A Guy Tried (And Failed) To Do The Math On How Many Tampons You Should Use Per Period

By Lauren Rearick


The world wide web can be a magical place filled with hilarious memes and videos of the Jonas Brothers performing Carpool Karaoke. Unfortunately, as one Facebook user proved, there will constantly be some corners of the internet where misinformation and ill-informed advice run rampant. Such was the case on March 4, 2019, as soon as Twitter user @aisghar shared a screengrab of a Facebook comment made by someone who claimed that people who experience periods only need to use seven tampons throughout the course of one cycle.


Because the Huffington Post reported, the commenter in questioned demanded that others should “stop whining” about the cost of period products, and as an alternative offered that they “cut down on your Starbucks venti frapps.”


Per the user’s math, they allege that the average period causes a loss of “10-35 mL of blood;” the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research notes that the quantity of fluid loss is “highly variable,” ranging from a very light flow to heavier flows that lose up to 540 milliliters of the uterine lining several people equate with period blood.


Continuing to use their own math as a guide, the poster went on to propose that tampons hold up to 5 mL, and this insinuates that someone would need only seven tampons per cycle. Their math did not take into account that experts advise changing your tampon at least every four hours.


Twitter users were more than happy to respond with GIFs that reflected their incredulous reactions, however as Nadya Okamoto, founder and executive director of PERIOD explained, the comment speaks to a continued global misunderstanding of the true cost of period products.


“It takes a certain quantity of privilege for someone have the ability to mention, ‘Stop consuming food and drinking so much Starbucks and just pay for period products,’” she told MTV News. “In group have the ability to mention something like that, it’s assuming that someone can afford $20 a month on Starbucks.”


According to Okamoto, there’s a continued lack of awareness associated with the true cost of period products. “People inherently don’t understand that period products are a necessity, and that’s why in 35 states there’s a tampon tax on period products,” she mentioned. “They’re imagined a fancy item, and this message is a testament to the fundamental misunderstanding of period product necessities.”


Only 15 states don’t tax menstruation products, NPR reports. Yet menstruation products are a necessity, 35 states continue to group them as a fancy item, adding a tax that applies to items like soap and deodorant, The New York Times reports.


As people around the world continue to miss class and use spare rags or napkins as replacement products, it feels especially misguided to compare the buy of a coffee to the very required buy of pads or tampons. For those who are struggling with affordability of period products, firms including PERIOD, #FreePeriods, Bloody Good Period, and the Homeless Period Project are working to rectify that, providing free items and resources to people around the world. And while the comment may have temporarily riled up The world wide web, Okamoto does give the poster some credit: “I love that it’s beginning conversations about period poverty,” she points out.


So how several tampons should someone with a period use over the course of their cycle? That, obviously, is up to them. However as one individual pointed out, the math would account for at least 240 tampons per year — and that’s not counting pads, menstrual cups, or the cost of laundry once things invariably leak. The world wide web may never agree on everything, nevertheless in the scenario of this comment, it’s safe to mention that each person has learned to take the math of someone in your Facebook feed with a grain of salt.