I was banned from my house during my period – now I make menstrual underwear

A woman who was banned from her home during her period, kept out of sunlight and not even allowed to touch plants has revealed how she is revolutionizing menstruation.

Ruby Raut, 34, from Nepal, who now lives in London, explained that her life changed forever when she got her period at age 12 and had to leave her family.

Fueled by her difficult experiences, Ruby is now the founder of WUKA – a menstrual underwear company that offers an affordable and sustainable alternative to menstrual products such as pads, tampons and cups.

“Traditionally, when a girl has her first period, they usually don’t stay at home, but go to someone else’s house,” the entrepreneur recalls, speaking of her past.

My mother said, “You should go to your aunt’s house.” I had two cousins ​​who were a year younger than me. We were like best friends so I was pretty excited to go.”

But she had no idea that the trip to her aunt would not be the fun experience she had hoped for.

“When I went there, my aunt said, ‘This is your room and this is your bowl and cup. You will be here for seven to eight days,'” she revealed.

“And I was like, ‘What? I can’t go out?'”

Ruby admitted that the first day was “difficult to process” – and that the situation only “got more difficult as the days went by.”

“I had cousins ​​and I wanted to go play,” she explained. ‘I was kept out of the sunlight, not allowed to touch plants and I was not allowed to go to school.

‘Even when it came to food, I was treated differently. Every time food was passed, it almost felt like it was being passed on the floor.”

Ruby felt “a prisoner of society.”

Ruby said she was given so-called “sari rags” and told by her mother that these would be her menstrual product — thin cloth rags that acted as sanitary napkins that she had to wash throughout her cycle.

Ruby was subjected to a form of Chapaudi – a now illegal practice in which women and girls were ostracized from society during their period because they were believed to be ‘unclean’.

She explained that the tradition was passed down from her grandparents, who didn’t find it nearly as traumatic.

“They didn’t have menstrual products,” she said. They weren’t even wearing underwear.

“Whenever they wore a sari rag, they wore several layers of clothing, so they tucked it in somewhere and sat down somewhere, but as soon as they got up and walked, they left blood behind.

“So people in their household said, ‘Don’t get the blood all over the place — just sit somewhere else.’

“That’s how the whole process of isolation came about.”

Ruby also revealed that her grandparents’ days were filled with housework and farm labor, so when it was their time of the month, they appreciated getting away from it all.

“The women were basically the people who ran the household, took care of six, seven children, kept animals and fed them,” she said. “It was a bit of peace for them.”

But the culture of isolation persisted even as society developed new approaches and products for menstruation.

“We had a papaya tree in our family’s backyard, and when I had my period, my mom would say, ‘Oh, don’t go in the papaya, because they won’t ripen,'” she revealed.

“When I was 12, I just believed it.”

Everything changed for Ruby when she moved to the United Kingdom at the age of 20.

She couldn’t believe there was an entire section of the grocery store devoted to menstruation after growing up in a society where it was so taboo for menstruating women to be isolated.

“Another myth I grew up with was that I had to hang the sari rags out of sight,” she said.

“My mom said people would steal them and use all sorts of black magic that could make me barren or stop getting married.

‘Before coming to the UK, when I lived in India, I tried pads, but selling them was also discreet – they wrapped them in layers of newspaper and then put them in a plastic bag.

“When I came here, I decided to try everything.”

Ruby said that while there are benefits to living in a society where no one knows who has periods, she said it has also created a culture where people are uncomfortable talking about periods.

And she found that — in both countries — there seems to be a culture of secrecy surrounding the issue.

That’s why she was inspired to change the universal conversations about periods.

“People don’t talk about it,” she said of menstruation in the West, “or they feel uncomfortable talking about it, so a culture of discretion comes into play again.

‘When I lived in the UK I studied environmental science and spent a year studying waste which got me thinking about period products here and comparing them to what I had growing up.

‘As a developed country, we are the most waste-producing country in the world.

“When I started working in sustainability, I shared my story about reusing sari rags, that’s when the whole problem came out that people don’t talk about periods here – and they never had period training, or if they have had, it’s a 30 minute lesson.’

Ruby was then driven to create a more environmentally sustainable product that would still be easy to use.

Her sari rags served as inspiration. While she’d had to pin them to her underwear in the past—a process that was clearly inconvenient—she’d eventually gotten the idea to sew them into the lining.

“I had previously pinned the sari rags to my underwear, which often didn’t fit properly, and it was a horrible thing to do — the pin would come off and I was in pain,” she explained.

“The final solution I had was wearing shorts to keep it in place.”

She bought a second-hand sewing machine and started working the sari into the underwear to see if it worked.

“When I tried sewing a saree to underwear and wore it for the first time, it didn’t feel like I had anything between my legs — unlike when I wore pads,” Ruby revealed.

‘It was amazing.’

This initial experiment eventually evolved into WUKA – menstrual resistant pants that are a big hit with women of all ages, so much so that half a million pairs have already entered the world.

When creating the pants, which come in a variety of sizes, Ruby had her own traumatic first period in mind, and she says they’re a great way to create a pleasurable period experience for young girls from the get-go.

“They are the best solution for young girls,” she said.

“If you just got your period, you can just change your underwear and come home and talk to your parents about it.

“The underwear also makes sleeping during your period so much more comfortable.

‘Over the years I have noticed little innovation in sanitary towels and tampons. Usually there are just wings and strings, and while mooncups are durable, they are not the best option for everyone.’

Ruby’s decision to revolutionize menstrual products is also having a positive impact on people’s wallets, as the reusable trousers start from £10 a pair, which, compared to the monthly cost of sanitary pads and tampons, will increase over time. time is a huge saving.

Not to mention the testimonials she has received from people personally affected by WUKA.

“Last month I got a lovely email from one of our customers who said that for the last 30 years, every time she had her period, she leaked onto her sheet,” she said.

“She’s been on WUKA for the past year and a half and it hasn’t happened once.”

WUKA a B-corp certified, carbon neutral brand, ultimately championing sustainability and innovation.