Normalizing period stains?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a life still to know about stain removal for all kinds of stains. Now with a few keystrokes one can learn about how to remove stains from blood, ink, wine, grease, dirt etc via YouTube, reddit, tik tok, whatever.

Stains can ruin clothes no matter what the stain. My 17 yr old's preferred solution is to rebuy a stained item of clothing (underwear, pants, sheets), which is wasteful and expensive. I have been trying super hard to teach her how to at least try hard to remove stains, like blood. Rinse in hot water, put alcohol based hand sanitizer on it and let it sit. Then after an hour or so put some cozy clean spray/ spray and wash and let that sit. Wash in hot water, 2 rinses. Then let it dry in the hot sun. If it doesn't come out then, repeat the process. This also has worked for ink (my daughter got it all over her duvet cover).

If it is underwear, try buying black underwear.

You are doing it wrong. Blood should not be rinsed with hot water because that actually sets the stain in. Rinse it with cold water, rub in some salt, rinse with more cold water, repeat. Then in the laundry, cold water and OxiClean works better than bleach. If the stain is still visible on the item after washing, then keep working on it before putting it in the dryer because the dryer heat will definitely set it in. If it has been set in by heat, it may never come out.

Agree that hot water is wrong and you use cold water. But generally cold water from the bathroom sink with some hand soap and a quick scrub gets out the stains my daughter and I deal with 90% or more of them time. It literally takes about 60 seconds to handle this. I’m surprised people need to have these sophisticated systems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two DDs, both 17. They’d be mortified by having visible period stains, but they’re otherwise very nonchalant about menstruation-related things. In middle school, one of my DDs used to carry her pads openly and would even have one out on her desk. The other was asked, in front of her entire class, if she was on her period when she got a bathroom pass while holding a tiny purse, on the first day she went to school during her very first cycle. She didn’t die of embarrassment and treated it like a badge of honor.

"and would even have one out on her desk."
WHY?

I mean, who cares? I’m a senior exec, and I used to tell my boss that open concept plans for offices were typically inherently misogynistic and failed to take into account how women work. “Where should women put their tampons?” was one of the things I pointed out to him. Along with “moms generally take 80% or more of the callls from doctors, school, etc — how do you not accidentally penalize them for this as these calls are more visible since they don’t have a door to close?”

Of course, we can keep a stash in a laptop bag, but in general, women’s needs are not accommodated in office planning. IBM had a whole “free the tampon” movement.

Open-concept offices are misogynistic?

This sounds like an S/O

[Anonymous]

This topic is so stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two DDs, both 17. They’d be mortified by having visible period stains, but they’re otherwise very nonchalant about menstruation-related things. In middle school, one of my DDs used to carry her pads openly and would even have one out on her desk. The other was asked, in front of her entire class, if she was on her period when she got a bathroom pass while holding a tiny purse, on the first day she went to school during her very first cycle. She didn’t die of embarrassment and treated it like a badge of honor.

"and would even have one out on her desk."
WHY?

I mean, who cares? I’m a senior exec, and I used to tell my boss that open concept plans for offices were typically inherently misogynistic and failed to take into account how women work. “Where should women put their tampons?” was one of the things I pointed out to him. Along with “moms generally take 80% or more of the callls from doctors, school, etc — how do you not accidentally penalize them for this as these calls are more visible since they don’t have a door to close?”

Of course, we can keep a stash in a laptop bag, but in general, women’s needs are not accommodated in office planning. IBM had a whole “free the tampon” movement.

Agreed. Open plan offices also place a higher burden on nursing moms because it's not possible to pump at your desk while working.

The anti-privacy movement in modern office design definitely places a higher burden on women than men.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two DDs, both 17. They’d be mortified by having visible period stains, but they’re otherwise very nonchalant about menstruation-related things. In middle school, one of my DDs used to carry her pads openly and would even have one out on her desk. The other was asked, in front of her entire class, if she was on her period when she got a bathroom pass while holding a tiny purse, on the first day she went to school during her very first cycle. She didn’t die of embarrassment and treated it like a badge of honor.

"and would even have one out on her desk."
WHY?

I mean, who cares? I’m a senior exec, and I used to tell my boss that open concept plans for offices were typically inherently misogynistic and failed to take into account how women work. “Where should women put their tampons?” was one of the things I pointed out to him. Along with “moms generally take 80% or more of the callls from doctors, school, etc — how do you not accidentally penalize them for this as these calls are more visible since they don’t have a door to close?”

Of course, we can keep a stash in a laptop bag, but in general, women’s needs are not accommodated in office planning. IBM had a whole “free the tampon” movement.

Agreed. Open plan offices also place a higher burden on nursing moms because it's not possible to pump at your desk while working.

The anti-privacy movement in modern office design definitely places a higher burden on women than men.

Having your own office is great when pumping but offices now have to provide a pumping room. As far as where to keep tampons, I mean I'm not sure what the issue is. I keep period stuff in my purse and I have my own office.

For phone calls most kid related calls don't need to be secret as it is not a sensitive issue. If they do I would go outside or to my car. I agree that this is a burden on women as every school and camp has always called me even when my husband signed DC up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a life still to know about stain removal for all kinds of stains. Now with a few keystrokes one can learn about how to remove stains from blood, ink, wine, grease, dirt etc via YouTube, reddit, tik tok, whatever.

Stains can ruin clothes no matter what the stain. My 17 yr old's preferred solution is to rebuy a stained item of clothing (underwear, pants, sheets), which is wasteful and expensive. I have been trying super hard to teach her how to at least try hard to remove stains, like blood. Rinse in hot water, put alcohol based hand sanitizer on it and let it sit. Then after an hour or so put some cozy clean spray/ spray and wash and let that sit. Wash in hot water, 2 rinses. Then let it dry in the hot sun. If it doesn't come out then, repeat the process. This also has worked for ink (my daughter got it all over her duvet cover).

If it is underwear, try buying black underwear.

Are you sure? I was always told cold water only for blood stains (regardless of where the blood came from) and it definitely works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two DDs, both 17. They’d be mortified by having visible period stains, but they’re otherwise very nonchalant about menstruation-related things. In middle school, one of my DDs used to carry her pads openly and would even have one out on her desk. The other was asked, in front of her entire class, if she was on her period when she got a bathroom pass while holding a tiny purse, on the first day she went to school during her very first cycle. She didn’t die of embarrassment and treated it like a badge of honor.

"and would even have one out on her desk."
WHY?

Why not? Would you have an issue with someone having a bunch of band-aids on their desk?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two DDs, both 17. They’d be mortified by having visible period stains, but they’re otherwise very nonchalant about menstruation-related things. In middle school, one of my DDs used to carry her pads openly and would even have one out on her desk. The other was asked, in front of her entire class, if she was on her period when she got a bathroom pass while holding a tiny purse, on the first day she went to school during her very first cycle. She didn’t die of embarrassment and treated it like a badge of honor.

"and would even have one out on her desk."
WHY?

Why not? Would you have an issue with someone having a bunch of band-aids on their desk?

But we are not talking about band aids.

[Anonymous]

The "it's just your body" crowd is just painful. No one wants to hear about (or see evidence of) your period, bowel movements, your child's potty training journey, your farts, your sweating problem, etc. Talk to your BFF or sister about this stuff when you need to.

Performatively displaying period stains and pads is not what feminism needs. Society needs more boundaries at this point, not fewer. Men could tighten it up, too--I really don't need to see their feet when I am out to dinner or know anything at all about their bathroom habits.

People are having a lot of trouble behaving in public lately and letting everyone act like the world is their personal bathroom/confession booth is making things worse. Have a little dignity, friends!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a life still to know about stain removal for all kinds of stains. Now with a few keystrokes one can learn about how to remove stains from blood, ink, wine, grease, dirt etc via YouTube, reddit, tik tok, whatever.

Stains can ruin clothes no matter what the stain. My 17 yr old's preferred solution is to rebuy a stained item of clothing (underwear, pants, sheets), which is wasteful and expensive. I have been trying super hard to teach her how to at least try hard to remove stains, like blood. Rinse in hot water, put alcohol based hand sanitizer on it and let it sit. Then after an hour or so put some cozy clean spray/ spray and wash and let that sit. Wash in hot water, 2 rinses. Then let it dry in the hot sun. If it doesn't come out then, repeat the process. This also has worked for ink (my daughter got it all over her duvet cover).

If it is underwear, try buying black underwear.

Are you sure? I was always told cold water only for blood stains (regardless of where the blood came from) and it definitely works.

I don’t know what to tell posters but this is the method that works for me. You do you. The entire point is that teens need to be taught stain removal for all stains. If they spilled red spaghetti sauce down the front of their white shirt would they just not try to get it out and walk around with stained clothes? Probably not. So what is the difference?

My teen is lazy and would just throw things away and rebuy if she had endless money. But that’s an entirely different thread topic. Needless to say you can get almost any stain out with all kinds of methods via google or whatever. Just walking around in stained clothes, sleeping in stained sheets, gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's also normal to pee and poop so girls with poop stains are the new status queens.

It is very normal for older women to pee themselves when they sneeze their yes.

Poop smells so yeah clean that up

Period blood can smell too. And older women with bladder problems use pad made for that. Most of us try our best to take care of our individual hygiene issues. Sheets are private so that’s not comparable to be out in public with period stains on your pants.

[Anonymous]

From a medical standpoint, we need to be careful about blood and feces because both can carry disease. But from a common sense perspective, normalizing bloodstains is a justifiable overreach given our history of stigmatizing menstruation. I understand how women have a “f you” attitude when it comes to people wringing their hands about tampons in public or a bloodstain. The reason I call it an overreach is because it’s not reasonable to be more nonchalant about bloodstain on your crotch vs a stain from sitting on a piece of chocolate or having bird poop on your shirt.

I think it will swing back the other way eventually to the happy medium - when period stains are treated like a normal stain on your pants. You should get rid of it because it’s nice not to have stains and you care about your appearance, but it’s not anything to be mortified about.

[Anonymous]

OP didn't say that girls are walking around with period stains on their clothing at school or elsewhere.

She provided two examples of teen girls refusing to be ashamed of period stains:

1) A girl wearing pajama pants with a period stain around her own house (in view of her brother and his friend)

2) A girl who used sheets with a period stain on them in her own bed

The pearl clutching over this is ridiculous. First of all, I bet you 90% of women have underwear or pajamas with period stains on them and that they certainly wear them around their own home. I certainly do. And I don't freak out if my husband or kids see them. It's a stain, not fresh blood. It isn't unclean -- the clothes have been laundered. It doesn't matter.

And sheets are even less of a concern. Are you sleeping in this girl's bed? No? Then who cares? Even if you wouldn't do the same, that's your choice.

People arguing this is a hygiene issue are being ridiculous. These items are clean but stained. I have some "home only" t-shirts that have food stains on them from pasta sauce or chocolate that I was never able to get out of them. Am I "unclean" if I wear these to watch TV or clean the kitchen?

Y'all need to grow up. This is a non-issue. There is not a scourge of women wearing period stained clothes in public, most people won't do this because it looks untidy and unattractive, just as they won't wear clothes with other stains out in public. You don't need to police the sheets of some teenage girl you don't even know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a life still to know about stain removal for all kinds of stains. Now with a few keystrokes one can learn about how to remove stains from blood, ink, wine, grease, dirt etc via YouTube, reddit, tik tok, whatever.

Stains can ruin clothes no matter what the stain. My 17 yr old's preferred solution is to rebuy a stained item of clothing (underwear, pants, sheets), which is wasteful and expensive. I have been trying super hard to teach her how to at least try hard to remove stains, like blood. Rinse in hot water, put alcohol based hand sanitizer on it and let it sit. Then after an hour or so put some cozy clean spray/ spray and wash and let that sit. Wash in hot water, 2 rinses. Then let it dry in the hot sun. If it doesn't come out then, repeat the process. This also has worked for ink (my daughter got it all over her duvet cover).

If it is underwear, try buying black underwear.

Are you sure? I was always told cold water only for blood stains (regardless of where the blood came from) and it definitely works.

+1 for cold water (and even ice water for a pre-treatment soak for tough blood stains)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should be glad you didn't pass on your insane misogyny to your kids. Good riddance.

Would you have the same opinion if boys and men were leaving ejaculate all over the place? Is it misandry to not deal with semen stains staring you in the face?

That’s differnt though. Semen all over is a pregnancy risk to women and girls. Plus ewww!