In recent years, new product formats within the feminine care market show that manufacturers are recognizing the impact menstruation has on women’s daily lives. Once a subject of taboo, feminine care has evolved from a sterile and timeworn market to one that offers users more products to fit their own unique needs but also the ability to express themselves through their product choices.

Where once the market’s goal was to get a customer to try the product (often the one used by their mother), have success and remain a customer for life, today’s manufacturers understand that there is no one size fits all when it comes to feminine hygiene products. It’s probably not coincidence that a lot of these changes are being heralded by start-up brands, founded and led by women, in the global feminine care market.

Understanding that young girls are getting their periods earlier than ever before, the Pinkie brand is specifically targeting tweens and young teens with their products that come in smaller sizes to offer a better fit for tweens and teens. In addition to size, Pinkie—which was started by two mothers of young girls—uses distinct branding (like TikTok) and packaging (with stripes)  to better appeal to their young consumers.

Efforts like this are a breath of fresh air in a market that was not talked about much about for decades.  While  product improvements like wings, thinner designs, increased absorbency, etc., did provide better experiences for women, brands did not put a lot of effort into marketing and packaging design—let alone the development of new product formats.

The entrance of new brands and product categories, like cups and reusables, has given women a chance to figure out what works for them. In this month’s article, Period Care: A Market in Transition, Greta Meyer, a co-founder of Sequel, a new company with a revolutionary spiral-shaped tampon design, asserts that women are not just willing but actually eager to try a new type of period care product. The Sequel product was developed by women as a solution to performance constraints, like fit and leakage, in existing tampon products. Meyer and her partner, both former college athletes, were frustrated with existing options, saw an opportunity for for a new design in the market and took it, something that is becoming pretty common in the absorbents industry.

Karen McIntyre
Editor
[email protected]