How?

People who are new to cloth often think it seems complicated, means a lot of extra laundry and doesn’t make a big difference environmentally speaking because of that. Personally I feel that never having to run in a frenzy to the 24-hour convenience store to pick up pads or tampons weighs up the extra work, which isn’t all that much in the great scheme of things.

Laundry routine
There are many ways to do this, but the most common are:

1) Get a soaking pot, that can be anything from a plastic pitcher from the dollar store to a cute ceramics jug designed for this purpose, and fill it with cold water. Add the pads as you use them, and don’t forget to change the water often, at least once a day. The water will (hopefully) rinse the blood out, and you can simply toss them in the washer.

2) Do dry pailing, which is basically putting used pads into a container or bag, and hope that the washer takes care of the stains anyway.

Generally speaking both methods work well here in Sweden. I had a lot more trouble getting the stains out when I lived abroad, and suspect it had something to do with the water (or the detergent, I was allergic to every type but the organic kind when I lived in the U.S., where as here I can use whatever I want without a problem). Some people recommend putting some hydrogen peroxide, vinegar and/or tea tree oil in the water, but I personally don’t.

I dry pail myself, because I have a hard time remembering to change the water regularly. I tend to do my laundry on the third or fouth day of my period because I don’t like to leave the pads from the OMG-I’m-dying-days laying around for a long time.

Cloth to-go
When you leave the house you can bring a ziploc bag to put used pads in, or a so called “wet bag”. They are little (usually) zippered bags with compartments to separate clean and used pads, lined with PUL to be easy to clean. If you don’t have one of those, go looking for a makeup bag! They do the job just fine.

Number of pads
How many pads you need varies, depending on your flow, your personal taste and – most importantly – whether or not you have a washer and dryer at home. This pic shows how many pads I generally use during one period. I’ve only made the upper row myself, the rest I’ve bought from other sellers. The two in the middle are from Mimi’s Dreams, and the bottom row, from left to right; VajPads, Punky’s Pads and Honey Bee Hill. All pads were at least two years old when I took this picture. I’ve heard that you can count on them lasting at least five years, maybe more.

Switching to cloth
When you read about cloth pads it often sounds expensive and time consuming to switch over. It doesn’t have to be. Because, really, what says that you have to change over night? For me it took at least six months to stock up. I never buy more than 3-4 pads from one seller at a time, because I want to try them before buying a lot. What works for me might not work for you, and the other way around. Cloth pads are a lot about personal taste (some find PUL is necessary, some hate it; some find big wings bulky, some need them to not lose the pad halfway through the day; etc), and even if I (still!) have to use tampons from time to time I try to remind myself that each time I use a cloth pad there is one less disposable pad in the landfills.

I really like that.