Yesterday, a new tampon subscription service — a product not unlike the monthly makeup and fragrance delivery service Birchbox, except that instead of cosmetics, subscribers, depending on their selected "flow," receive a number of tampons, pads, and panty-liners wrapped up in tissue paper and a box — called HelloFlo officially launched.
Subscribing to HelloFlo (or one of its competitors) costs more than it would to buy identical products in-store, so why would anyone sign up? Creator Naama Bloom is banking on consumers' continued discomfort with purchasing tampons and pads in public — tampons are supposed to be SO embarrassing, something we want so badly to avoid, that we'd pay more than what they usually cost to have them sent to us under a shroud of secrecy. To this day, nobody seems comfortable acknowledging that we know what these things are for, and it's nothing particularly cutesy or magical.
Or is it? From tampon marketing across the years, you might think there was something else being sold here besides a little swath of cotton that absorbs blood.
What can a tampon give you? Here are some of the possibilities.
1. Something fun for your blood to do.
2. Athletic victories in white dresses.
3. The experience of light-speed.
4. Orgasmic handstand splits.
5. Your virginity/your virginity back.
6. Mermaid hair and luxuriant breasts.
7. A panicky boyfriend in a white suit.
8. Internal peace, contentment, and reckoning with one's mortality.
9. The full depletion of nearby water sources.
10. An unusable bike.
11. Sick skateboarding skills.
12. A small space of air between your forefinger and thumb.
13. Boxes to put in your socks.
14. A friend who talks sternly to you over a cup of tea.
15. And finally, the one commercial that ever GOT IT:
