What is a diva-cup?!
A diva-cup, menstruations-cup or moon-cup is a small (usually) silicone cup which catches one’s period. The extra value is has, is that it’s re-usable! So instead of the few hours you get out of a tampon or a (single-use) sanitary napkin, you get a few years (!) of use. Between 5 and 10 years! So I’ve read. I lost my first one after having had it for less than that, so I can’t tell yet.
1. I always have enough sanitary products – no matter where I am.
In Germany, Australia, the U-S and Canada (and more places!) it’s always easy to buy more tampons or pads when needed. Very different situation when I am cycling in rural Lao. Or even visiting friends in a city like Shanghai it’s not so easy to get tampons – even to a point where people who never had a period are aware of it. Imagine the look on the face of a (non-menstruating) friend who offered me some to take on my trip and I refused, explained I am very well aware that I probably won’t be able to get some soon but don’t need them. At this point I explained the cup to him.
2. It’s sooooo light and small!
It’s just a few grams. Like, nothing! WAY less than a small box of tampons!
3. I add less to land-fill.
In some parts of Cambodia there aren’t even any (public) toilets. There is no (good) system to deal with 20/21st-century waste like plastic-wrappings. Families just burn their own trash or collect it in a hole in the ground. So at this, I was really happy for every opportunity to add less to the land-fill and would have been at a loss at what to do with single-use sanitary products without (probably) offending or irritating someone.
4. It’s easy to dispose off.
To dispose off the blood in the diva-cup in these circumstances you can just dig a small hole for it which you cover afterwards. Also works if wild-camping in countries that do have public toilets for example but not close enough to where you are! But there is also the:
5. Lower frequency of having to empty it!
The diva-cup needs to be exchanged in a way lower frequency than tampons. This makes it a lot easier to find a nice place to do it.
6. It’s easy to keep it hygienic.
During the menses it’s good enough to rinse it with water or just wipe with a paper towel/tissue/toilet paper. In between, it should be in boiling water for a couple of minutes for hygienic reasons. So that’s about three weeks time to get to a place with a stove/microwave/kettle or you just do it on your camping stove if you carry one anyway. For storage – it just waits in the toiletry bag.
7. It’s better for my health!
Tampons and sanitary pads contain all kinds off chemicals and bleach. So a diva-cup is an easy way to avoid this! Plus, the production of tampons/pads is using up loads of resources. So I can easily avoid that at no extra hassle.
8. It saves a lot of money!
Even when living in a country that is so famous for it’s cheap toiletries (seriously! Drug stores started accepting wechat-pay which is so far pretty much only used in China because sooo many Chinese tourists spent huge amounts on toiletries to take home. The price of a tube of hand-creme is lower as in Cameroon!) the diva-cup is already saving me a load of money and saving even more of my budget when traveling!
9. … and time!
No need to look around for places selling tampons! Can focus all my energy on trying to find chocolate and pancakes instead!
Let me know what you think of the diva-cup and what advantages I might have forgotten about!
