What's actually in your period care
There are ingredients in your period products no one talks about.
Let's start with the biggest one: plastic. Scroll to see how much is really in there.
First, what do you use?
Which do you use more?
Check your box for any of these ingredients.
Look at your product's packaging and check off anything you see. We'll walk you through the ones you find.
How much plastic will YOU go through?
Each pad contains about 2 grams of plastic. Move the sliders to see how much plastic your period actually uses.
0
water bottles of plastic.
That's about 56 pounds. And it'll take 500+ years to break down.
Watch the bottles fill up, then keep scrolling.
So what are all those?
Polyethylene, polypropylene, polyester, PET, sodium polyacrylate. Different names, all plastic. They're in the top layer, the backing, the sticky strip, and the absorbent core.
500 years to break down.
You'll use your period product for a few hours. The Earth will hold onto that plastic for 500 years.
Here's the concern.
It doesn't stay in the landfill.
Once plastic breaks down, it turns into microplastics, tiny fragments that end up in oceans, rivers, soil, food, and even the air we breathe.
It ends up in you.
Scientists have found microplastics in human blood, lungs, and even placentas. The average human brain now holds about a plastic spoon's worth of plastic fragments, a number that's grown 50% in just 8 years.
The plastic from your pad or tampon is part of that story.
The honest truth.
Your period product doesn't need to be plastic. It's plastic because it's cheap. Not because it's better.
Ready to see the rest?
Plastic is only the biggest of three ingredients hiding in conventional period products. Two more to go.
Read more on the Rif Care blog
Hait, A., & Powers, S. E. (2019). The value of reusable feminine hygiene products evaluated by comparative environmental life cycle assessment. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104422
Arena, U., et al. (2016). Technological, environmental and social aspects of a recycling process of post-consumer absorbent hygiene products. Journal of Cleaner Production. doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.03.164
UN Environment Programme (UNEP). (2021). Single-use menstrual products and their alternatives.
Leslie, H. A., et al. (2022). Discovery and quantification of plastic particle pollution in human blood. Environment International. doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2022.107199
Ragusa, A., et al. (2021). Plasticenta: First evidence of microplastics in human placenta. Environment International. doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2020.106274
Next up: titanium dioxide.
A whitening agent hiding in plain sight.
So what is it?
Titanium dioxide is a white pigment. It's there to make your pad look brighter and whiter. It doesn't do anything for how the pad works.
You're absorbing the same pigment used in white paint so your pad can look pretty.
Here's the concern.
It's already banned in food.
The EU and France both banned titanium dioxide from food because they couldn't rule out DNA damage.
It's still in you.
It's still going inside your body every single month, sitting against one of the most absorbent parts of your body. There's no stomach acid to break it down. No liver to filter it.
The honest truth.
Regulators pulled titanium dioxide from your food.
Nobody pulled it from your period.
Want to go deeper?
Read more on the Rif Care blog
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). (2021). Safety assessment of titanium dioxide (E171) as a food additive. EFSA Journal. doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6585
European Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/63. (2022). Official ban of E171 as a food additive in the EU.
French Decree No. 2019-1176. (2019). Banned E171 from food in France.
Marroquin, J., et al. (2024). Chemicals in menstrual products: A systematic review. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology. doi.org/10.1111/1471-0528.17668
Next up: styrene adhesives.
The glue that lasts centuries.
So what is it?
Styrene is the glue that holds your pad together. It's petroleum plastic, from the same family as styrofoam (aka what your takeout container is made of).
There's no reason for it to be there. Safer adhesives work just as well.
Here's the concern.
It's officially a likely carcinogen.
The US government gives styrene the same classification it gives lead: reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.
It's also in your body.
Menstrual products aren't safety-tested the way food or skincare is. No one has really studied what it means for a substance like this to sit against tissue that absorbs chemicals faster than most skin on your body.
The honest truth.
The government flagged this as a likely carcinogen.
The industry put it in your pad anyway.
Want to go deeper?
Read more on the Rif Care blog
National Toxicology Program (NTP). (2021). 15th Report on Carcinogens: Styrene. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/roc15
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). (2019). Styrene, Styrene-7,8-oxide, and Quinoline. IARC Monographs, Volume 121. World Health Organization.
Marroquin, J., et al. (2024). Chemicals in menstrual products: A systematic review. BJOG. doi.org/10.1111/1471-0528.17668
Park, C. J., et al. (2019). Sanitary pads and diapers contain higher phthalate contents than those in common commercial plastic products. Reproductive Toxicology.
This is just the start.
These are three of the biggest ingredients hiding in conventional period products. However, they're not the only ones. Fragrances, dyes, PFAS, and other chemicals are still being studied, and new research comes out all the time.
What we made instead
No plastic. No titanium dioxide. No styrene.
Rif Care pads are made from hemp — plant-based, biodegradable, and free of every ingredient on this page. You just read the label. Now you can read ours.
Stay curious.
Keep asking what's in the things you use every day.
Hi, I'm Oorja Agarwal. I'm a rising sophomore at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, and I built this tool during my internship at Rif Care. I care about giving people clear, honest information about what's in the products they use every day, without the fear-mongering or the greenwashing. Everything in this tool is backed by peer-reviewed research or official government classifications.
When I started this project, I looked at the ingredient labels on 10 to 15 different pad and tampon brands. What I found surprised me. Most of what's in these products isn't widely talked about, and honest information about it is hard to come by.
So I dug in. I pulled from peer-reviewed studies, systematic reviews, and official regulatory classifications from the EU, FDA, NTP, and IARC to build out what we actually know. Every claim on this tool traces back to a real source, all of which you can find on the research pages.
The truth is, no source matters if people never look. That's why I built this tool and asked you to check your own period product box at the very beginning. I want more people to start paying attention to what's in the products they use every day.