Are washable sanitary protections cheaper?
It's a fact, washable sanitary protection is more environmentally friendly . And if, for some, this is a sufficient reason to make the transition, unfortunately, when we have a slave's salary, it is not necessarily the living conditions of the Earth in 274 years which will convince us to change our ways. habits. Well, in Mickey's wonderful world, there is Daisy who regularly makes this kind of decision. But we, the Scrooge gang, also need to count the exact number of gold coins we're going to save!
The cost of periods: the club of period panties, panty liners and washable sanitary napkins versus the disposable gang
To calculate the cost of our disposable protection rules, I used the small simulator that Le Monde made available to us. On average, a woman uses 5 sanitary napkins per day for 5 days, or 25 sanitary napkins, which is around €6 depending on the brand and absorption. We multiply all this by 13, the number of times a woman has her period per year on average, and we obtain around €80 per year with disposable pads.
Let's move on to washable sanitary napkins. They cost between €10 and €15, and ultimately, the ideal would be to have 20/25 to cover the entire cycle. Actually, 10 will do - just clean a few during the cycle. They last on average 5 years. The cost of our periods with washable pads is therefore around €30 per year.
In the washable protection category, you can imagine that period panties are our favorite. For one cycle, 3 period panties will be enough at the start. It is possible to wash one while using the other, and Smoon menstrual panties dry super quickly thanks to their super innovative fabrics and because only the absorbent area is lined. They last between 2 and 5 years depending on use and compliance with washing instructions. Let's take 3 years for our example. The pack of 3 is €90. The cost of our periods per year with period panties is €30.
We therefore save around €50 per year with washable protection, and this does not even count the underwear which will not be stained (and therefore not repurchased) thanks to menstrual panties .
Is the saving worth the effort?
A saving of around €50 per year... When I realized that all I earned was two restaurants per year, the Scrooge in me was a little disappointed...
Girls for whom money is really difficult at the moment can be defended. I'm talking about the real struggle, the one where even when you're invited to a restaurant, you don't eat much, for fear that your body will reaccustom itself and ask for food again.
Those for whom having a difficult week means depriving themselves of their weekly label rouge steak, €50/year savings is not necessarily an argument. As far as I'm concerned, it wasn't the €80 per month that I spent on cigarettes that convinced me to stop smoking.
Free yourself from the need to buy
So don't get me wrong, there are plenty of very good reasons to switch to washable protection , but I'm not going to cover them here. Here, the Scrooge gang wanted to know if it was worth it financially! It's rarely cheaper to upgrade to a greener option. In our case, we don't spend more and we even save a few gold coins.
But above all, for me, stopping disposable napkins (and cigarettes) did not come from the strict need to save money, but from a pressing desire to consume less and better. It's exhausting to always need to buy. With washable sanitary protection, you buy once and for all, and never find yourself without sanitary napkins again when the English arrive (and I'm not referring to Brexit).
By Sophia
