They’re the preferred feminine hygiene product for women who have periods, studies show.
But according to a video shared on social media that has so far amassed 20million views, women may be making a critical flaw when securing a sanitary towel.
The clip, posted by someone by the name of Hot girl teeh on X, shows a woman sticking the product to a pair of underwear using an intriguing hack.
Instead of discarding the paper rectangle that keeps the sticky ‘wings’ in place — as is common practice — the woman uses it to keep the towel securely attached to the material of the knickers.
She does this by turning the underwear upside down and placing the paper across the gusset, before sticking the wings to it, rather than directily on to the fabric.
This is said to avoid the wings sticking together and damaging the underwear.
Thousands of X users have commented on the clip, with many claiming they’ve been ‘doing it wrong’ all their lives.
One woman said: ‘Wait what that’s how I was supposed to put it on? And here I had to deal with it not sticking or the wings sticking to my legs.’
It’s estimated that around 15million women in the UK are of menstrual age, with the majority of girls starting their periods at 12.5 years old.
According to Australian researcher Dr Lauren Rosewarne, roughly 62 per cent of women use sanitary towels when it’s their time of the month, while 42 per cent use tampons.
Dr Rosewarne, who lectures on sexuality, gender, feminism and popular culture at the University of Melbourne, says there are many reasons for the preference for sanitary towels over tampons.
She believes women are adverse to ‘getting closer to one’s uterus lining’, which explains why devices like Mooncups ‘haven’t yet gone mainstream’, she said.
Another reason tampon use is low is scaremongering around toxic shock syndrome — a rare but life-threatening condition caused by a bacterial infection.
Writing in The Conversation, Dr Rosewarne said: ‘Dramatically overstated fears of TSS still see some women disinclined to use tampons.
‘While it’s a medical malady easily avoided – by not treating a tampon as a permanent resident, for example – the Death From Tampon spectre still haunts.
‘An extension of this are vaguer tampons-make-you-sick fears.
US consumer watchdog group Mamavation and the Environmental Working Group suggested tampons, along with other hygiene products, could contain harmful perfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS. Dubbed ‘forever chemicals’, they can linger in the environment for hundreds of years, and have been linked to everything from cancer to infertility
‘One version – popularised by the fountain of all quality urban legends: the world wide web – claims they’re chock-full of asbestos, thus making you bleed more so you need to buy more tampons.’
In July, a team of US researchers discovered that toxic metals could be lurking in tampons sold in the UK.
Tests, by scientists at various US universities, on 30 products purchased in New York, Athens and London found some contained dangerous levels of arsenic, chromium and even lead.
And all 16 metals tested were detected in at least one tampon.
The experts said they were several different ways the metals could have got into the tampons, including contamination at cotton plants used to manufacture tampons.
They can also be potentially added during manufacturing processes as whiteners, antibacterial agents, or through cross-contamination from other factory processes.
However, British experts said that the results of the study do not prove that the metals can leach into the vagina and have harmful effects on the body.
Professor Atholl Johnston, a professor emeritus of clinical pharmacology at Queen Mary, University of London, told MailOnline: ‘Prior to analysis, the tampons were cut up and then the researchers added 2 mL of 67-70 per cent nitric acid (HNO3) to each sample and pre-digested the tampons at room temperature overnight before microwave-assisted acid digestion.
‘Hardly a similar environment to the average vagina.’
He added: ‘Were I a tampon using woman, I wouldn’t panic at this stage. There is no evidence that the metals would leech into menstrual blood and be absorbed into the body.’
