Madeleine Shaw: Flow Lover & Founder of Lunapads

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Madeleine Shaw would never be caught taking a pill to stop her period. In fact, she loves and honors her period. And wishes more women would, too.
Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Madeleine [below right with business partner Suzanne Siemens] is the founder and partner of Lunapads International Products Ltd. Madeleine, now 38, had a lot of different career ambitions in her life, including being part of the foreign service, a fashion designer, and a social worker. But designing and making washable menstrual products ended up being her calling. And her feminist vehicle for change. Here’s Madeleine…


What’s the Luna Pads story—the short version?
The short version is I started creating the products, and making the products in 1993. It’s funny because the whole time I was doing my [women’s studies] degree at university, it never occurred to me to turn my feminist lens on a feminist-viewed product industry. I don’t know why. It was sort of in the mid-80s and women’s studies was still not really such a thing. And I guess we were sort of more of preoccupied with bigger issues, like rape [Laughs]. So questioning your tampon didn’t really feel intense, right?
But I started getting these bladder infections, and kept getting them. They were the bane of my existence. And then I read an article in a magazine, an environmental periodical called Garbage. The article was called, “The Truth About Tampons.� It talked about how they were made and the chemicals in them. And I was like, holy shit, this is my problem, and this is so wrong I can’t even believe it.
I had a feminist consciousness but I didn’t have an environmental consciousness just yet. Those two things go hand in hand so perfectly, I guess I wasn’t mature enough when I was 18 to figure that out. And it’s wonderful to see so many 18-year-old women who do get that now. It wasn’t until I was 25 when I could really put that together.
So, once I started I had actually found some washable pads that someone else had made. I loved the idea but I did not like the product. I had been sewing since I was a little, little girl—my really creative bliss is sewing—and I thought what a gift it would be if someone could make a product that was genuinely marketable. That women thought was cool and that celebrated them, and that actually really worked. And so that just became my goal because I was so excited by the feeling that it gave me—that I didn’t have to give my money to a huge male-owned corporation that didn’t really care about anything that mattered to me. So that’s the short version! [Laughs]
Wow! And so then you got the marketing plan and…
Yeah, I wrote my first business plan for Lunapads in 1994.
Did you then go to investors?
Not immediately. No. I got my dad to co-sign a guaranteed loan and I took out the loan. So I made a personal financial responsibility. But I was backed up by my family and they were basically like she’ll pay. It took me years to pay off that loan but that’s OK.
So did you notice that when you started using more natural pads that you got less bladder infections?
Totally. That’s what flipped me out. And I figured out also a couple of years before that, that I needed to stop taking birth control pills. And so between the two of them, I felt like at age 25, that I was actually fully experiencing my menstrual cycle for the first time in my adult life. I had basically started using tampons when I started my period. And I had basically started using birth control pills when I was a teen. And so all of a sudden, here I was at 25 saying, “Oh, my god, I’m actually fully having my period here and it’s so amazing.� And it made me cry because I felt like I had basically denied myself something really special and really precious in a way for so long—about 10 years. I had kind of shut it down and was like, yeah, it’s better not to experience stuff.
But that’s our culture. It wasn’t just me. I had internalized a lot of messages that basically say it’s much better to pretend you’re not having your period. To not experience it. To not see the blood. To not touch it. To not take responsibility for it. And to not be interested in it. Not anything it! But to shove something up yourself, or take some pills, or whatever, and make it go away. And so when I actually realized I had been missing out on something really important, and special, and good, it was a huge revelation to me.
Even though politically and mentally I had it down why feminism mattered. I really didn’t get it on an emotional level. That I was just kind of shutting myself down [all these years]—this kind of spiritual awareness around my body. That was sort of the development of my consciousness. That’s what using washable pads gave me! Because prior to that I could argue any kind of cerebral pay equity, or whatever you wanted to talk about. But I wasn’t really tuning into my womb, going with the flow. [Laughs] I was busy. I was a modern woman. I gotta put in a tampon and power on. Right?
So for people who are not aware of this menstrual product debate, are mainstream menstrual products dangerous? The short version is…
I think making the choice to use natural feminine hygiene products should really come from a place of love as opposed to fear. Just like anything else. I’m not interested in scaring people. I can sit here and tell you about toxins, and gels, and bleach, and all that stuff. And the thing is, I’m not a scientist. I’m not a doctor. And I’m also in the position that if I say the wrong thing and Procter & Gamble, or Kimberly-Clark, or somebody, wanted to send a bunch of lawyers out at me, I wouldn’t be in a position financially to support something like that.
And so, let’s just go with solid waste. 14 billion pads, tampons, and applicators go in a landfill every year!
I also get calls from customers every day. I’m not going to start calling on studies and surveys. I just know to be true that tampons can mess with women’s health. And at the end of the day, it’s an immense solid waste problem that these products take hundreds of years to biodegrade. Hundreds! It’s insane and we’re throwing them away and we think that’s OK.
To me, when I look for ways to attract new customers and get women excited about making this choice, it’s really not about that. I’m not going to sit here and say you gotta save trees. Make someone feel that she’s got to compromise something in order to not feel guilty about something else or whatever. I’m just not about that. It’s about making a positive choice. It’s about making a choice that respects you and could really open up something beautiful and wonderful. If you talk to women…like a random survey of 20 women on the street. And let’s say for sake of argument, who probably use disposable products. If you ask them, “Do you love your tampon? Do you love your pads?â€? or “Do you love your panty liners?â€? or whatever. Nobody is going to say “Yes!â€? They’re going to say, “What do you mean love them?” It’s not an emotion or a feeling that you would attach to these products. But if you ask Lunapads customers how they feel, they absolutely love Luna Pads, and will say yes.
And so, it’s like bringing pleasure, or a positive thought to something that never existed there before. That’s the message that I try to put forth towards women—to be really conscious. To be conscious about everything. Be conscious around what you read, what CDs [you buy], all those things. And we’re asking you to be conscious about this, too, if you can. But I’m not interested in saying you should, or you should really look at the statistics, or whatever. Women don’t need that. You already have enough of that stuff in your life.
I noticed on the website that many of the products, like the internal menstrual cup, were popular in the 1930s. Why do you think it was more popular then as opposed to now?
First off, it is extremely popular now. We sell tons, and tons, and tons, and tons of them. But I think it’s the power of capitalism that realizes you’re going to make more money by making disposable products than you are by selling reusable products. Really, we’re crazy! [Laughs] People are like, “You’re selling products that women typically buy once or twice and then they’re done.� And I’m like, “Yup.� Which means we have to go and keep finding new customers. And in our case, we don’t necessarily have a lot of money to do marketing. Or are interested in beating people over the head.
I guess I try to connect with women on a level that they’re not connected to very often in terms of marketing. And that is through respect. Like who comes out and basically says to women, “We say from the bottom of our hearts, we love you and we want the best for you.� That’s just not the message you get from companies ever. It’s usually we’re going to make you feel insecure about something and then offer you a solution for your insecurity, or the cure—whatever they want to call it. We get products like that all the time launched at us.
But you know what the thing is though, it’s actually working. Like the message that we bring to women—we’re here and we’re surviving. Doing this is a hard thing but we’re doing it. We’re not going away. We’re not at risk. So I think it’s part of the woman’s psyche to not feel overly bombarded and suspicious. They can still hear what we have to offer them and take it in and respond to it.

Would you say the internal menstrual cup is your most popular product?

No, definitely not. The Lunapads are definitely our most popular product. But the internal menstrual cup, or the Diva Cup, is extremely popular.
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On a practical level, how do you address the kinds of concerns many women might have with reusable menstrual products?
First of all, all of our products are guaranteed. Let’s say you say you want to order a Diva Cup. And I take your order. And you try it and you’re not happy. We send it back and give you your money back. It’s that simple. It’s something that is very experiential and I can’t guarantee for you personally, or any woman personally, that the stuff is going to work for you.
It also depends a lot on expectations. Because some women are like how thick are the pads exactly. How often exactly am I going to have to change the internal cup? We’re saying that using these products is a whole other thing.
But personally, not having used a disposable for 13 or 14 years, it’s almost like we’re asking you to take a leap of faith. And if it doesn’t work out, we’ll catch you. And it’s fine. And yeah, sure, it’s always easier to throw something away than it is to have to bring a little nylon purse with you—which is free with your order—to store used pads with you until you get home. And then not to be able to forget them—you have to rinse them out and wash them—yes, that’s part of the work. That’s the consciousness. It’s part of the responsibility we’re asking you to take. But doing that is a good thing. I think for some people they want things to be really easy. They want to feel OK, I’m using these reusable products and I feel so good, and this is so good, but I actually don’t want to have to do the work. And it’s like, there’s a lot of value in actually doing the work.
It’s almost like there’s value in when you’re bleeding, sitting down with yourself for an extra minute or two minutes or five minutes—or however long it takes to take out the Diva Cup to rinse it out or take some wet paper towels in the stall and wipe it out. It’s like OK, I spent an extra 30 seconds being present with my body. I think the mindset is, but I need those 30 seconds to do something important. I have something more important to do during that time. And it’s like, where are we as a culture, and where are we as women, when we can’t take 30 seconds to listen to our bodies? You just got to power on? You just have to keep going? There’s no gentleness. And I guess our message is about gentleness.
And it’s about women take a lot of time being strong. We are strong. And we’re doing so much in the world, struggling and all this stuff. And I guess, what we’re trying to say is, there’s a place for gentleness and there’s a place for honoring yourself, and we’re asking you to do that. I’m asking you to take an extra minute and to figure out creatively—I can’t make this perfect for you because I don’t know what your life is like. But if you’re willing to try, then we’re willing to try. And it can affect your life in those little big ways. It seems little, but actually it’s huge. Just telling your body, I’m going to shove something in you because I don’t want to see the mess. I don’t have time for blah, blah. That’s big.
But it also depends on your lifestyle. If you’re an underwater archaeologist, then you probably shouldn’t try Lunapads. I don’t even know what the right thing is for someone who is an underwater archaeologist.
And if you don’t have a washer or dryer in your house, and you have to wash them by hand, that’s a little bit of a drag. But some customers like to wash their pads by hand because it makes them feel more connected to [their period]. So there you go. I’m not one of them.
So you wash yours in the washing machine?
Yeah I do. I rinse them out with my hands first. And then I throw them in the washer…I just got my period for the first time after 22 months—I just had a baby. And I didn’t want to waste the blood. I wanted to put it in the garden, or save it. But I didn’t have time. So there you go!
But I wash it with my sheets and towels. I like it.
Many people are weird about blood.
Let’s take a look at that. For me, why are people weird around the [menstrual] blood? They are weird around blood because our blood is a literal symbol of women’s power. It really is, because it’s basically saying, “Hey, you can have a baby.� Women’s power is the most feared thing by women and men alike in our whole society. And so menstruation, to me, is a reminder that you are an extremely powerful being. That you are connected to the cycles of the moon and the tides, and the great Mother Earth and nature. What’s more powerful than that? But then it’s like, uh, I can’t touch that. I can’t deal with that. It’s gross. It’s disgusting. No, man, this is really something amazing

Do you get more customers in the U.S. or in Canada?

Oh, the United States, for sure.
Certain areas or regions?
Nope. Just certain kinds of women come to us. And they are everywhere. [Laughs]
Do you have any mainstream outlets? Is Walmart calling you?
Um, no, they haven’t called this week, Celina. [Laughs] It’s interesting that we’re talking about them because Amazon.com has approached us about selling Lunapads.
Wow!
I know. But we actually had an issue about product liability insurance. And then we had a debate about whether we wanted to sell at Amazon.com or not. We really didn’t think of any reason why not. And I was like, well, would we sell to Walmart? And we said we wouldn’t sell to Walmart. But Walmart isn’t the same as Amazon.com.
But at the same time, that’s the whole thing about trying to run a socially responsible business, you have to make these types of decisions. Let’s say our sales were down and we didn’t have enough money for marketing, you know whatever, and Walmart did come and say, “Hey, we’ve decided we want to go green and get more women customers. And we want to sell your product. And we’re going to put in these big orders and we’re going to sell and do marketing.� Would we go for it? I don’t know. Because we have to think about what are we trying to do here. We’re trying to bring this gift of this consciousness to as many women as possible, right?
But anyways, Walmart hasn’t called. That was just an interesting question to think about. Normally I would say, Walmart, forget it. I’ve never even been to a Walmart in my life. And on the face of it, it’s not the kind of thing that I would want to purchase from. But these sorts of decisions can be really complex.
But most of our customers are in the United States. We also do a lot of business with some companies in Japan, and another one in South Korea—and those are also big markets for us.

What advice do you have for women who want to start a socially conscious business?

Go for it. I think it’s a great place to start from. It’s really, really, really, really hard. So pick something to do that generally matters to you. Something that you are absolutely passionate about, that’s going to make it easier when things start getting, and they will, very hard.
And so we get so many calls from people who want to interview us, or who want to come up and talk to us about their idea. And I always ask people what they love about it. Sometimes you don’t even have to ask, it’s just totally obvious. But for some people, it’s about making a ton of money, and I can’t even tell you why, but I want you to help me.
I always think when you don’t make your “millions of dollars� the first two years, or whatever, what’s going to get your ass out of bed? So I think with a socially responsible business, it’s a great motivator and the world needs it because we’re not going to become this beautiful socialist, utopian society. We have to deal with being a capitalist society and economy, and we have to work from within that to make it as humane and as responsible environmentally as we can. So, the more people doing it, the better.
What do you see as the future for Lunapads?
I think the company is going to grow quite a lot, actually. It’s already had over a decade invested in it—of blood, sweat, and tears [Laughs]. We’ve built a very, very solid foundation—like it’s not just some kind of woo-hooo start-up, here we go kind of thing—and rapid growth and all that stuff.
I’m a Capricorn. And I think it’s been a slow and steady kind of progress in the company. And I think we’re going to grow a lot. And I think that we’re going to have some really interesting opportunities to do some very creative work. Like I would like to sort of experiment and make a hybrid between for-profit and non-profit. I would like to be a not- for-profit organization that runs itself by selling products so that it’s completely socially desirable.
But some people are like are you a collective, or are you a nonprofit? And I’m like no, we are a for-profit incorporated company and that’s really important. Just because we have all of these nicey-nice goals and agenda and all this kind of stuff, we still need to be responsible business people. We need to be smart, and work harder in a way.
The money is a motivating factor for me personally because it feels like there’s no silver lining here. We either stand or fall. We’re selling our smarts, the quality of our decisions, our integrity, and our customer service. But ultimately, we work to make people feel good.

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