Burgsteiner, mother of a daughter, developed an interest in the topic when she realized that there was no age-appropriate guide for young girls getting their first period. So the trained journalist and sinologist designed and created a gift box with information and products for first-timers, titled “It’s time to celebrate.” She and other women also organize “period parties” that celebrate menstruation.

But it’s still a taboo topic in many circles. Burgsteiner opened the shop because “there was no place where you could go to get information.” She reports that she gets “unspeakably aggressive, vile comments” on social media — “mostly from men, but from some women, too.” 

Such feelings have deep roots. Of course, rags have been used for millennia — coupled with the fear they might leak. But as long as people have been menstruating, the blood has often been regarded as “bad blood,” even toxic, dirty, and shameful, in cultures from ancient Greece to the modern-day United States. 

When I visited rural areas in Asia in the last decade, I still saw “menstruation huts“ — cabins outside the main villages where women have been sent to wait out their monthly time for countless generations. Even in the US, conservatives sometimes oppose the offering of free period products in schools, with one representative asking, “Why are our schools obsessed with the private parts of our children?”

While schools offer toilet paper without hesitation, menstruation is obviously still considered not as natural as peeing and pooping.

The stigma is partly responsible for the amount of individual packaging that conceals the products, enhancing the perception of cleanliness, as well as the artificial scents that seek to mask any odor. According to a 2022 study, single-use period products are the most commonly found waste on beaches and shores.

Clearly, reusable options are the most sustainable, but current ecological offerings leave much to be desired. For instance, Thinx marketed its period underwear as “sustainable and non-toxic” and quickly became popular with more than a million users, but in 2022, the company settled a class-action lawsuit after being accused of hiding harmful “forever chemicals” in its panties. The EPA has found that these short chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) can be linked to “harmful health effects in humans” and contribute to decreased fertility, increased risk of certain cancers and hormonal disruption.