NOBODY HAS TO TELL YOU WHAT'S IN YOUR PAD

Turn over a box of biscuits and you get an ingredients list. Turn over a shampoo bottle and you get one. Turn over a sanitary pad pack, a product you'll wear against your skin for a week a month for about forty years, and you get a picture of a flower.

This isn't an oversight. Cosmetics sold in India must carry a full ingredient list per the Drugs and Cosmetics Act but period products sit outside of this category. What you'll find on most packs is a picture, a claim about softness, and nothing about what's actually in there.

We're going to walk through what's actually in there, including the part that doesn't flatter us.

WHAT A PAD IS, PHYSICALLY

A disposable pad has three layers.

The top sheet: the one directly against your skin. Usually polypropylene, a plastic. Sometimes described as “cottony” or “dry-weave,” which are texture claims, not material ones.

The core: fluff pulp plus super-absorbent polymer, tiny granules that swell into gel. SAP is why a modern pad is thin. It's also why it holds many times its weight.

The back sheet: polyethylene. A plastic film, there to stop leaks.

Plus adhesive, and in many products a fragrance added to mask smell, sitting against some of the thinnest skin you have.

A TAMPON goes further in, against tissue which absorbs more readily than skin does. Tampon materials are simpler: cotton, rayon (viscose), or a blend of the two, compressed, with a cord. The US FDA clears all three, and requires the absorbent fibres to be bleached without elemental chlorine, which is what keeps dioxin levels down.

THE PART WE'D RATHER NOT PRINT

In 2022, the Indian environmental group Toxics Link tested ten sanitary pad brands sold here and published the results as Wrapped in Secrecy.

They found 12 types of phthalates and 24 volatile organic compounds across the samples. Phthalates are used to soften plastics and are studied as endocrine disruptors. The VOC list included things like benzene and chloroform.

Here's the uncomfortable bit, and the reason we're citing a study that doesn't help us: they found this in the organic pads too. The single highest phthalate reading in the whole study; 19,460 µg/kg of DIDP was in an organic product.

So “organic” on a pack is typically a claim about one input. It is not a certificate covering the adhesive, the wrapper, the back sheet, the fragrance, or the supply chain. We sell organic cotton tampons and we'd still rather you knew that than believed something flattering and untrue.

WHAT IS ACTUALLY REGULATED HERE

Sanitary napkins in India fall under IS 5405, the BIS standard. It covers pH, absorbency, how the pad holds under pressure, microbial load including Staphylococcus aureus, biocompatibility tests like cytotoxicity and skin sensitisation, and phthalate testing.

That's a real floor and it's more than nothing. What it isn't is an ingredients label. A product can meet the standard and still tell you nothing about its composition.

Elsewhere, the picture is different. Since January 2023, California's Menstrual Products Right to Know Act has required a full ingredient list on the pack and on the manufacturer's website. New York has had a similar law since 2021. And from the end of 2026, California manufacturers must report lead, arsenic and cadmium concentrations to the state's toxics regulator.

So the same global brand that shows you a flower here prints a full list in San Francisco. Not because the product is different. Because the law is.

QUESTIONS WORTH ASKING ANY BRAND  

• What is the absorbent material, by name? “Cotton-soft” is not cotton. “Organic cotton” is.
• Is there added fragrance? If a product needs perfume to smell acceptable, ask what it's covering.
• Where is it made, and to what standard? Certifications are proof, nature imagery and words like "eco-friendly" are a marketing choice.

We'd like to be held to all of the above. OVA's tampons are made with certified organic cotton, they are unscented, and made in an ISO 13485-certified facility.

OVA makes organic cotton tampons, unscented, with nothing on the pack we can't account for. See what we make →

Sources: Toxics Link, Wrapped in Secrecy: Toxic Chemicals in Menstrual Products, November 2022 · Bureau of Indian Standards, IS 5405:2019 · California AB 1989, Menstrual Products Right to Know Act, in force January 2023 · California SB 754, signed 2025 · US FDA, “The facts on tampons — and how to use them safely”