As long as you’re healthy and hygienic, you’ll be able to do anything. They constitute the most important part of our life and nothing more than our current situation can emphasise it better.
One of the major aspects in personal hygiene for women, is menstrual hygiene. And a clean, affordable, hygienic sanitary napkins is the necessity for it.
But producing or providing sanitary napkins isn’t as easy as one can think of. There are various factors like the affordability, awareness etc. that are involved in it.
Case in point, look at the graph below from a “comparative study of menstrual hygiene management among rural and urban adolescent girls, conducted in Karnataka, which was published in International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health in May 2018 “
The study shows that two major problems for women for avoiding sanitary napkins is high cost and disposability. While many companies and services provide sanitary napkins, they’re either costly or non-disposable or both
This is where Bliss Pads come in. Gowtham and Nivedha, founders of Bliss pads, have put forth a unique proposition out in the market that has provided new solutions to the customers and the society. Bliss pads is a start-up company that produces affordable and hygienic sanitary napkins. But they stand-out for their eco-friendly, biodegradable nature of the napkins.
“We aimed at providing outputs such as Sanitary-napkins made from materials that are eco-friendly, Bio-degradable and cost-effective. The ingredients which we used in the material will improve the personal menstrual hygiene of women and also it will degrade within 6-10 months in a landfill. The main ingredient which we have used for developing this sanitary napkin is Kenaf (Gonkura)”
Kenaf is a plant grows abundantly in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The leaves of the kenaf plant are edible but the stem goes as a waste. They use that stem as a main ingredient for developing sanitary napkin because it has more natural absorbing tendency and antimicrobial properties.
The bigger catch is the affordability of the napkins, costing less than 100 rupees. Among the various competitors in India who sell organic napkins, only Bliss Pads cost less than 100 rupees.
“‘Organic made affordable’ is our motto”
Bliss Pads also provides value to their other stakeholders like the farmers who can grow kenaf, thus improving the livelihood and lifestyle in rural areas or the women entrepreneurs by collaborating with them and promoting them to be influencers.
Bliss Pads has grown enormously as they’re now supplying to more than 1000 organic stores across the world, having 17+ dealers in various districts. They have already won 4 national level awards and 5 other awards for innovation in various arenas.
Bliss pads is a good example of solving problems through simple and effective solutions. But it all started somewhere, isn’t it?
“It was for our final year research project and we were given Kenaf. At first, we came up with a piece of sustainable fabric out of Kenaf, and then we thought ‘Why not Sanitary Napkins if the fabric is sustainable?’ This idea fuelled us with all the confidence we needed to make it a Brand that is beneficial to women’s hygiene and society”
Everything begins with an idea. Ideate…