Bleed For You home-delivers organic, ethically produced, chemical-free tampons within Australasia and gives 50 percent of profits to charities that support women.
Photo: supplied
Australia-based Kiwi Vanessa Alexander had the idea after 'googling over a few glasses of wine' with a friend.
They discovered the billions of dollars women pay for female hygiene products around the world mostly flow back to American multinational corporations, many of which take no social responsibility, she says.
Bleed For You donates to the charities Share the Dignity which supports homeless women, and Marie Stopes International, which provides reproductive health services to women in the third world.
"[Tampons are] actually a real necessity and if you have to buy 14,000 of them in your lifetime it's deep comfort to me, as a woman, that that money is going to help women who need support."
Most regular tampons are bleached with dioxins and there are none produced in Australia or New Zealand, so Bleed For You source organic, chemical-free, ethically produced ones from Europe, where there is a "staunch certification process", Vanessa says.
"I want to take over the world so that people only buy these tampons. Imagine what you could do. Even if 10 percent of profits were going back from 40 billion – that's a huge sum of money that could go back to women's health and education around the world."
The Australian company Who Gives a Crap? is lighting the way.
They home-deliver toilet paper and give 50 percent of profits to sanitation in developing countries and have now expanded into the UK and the US.
