Paid by Garnuu
Paid by Garnuu
Then I pulled the published ingredient lists for seven of them. On all seven, the word on the front covered one layer. Here is the ten second check that showed me, and what I did about it.
I want to be honest about where this starts, because it does not start with me knowing something you do not.
It starts with me being the person buying the more expensive box and feeling good about it.
For years I bought the organic box. Every month, without thinking about it much.
It cost more than the one next to it and I was fine with that. I read the front, I saw organic cotton, and I decided that was the responsible choice and moved on.
That is the whole of my expertise at the start of this story. I read the front of a box.
What I had actually done was assume. The words organic cotton were printed on the front, so I took them to describe the pad. The whole pad. Every layer of it.
That assumption is the only thing I got wrong, and it is the reason this page exists.
The back of a pad box carries a materials list. Most people never read it, and I had never read it either.
So I read mine. Then, because one box is not an answer, I pulled the published ingredient lists for seven organic pads, the kind that sit on the shelf at Target or the pharmacy.
topsheet. top sheet. cover. cover pads. top layer. top layer fibers.
On all seven, organic cotton is assigned to the top sheet.
Some of them say topsheet. Some say cover. Some say top layer. It is the same statement in different words.
Underneath the top sheet is the core, the part that does the absorbing. On all seven, the core is listed on its own separate line, as something else.
Not one of the seven lists organic cotton in the core.
One of them prints its own number on the box. 7 percent organically grown cotton, sitting under the word organic in big white letters.
I want to be careful here, because the easy version of this story is that somebody cheated, and that is not what I found.
I am not in a position to judge anyone's labeling, and I am not trying to. What I can say is what those lists say, and the materials list on the back is where the detail sits.
The gap that interested me is between what the front of a box implies and what the back of it specifies, and that gap is doing an enormous amount of work.
I had been paying a premium for a word, and the word was describing the layer I could feel rather than the layer doing the job.
Once you have seen that, you cannot really unsee it in an aisle.
The core is the absorbent layer under the sheet you can feel, and it is where most of the material is.
So when I found that none of the seven lists put organic cotton down there, what I wanted to know was what was down there instead.
On the lists I read it is named as a super absorbent polymer, sometimes with viscose. These are ordinary materials and they work. They are also a longer list than I had assumed I was buying.
There is no clever technology in a pad. There is only what it is made of, and how much of it there is.
That is the sentence that made me stop researching and start making something.
I have sensitive skin and most pads give me a rash or cause me to break out, but these don't rub or cause any rashes!
Addyson ✓ Verified buyer
Garnuu pads are organic cotton in the top sheet and organic cotton in the core.
Ours is not bleached with chlorine, not dyed and not scented, and there is no viscose or super absorbent polymer underneath it.
The certification covers the core, not a surface layer. GOTS and ICEA, on the part that does the holding.
I am not claiming we invented anything. I am claiming we put the organic cotton in the layer everybody assumed it was already in, and then paid to have that verified rather than asserted.
It is not a breakthrough. It is the thing I thought I was buying.
Goes to the Garnuu pads page. $11 a box, $10 on subscription.
You do not have to take my word for any of this, and I would rather you did not.
Turn over the box already in your bathroom. Find the materials list.
Look for the word that names a layer: topsheet, cover, top layer. Whatever comes right after it is what the word on the front is describing.
Then look for the core, or the absorbent layer, and read what that line says instead.
If those two lines say different things, you now know exactly what you have been buying.
That is the whole check. It costs nothing and it works on every box in the aisle, including mine.
Garnuu started as a company that gives period products to girls who miss school without them, and the pads came afterwards.
That order matters to how it works now. Every box funds product for a girl who would otherwise stay home.
So far that is 8,000 girls, across 57 schools, in 4 countries.
You are not signing up for a cause when you buy a box. You are buying pads. The other thing happens anyway, and I would rather say it plainly than dress it up.
| Measure | The seven lists I read | Garnuu pads |
|---|---|---|
| The layer the word covers | Top sheet only, on all seven | Top sheet and core |
| What the core is | Its own line, and on all seven that line was something else | Organic cotton |
| Super absorbent polymer | Named on the lists I read | None |
| Viscose | Named on the lists I read | None |
| Where organic cotton is listed | Top sheet only, on all seven | Top sheet and core, certified by GOTS and ICEA |
| Organic cotton listed in the core | 0 of 7 | Yes |
Left column describes the seven published ingredient lists read for this page, not any one brand's product.
$11 for a one time box. $10 a box on subscription, which is $1 off every box.
Each box holds one product: 10 Day Pads, 8 Night Pads, or 24 Panty Liners. Day and night pads are ultra thin with wings, and every one is wrapped on its own.
Pick any cadence from every month to every six months. One schedule covers the whole box.
Subscriptions are yours to move, pause or cancel from your account, without a phone call and without a window you have to catch.
Orders leave in one to two days. Over $50 ships free inside the US.
Cancel from your account, without a phone call.
4.7 out of 5 across 36 reviews on the pads
So far loving them! I don't get cramps with Garnuu products like I do with others. If there was a way to make the wings of the pad stick better that would be amazing! Otherwise they work great.
Leah ✓ Verified buyer, 1 year ago
Great! I like that they are thin, absorbent and stick well.
Loraly ✓ Verified buyer, 1 year ago
Fabulous product and even better cause to support. Great price and super easy subscription tailored to my needs.
Emily ✓ Verified buyer, 10 months ago
Leah's note about the wings is hers, kept in. We publish the three and four star reviews next to the five star ones.
Including mine.
I have just spent a page telling you that the front of a box is not evidence, and this page is the front of my box.
So the answer is not another promise from me.
It is one line, and it works on every box in the aisle. Every pad I read printed that line. Ours has to survive it too.
Read the one already in your bathroom. Then read ours.
The line underneath says which one, and that part takes about ten seconds.
Ours says organic cotton twice.
$11 a box, $10 on subscription. Free US shipping over $50. Ships in one to two days.