Jennifer Eden, co-founder and CEO of Tampon Tribe, joins Cheddar News to discuss her company and ending period poverty. 

Between Bells

Tampon Tribe Offers Organic Feminine Hygiene Subscription Box

Welcome back to Between bells everyone. One company is looking to provide women's safe, feminine hygiene products all with the environment in mind. Tampon Tribe provides 100% plastic free cotton. Organic period subscription boxes and silicone free menstrual cups. The company also known for giving back and helping those who may not have access to period products. Joining us now to discuss is jennifer Eden co founder and Ceo of Tampon Tribe. Jennifer welcome. What made you decide that you needed to create this company for people women with periods? Well, I guess our first um impetus from a business point of view was that everybody Of course needs high quality period products and not everyone has access to them. And then we both myself and my co founder very passionate about the environment. So we wanted to create products that were not only 100% organic cotton, but there were also plastic free. And we were looking around, you know, in Los Angeles at the offerings of period products at the time and they were really limited. So we created something that we thought we would love to kind of in a selfish motivation and just to enable people access to it in terms of, you know, where they can shop. Um, and we have a strong give back as part of that too. So enabling people who can't afford organic products to have access to them. You know, often people get handouts perhaps, but they're not the highest quality. So that was something that we we wanted to try and address and continue to do with tampon Tribe. How does tampon tribe differ from those other period subscription boxes that are on the market right now jennifer Sure. Our main differential is that we only use certified organic cotton. So we look at the product and the raw material from the minute the seeds hit the soil all the way through to production and then when it lands in the US for for packaging, we don't use any fillers. We don't use any covers. So All of our products are 100 Gots and I see a which is sustainably certified organic cotton and we believe that's really important. Um, and there are a lot of brands out there that are green leaning, which is fantastic or that are partly organic cotton. But we really wanted to provide something that only has one true ingredients. So we don't use any chemicals. We don't use any super absorbent or any manmade materials at all. And I think that's something that we feel super passionate about. So it was easy for us to do. You know, sometimes it's hard in business making that decision between uh super organic products and then the cost of that. But we wanted to be really stand out in the way that, you know, you see your period products as another member of the organic family that you're using already in your household. Why is it so important for women or people with periods to have access to organic female hygiene products jennifer. Well, I think often we are so cognizant of what we eat of what we put on our skin, you know what we wear in terms of the fabrics and the chemicals in them. And then we totally forget about our period products. Our tampons are pads, our liners which some of them go actually inside our bodies and most of them contain potentially really toxic chemicals. So there are bleachers, a lot of tampons are made from rayon and different fabrics which are all man made. And the entire production line has chemicals and bleaches and perfumes and we wholeheartedly believe at tampon tribe that these don't really have a place inside a body and we try and eliminate any I guess possibility of contamination or of putting non organic products in or around our bodies. And I think a lot of that is awareness. You know we start using period products when we're young and we take whatever we're given and same could be said of you know processed foods and fabrics. But now we have that knowledge. We think it's very important to have access to products at a good feel. And we have a lot of our customers actually report back on how this makes a huge difference to period cramps for example because often it's the chemical or the super absorbency in these products that are kind of disrupting the natural ecosystem of our body. And so they make a switch to the 100% organic cotton products and they report back a really positive change in their bodies which makes us, you know, really happy. Of course I have about 30 seconds left with you. But I do want to ask you Jennifer about your nonprofit project code red. Tell us more about that. Sure. So we saw in America millions of women not being able to afford period products and there are hundreds of girls or hundreds of thousands of girls that don't go to school in America when they get their period and for us that was so important. So we give back and we do a one for one give back to girls to enable them to go to school in the US when they get their period because two thirds of low income girls don't go to school, they missed 145 schooling days, you know in their life, which is such a disparity in access to education. So not only are they disadvantaged unfortunately in the health aspect with not having products or having cheap products, but they don't go to school. So yeah, we started project code Red to try and address that jennifer Egan co founder and Ceo of tampon tribe. Thank you for everything you and your partner. Do we really appreciate your time jennifer