Knixwear’s teen line aims to make girls the bosses of their periods

Elissa Stein, the author of Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation, said while there has been a movement toward organic products, the underlying message that periods are dirty and should be kept secret remains.

“When I wrote Flow (in 2009), these conversations were impossible. These new products were not on the market. So, definitely there’s a change in the air, which is heartening to see,” she said, adding that she hopes the messaging can expand to make the conversation about periods more comfortable and realistic.

“Five years ago, you wouldn’t see the word period or menstruation mentioned openly and honestly. So those are really positive steps forward. Using real people and talking about their experiences (in advertisements), also a step forward,” Stein said.

But she said there is still a long way to go when it comes to fully accepting that periods are “not something that we have to hide.”

There has been reinvention over the past couple of decades when it comes to pads, tampons and menstrual cups, says Dr. Yolanda Kirkham, who works as an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Women’s College Hospital and at St. Joseph’s Health Centre Toronto.

“If we think about years ago, people had to wear a special underwear with a belt or knee stockings, so over time, things have changed,” Kirkham said.

Early versions of tampons were described as being made from wool or papyrus in ancient Rome and Egypt. An article published in 2008 in Early Modern Women concluded that many British women in the 17th century would menstruate directly onto their clothing.

“It might be the case, though, that in the course of everyday life, using a method for absorbing menstrual flow was not considered necessary by many women because bleeding into layers of clothing was perfectly normal,” wrote Dr. Sara Read in the article.

In the 1850s, women often wore “sanitary aprons” made out of rubberized cloth under dresses to avoid leaks. In 1896, Johnson & Johnson started distributing Lister’s Towels, the first commercial disposable pad. However, because the subject of periods was “unmentionable,” according to authors Janice Delaney, Mary Jane Lupton and Emily Toth of The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation, the towels were unpopular. Women didn’t want to be seen buying them and they were pulled from the shelves.

Women would have to wait until the 1930s for the first menstrual cup and modern tampon.

The options have remained relatively the same since then, but the materials have changed. The types of fibres and the absorbency have improved. Tampons, made out of polyester in the mid-1970s, were super-absorbent and attracted bacteria, a trigger for toxic shock syndrome. In severe cases, it resulted in kidney failure, according to the Mayo Clinic. However, since manufacturers have stopped making certain types of tampons, the incidence of toxic shock syndrome in menstruating women has declined.

“(Companies have) also changed the shape, added wings and take into consideration different people. For example, for teens, they have slimmer pads,” Kirkham said. “But it’s always exciting when there’s a completely new product to complement what’s existing or replace it.”

The Knixwear underwear, which sells for $26 to $32 per pair, is made from carbon cotton, often used for cyclists’ apparel such as jerseys, that dries two to three times faster than regular cotton, Griffiths said. The carbon-embedded fabric is bacteriostatic, meaning bacteria cannot reproduce.

A built-in pantiliner acts as an inner second layer with a thin membrane for absorbing liquid.

“The idea is that you wear (our underwear) exactly as you would your regular underwear . . . When you’re done you just throw it into the washing machine,” Griffiths said.

In September, Knixwear switched from selling the majority of its products wholesale to stores like Hudson’s Bay, to using an e-commerce format. Since, sales have seen a 500-per-cent increase and the company has continued to grow 25 per cent every month, she said.

Griffiths believes the company’s growth was due to their popularity after becoming the most-funded fashion project on Kickstarter for its 8-in-1 bra in 2015 — it raised $1.5 million — as well as shifting the business model in September.

Customer feedback prompted Griffiths to design a line targeting teens.

“We were getting a lot of comments from women saying, ‘I wish that this existed when I was a teenager. It could have saved me so many embarrassing moments’ or ‘My daughter just started getting her period. Can you make (underwear) that are suitable for her?’ ” Griffiths said. “And so I started working on this a little over a year ago, but basically saw that if anyone could use these, it’s young girls when they’re first starting to get their periods. Because your cycle is so irregular, you’re not used to the flow.”

The teen line will be available online for $19 a pair.

“The whole idea is to empower girls to be the bosses of their periods from day one,” Griffiths said.

Isn't that kinda like pissing your underwear and wearing them until you get home?

>>144288
Worse, because it's not 100% easily absorbed liquids. Slime and clotted material will not be taken in by that membrane thing they're talking about. It will sit there and fester.

fucking gross

>>144288
>>144290
>>144291
maybe I'm missing something but OP says it's more absorbent than tampons
where's the problem?

>>144296
Girls change their tampons when they get bad. Now these people are gonna carry around their period blood all day at work

>>144297
gotcha

My eyes!!!!!!

>>144288
>>144296
Are they supposed to be disposable underwear or no? Tampons are disposable.
I'm going to have to say no this this one. It just seems gross.

>>144334
You wash it with your other clothes.

>>144281
> vomiting.cat.gif

>>144341
I imagine they have to wring all their blood out of the panties before they put them in with the laundry. Lovely image.

>>144413
That or get blood over their clothes

>>144413
>>144628
Fairly sure people wash their "delicates" separate from other clothes.

>>144281

is this really "news"?

>>144663
/news/ has been so bitchy lately I figured you all were on your periods.

ITT: virgins

Seriously though, I hope OP posted this to watch incels get triggered and not because they thought it would prompt intelligent discussion

Great. Never using a laundromat in Canada again.

>>9463183
I realize 1hour ago that women cannot be asexual.
Women love sex and love to desire sex.

Men love sex but they do not love much nor dislike much the desire for sex. In fact the desire for sex is more like an hindrance and a thing to eject, precisely by wanking and ejaculation that is the pinnacle of fucking a slag.
men still despise not loving sex, since it removes the most effective mechanism of valuation that they have, which leads them to the usual mockery of being shagless didlos remaingin on the shelf, being baby dicks and being asexual.
Men despise asexuality in men since it shows them to be far less dominant than the story they plays in their heads

Women despise asexuality in men, since the few asexual men (very few are handsome) no longer acknowledge women for sex nor for companionship. Some asexual men claim to still want a gf just to cuddle, but that's already a baby-level sex and we are still in the situation of validation (and the gf still wants sex anyway sooner or later) and once they have sex with a girl they love they see sex is not so bad.

Women despise asexuality in women, precisely because women live on sex while their hate of their body for menstruating leads them to take pills which kills their desire for sex (but indeed kills their menstruation). They hate their life since through their own body, they acknowledge in their intimacy that they cannot win on both accounts: either have a comfy life or have an erotic life.

the more women are in control of their pussy, the more they are demanding and the more men are back to being puppies trying to please, which is the natural situaiton in the first place

>>145122
Who the fuck cares