a ton of developments in materials,” said Jim Keighley, a former engineer for P&G who helped create and launch the Tampax Pearl tampon in 2002. “Tampon innovation probably doesn’t occur at the same pace.”
Across certain parts of Europe, tampon unit sales have dropped since 2019 in Germany, France and the UK, according to Circana.
Tampons use in India is limited, and most women in cities opt for disposable pads. Last year, Kotex introduced a new line of green tea-scented pads there designed to reduce rashes. In Japan, only about 15% of women use tampons on a regular basis. And tampon use is even rarer in China, where only about 2% of women were using them in 2018, according to one study.
Underwear Options
Period underwear designs have also evolved. Kimberly-Clark acquired a majority stake in Thinx , a reusable underwear maker, in 2022. The brand recently introduced a more absorbent model priced at $18 that it says hold the equivalent of up to 12 tampons worth of blood, though it’s facing a class action lawsuit that says its products aren’t as absorbent as advertised. A spokesperson for Kimberly-Clark declined to comment on the allegations in the suit.
Chin, the program director in New York and a mother of two, says she switched to Thinx period panties about eight years ago. In 2020, she used unspent flexible-spending healthcare dollars to buy her first menstrual cup. More recently, she’s been buying Jockey menstrual underwear, too.
“The underwear feels a little bit more comfortable and a little more breathable than a pad,” said Chin, who works a hybrid schedule of three days a week in the office. Her past worries about office leaks have subsided as she figured out the right combo of her cup and panties during the Covid lockdowns that kept everyone at home.
P&G acquired the Proof line of period undies that sells briefs for $25 that hold up to seven regular tampons, the company says.
Globally, P&G’s feminine-care category, which includes pads and tampons, saw global volume declines in the first quarter of this year due to higher prices. Chief Financial Officer Andre Schulten told analysts that US retailers were holding lower inventories of certain items, including Tampax tampons.
Company spokesperson Wendy Kennedy said the Tampax business in the US was growing in the year ending June 30 as measured by dollar sales, volume sales and market share.
Shelby Orme, the 31-year-old co-founder of Kayaness period underwear, said that women are abandoning tampons not just to save money and reduce waste. It’s also a health choice.
“It's intimidating to put something inside of you,” Orme said. “I would read online about the chemicals and different ingredients that would be found by third-party labs in tampons.”
Alternatives have become more commonly available. The Flex Cup, which says it’s made for “beginners,” is now sold in Target stores alongside disposable menstrual discs and period underwear.
Tampon makers are still looking for ways to improve the product. One startup was able to win FDA approval last year to sell a new type of tampon: Sequel uses a spiral-grooved design, rather than linear grooves, to lessen the risk of leaks. And in the UK, there are now CBD-coated tampons — meant to make insertion and removal easier — offered by startup Daye.
“I meet a lot of women who want to be more natural, and I don’t disagree with that,” said Mary Marnach, a gynecologist at the Mayo Clinic, who says she’s seen the Diva Cup catch on with her patients in recent years. “People are becoming more conscientious.”
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--With assistance from Dasha Afanasieva, Anna Edney, Bhuma Shrivastava and Eddy Duan.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
