So many to choose from, so few uses for them...! (Sanitary Towels in general)

Member Name: blackrose_

Product:	Sanitary Towels in general
Date:	02/02/02 (1780 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tend to be cheaper on the whole than tampons, Suitable for everyone...even men (see op!!), More to choose from now than there used to be

Disadvantages: Uncomfortable to wear, Can be bulky under tighter clothing, Can't do everything you might want to wearing them e.g. go swimming

Ah, our old, er, 'friend' the sanitary towel. These days it can be hard to see that two different kinds of towels actually are both towels, what with there being ones with wings, without wings, regular, slim, ultra slim, g-string, black, white...suddenly going to the supermarket for the monthly essentials has turned into a minefield of decision making!

This may seem an odd topic to write about really, but what sparked me off was another opinion I read here on Dooyoo, where someone said that sanitary towels are embarrassing.

To be honest, whilst it can be a bit humiliating at 13 if one falls out of your schoolbag on the bus, on the whole I don't really see anything embarrassing about them! At the end of the day, it is just an oblong (or winged oblong!)piece of cotton wool or whatever the hell they are using these days...and in my experience, if you do happen to drop a sanitary towel/tampon, it is usually the men/boys who are embarrassed more than anyone (although to be fair an awful lot of men these days see them as a piece of cotton wool too!)

It amazes me that in this day and age adults can find these humiliating to discuss/see/buy..I mean, I can understand the teenagers' embarrassment; just about everything is embarrassing at 13 (at least it was to me!), but come on...it should be no more embarrassing than a razor or toilet paper when you really think about it!

Anyway, thats my little rant, so I guess I better get on and talk about the topic in question now! Personally, I have always preferred to use tampons where possible, not only because they are easier to carry around, bing so much more compact, but also because I find them a lot more comfortable, and you can wear any kind of clothes with them, not to mention go swimming!

Perhaps I am a bit behind the times with my image of sanitary towels, but seeing as my most recent experience was of the lovely cotton wool bricks you get in hospital after you
have given birth, please don't judge me too harshly! I have always found that they have a tendency to slip out of place when you are walking around, feel like you have something huge in your pants, and are generally uncomfortable. Not to mention when you wriggle around in your sleep and it twists round a bit so some of the sticky bit faces the wrong way...ouch!

The only major plus I can see for them is that they are more generally suitable for all than tampons, and do tend to be available more cheaply, although if you go for the ultra slim, black, thong variety there doesn't seem to be much in the price!

I was also hoping whether someone could tell me if there is still VAT on sanitary towels...I know there used to be, but someone said that there isn't any more? If someone could tell me one way or the other I would be grateful!

Oh, and as a little by-line, there is a use for them for men too; a friend of mine is really into outdoor pursuits, and he always takes one of the cotton wool brick variety with him in his first aid kit, as they make much better 'plasters' for larger wounds than bandages or plasters, partly as they soak up more blood and partly because they are sticky so you don't need pins like with bandages! So, fellas, next time you go hiking, pop a sanitary towel in your bag!

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