Everyone loves things that are personalized or have fun designs on them. We have underwear, Band-Aids, food brands and cups that can be designed with your favorite things or characters. But I think we need to broaden our horizon: make more things with designs and ditch the minimalist look. We need to put fun designs on period products. 

There are many reasons why this is a good idea. For starters, most people agree. 100 percent of the people I asked said that they would want fun, cool designs on their period products. Whether it is simple robots, cats or cartoon characters, everyone would buy these boxes. If we are going to be forced to buy these products for upwards of ten dollars every month, we should at least make them look cooler. It’s the little things, y’know? The idea is that if I’m spending ten dollars on something that should be free, I at least want to have Batman on the box. 

Another reason is I believe that it would break the stigma of periods. It’s not a gross thing, it’s not a medical issue, it’s just a natural thing the body does. As natural as farting or sneezing. Underwear and tissue boxes have designs. But period products are treated more like a gross secret. The boxes have this vibe of a sterile hospital. A solid blue or black with no designs on it. The name printed across the top and vague descriptions of what the products provide. But if we make them fun and put designs on the boxes, it may break the idea that periods are a gross thing to be ashamed of and may show people that it’s a very normal thing to occur. Vitamin supplements often have fun designs– I’m sure you had to take Flintstones Vitamins when you were younger. To me, the Flintstones vitamins seemed easier to take than regular vitamins. It all came down to the application of those fun designs.

Finally, I think we should have designs on them because, why not? Why must we have boring boxes? Why must the boxes and wrappers have nothing on them? The most relevant designs I’ve seen on period products are flowers and I feel like we can do better. The more I think about Disney Characters on these products, the more I think about how having a period is villainized. Because I know that Disney wouldn’t let Olaf appear on a tampon box and why? Because people think it’s something to be ashamed of and it isn’t. It is simply how the human body works. 

In the end, we should start designing these products more and make them more exciting and colorful. After all, we deserve it when we deal with cramps and bloating. We deserve to have something as simple as having cool designs or characters on the wrappers and boxes.