Unqualified sanitary pads
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Discussion keeps the world turning. This is Roundtable. Hello, welcome to Roundtable, where we serve up piping hot debates on the issues that sizzle in China and beyond. I'm Niu Honglin.

Sanitary products are something we don't often talk about until something goes wrong. Imagine reading a news story about a brand you trust only to find out they've been cutting corners on the very thing you rely on. Now, what happens when some of these essential products aren't just falling short in length, but in quality and hygiene, too?

Is it a corporate cutting, cost cutting move? Or is there a deeper issue in how we view the standards for such personal products? For this episode, I'm joined by Fei-Fei and Lai Ming. Now grab your virtual compass and follow us to the heart of the discussion. As women, we buy menstrual products to meet a very basic need, comfort and protection. But what

But what if the very products we trust are misleading us, cutting corners and failing to meet their advertised standards? Starting 2025, China will roll out new national standards for sanitary pads. These updated regulations aim to make a difference from safety to environmental impact.

And these topics have been heatedly discussed on China's social media, starting from the new national standards, what should be included in these new regulations, and later on to be going into the area of certain bloggers or social media influencers started to do personal, not

very scientific, but definitely with a lot of personal experience kind of experiments on different brands and different types of these different products. And let's talk a little bit about what is happening or what are some of the key issues here in at least the news coverage and also social media platforms. Well, what's going on is, well, a lot of people over the internet are having a very heated discussion about

the practice in the industry, practiced by many players in the industry. According to a recent article by the Beijing News, a social media blogger bought products of nearly 10 sanitary pad brands and measured their length with a ruler.

It was found that the actual length of all products were different from their labeled length. Most of them were found obviously shorter than their labeled length. According to a recent report by Hunan-based news portal RedNet.cn, a social media blogger launched a sanitary pad measurement activity online. Among 114 products of 45 brands, 67.5% of these products have a length different.

different from the labeled length. Most of them are shorter than the labeled length. And this has triggered great dissatisfaction among citizens. Problems such as unqualified hygiene standards, poor production environment, and bad customer service attitudes of sanitary products continue to attract public attentions and even became heated discussed topics online. And how bad is the situation?

Well, a news media under Chengdu Business Daily checked the length of daily and nighttime sanitary pad products of the top seven brands in the 2021 Chinese sanitary pad market in early November. And I'm going to hit you guys with some numbers. The daily products were labeled with a length ranging from 240 to 250 millimeters long.

The nighttime products were labeled with a length ranging from 290 to 420 millimeters. Very standard. However, five of the seven daily sanitary pad products were shorter than the labeled length. One brand even saw a length of 6 millimeters shorter.

than the labelled length. Four of the seven nighttime sanitary pad products were shorter than the labelled length, and one brand even saw a length of 4mm shorter than the labelled length.

I don't know. To be honest, actually here we do have an ongoing or in-place national standard of this, and it says that it can be 4% less than the standard. Give or take. Give or take, precisely. And the problem here is that everyone is choosing give instead of take.

It's choosing take instead of give, but their advertised length is standardized and also sometimes it's even longer. So the problem here, or at least for this round of discussion, this round of experiment, the problem here is that their advertising length is definitely longer than the actual length.

Well, so I'm not really good at math and much worse when we're doing live presentations. But correct me if I'm wrong. When we see a length shortage by six millimeters as compared to a total length of 240, this is not

This is well within the 4% give or take period or bracket, right? Yes. But then I also want to raise that these figures was measured by the length was measured by a ruler, which was also market bought.

So is it really accurate? I'm not really sure. That's the question there. And also about the sample size, you know, up till now, we're talking about, you know, social media bloggers or influencers or some media, but how many samples they draw from the overall production on the market?

which is also, you know, can have very misleading results as well. Yes. So it's not that scientific to start with. Yet, I think the problem here is that there is a sweeping result here. The person who did the research did... Four out of seven and

Exactly. That is making netizens unhappy about. They're saying, some of them are saying, we have been relying on these brands. We have been paying for some of the product. We think they're a little bit expensive, but we're being okay with it because we trust that for these kind of basic product, we can trust these brands. They are advertising for taking care of women, for allowing women to

thrive in all different occasions in these special periods. And yet, it feels like they are putting a stagger in our back. Let me put

Let me put in just one tiny little information as backgrounds. That is, for those of you who do not live in China, who are not familiar with the situation here, actually, sanitary pads dominate the feminine hygiene market here in China. We do know that, for example, in the United States, sanitary pads are more popular than tampons.

Yet, it's like 62% of women prefer pads, where only 42% use tampons. But here in China, sanitary pads are definitely in the dominant position. And that is why for most bloggers, when they talk about this issue, when they try to examine the products, sanitary pads stand in the middle of the discussion. Well, it's something that affects a significant portion of the population. Definitely. Hence the severity and intensity of the discussion. And

meanwhile, I'm not really sure whether or not this is one of the reasons these kind of experiments started to be very popular on the internet. Yet, actually, as early as July 25, the country has mentioned and has announced that they are working on the next the new national standards for sanitary pads. And the new standards would be

take effect on the 7th, actually on the 1st of July next year. But now it is due drafting and after the drafting process, it will collect or sell

Solicit public opinion. Solicit public opinion, yes. And this includes industry opinions and consumers as well. So I was wondering, I didn't really ask the blogger whether or not this is the reason you did the experiment to figure out what are some advices you can give, but definitely this is happening in China

I think several months before the heated discussion started to get a lot of public attention on China's social media. What are some other issues that are being discussed after the length problem got onto the nerve of women like us?

Well, I think there are a lot of hotly discussed topics relating to these sanitary paths over the past several years. We've heard about debates, for example, about hygiene standards. You know, according to some media reports, some customers complained

complain that they found worms or warm eggs in these paths, and they lead to suspicion of the hygiene problem, which is very, very important in these products. And there are also discussions about

the pH value of these products, which is the standards, the national standards, requires them to be between 4 and 9, but some products may not meet the standards or they are playing, I think, within the safe boundaries, but definitely not up to the value that the customers think they offer, especially if you're considering that these paths can be very costly. And so a

a lot of the times consumers would expect high quality products. Well, they don't think they are getting that. And then there are also reports about production varmints, which some reports exposed that the raw material warehouse of certain sanitary past production enterprise, and they're very dirty, messy, and has a very strange smell. And that also...

come down to hygiene standards as well. And there are also bad customer services. Also within these length discussions here in recent months, there are certain brands that the customer service said it was a normal situation and the customers cannot...

if they don't want, they can't accept this length they provide, they just can choose not to buy the products, which is not very up to standards customer service. And then the brand also came eventually apologized for these statements coming from customer service.

And yeah, there are a range of issues that consumers have been talking about surrounding sanitary pads in recent years. Definitely. And it's not only about, well, it's not only here in China. It has been the topic for decades.

around the world. For example, in 2019, a brand, I think it is Protector and Gamble, faced a scrutiny over its always-branded sanitary pads due to allegations that they contained harmful chemicals, and advocacy groups raised concerns about the presence of different types of

of chemicals in the pads, and this promoted a backlash from consumers who demanded transparency regarding its ingredient used in these products. And in the meantime, I'm not really sure if you're familiar with TSS, that's toxic shock syndrome, because in 2018, a woman in the United States shared her experience of developing TSS after using a combination of tampons and pads

leading to heightened awareness and concern about the safety of all menstrual products. So we've been talking about this quite a lot. And so this round, or maybe it's because we're in China, so we're aware of the Chinese situation a little more. We're more sensitive about

about the topic here on the Chinese social media. And this round is getting a lot of attention. Rightfully so, because we're talking about a product that is so close to women's life. I remember a generation ago in my mother's generation, I still remember some

elderly women would get by by folding toilet paper and just use it as, you know, a period pads. Whereas it's surprising to see that in over just a few decades, Chinese women have grown so dependent, in fact, on such a product as the sanitary pads. And they have to use it over...

almost every month and they have to use it for quite a long time and they keep it very close to their body, a very sensitive and vulnerable part of their bodies. And as such, I think we should pay more attention to something that's something of a necessity in our lives and it's so much to do with people's health as well as their feelings. Lai Ming's definitely right. And this is

suddenly makes me realize that the history of these kind of products, these sanitary products, have not been here in the society for that long. And this reminds me of the period where when I was a young girl, when I have to, because of a surprise, because they didn't count the math or calculate the math properly, and it's

surprise happen to me and I do not have the product with me, I have to go to, for example, when I was in school, I have to find a little shop in the school. And when I buy the actual sanitary pad, I would find a black plastic bag to put it in, to hide it from everybody else as if it's something unnatural or shameful.

Well, that was a very different stage in life. Exactly. Because not every girl was going through that, and it was considered something of a novelty for girls of that age. Yes. It was natural to feel somewhat stigmatized for having sex.

But my point is, I feel like that stage is slowly fading away. Nowadays, in the, for example, in the office, I do not feel the need of hiding it. I'll put it in my pocket, just because it's convenient, not because I want to hide it. And I think that change of

our, our, let's say consumption about these kinds of products, but more essentially about this very natural situation, this period that you have, you,

you definitely have in your life, it is changing. And the changing leads to really good discussion and also good ways to talk about whether or not we should do more research, we should do what kind of experiment on these products. I mean, you don't get this because when we see certain advertisement, for example, when they try to advertise whether or not this product can absorb enough, for example, fluid, they use water. Yes.

But we all know it's a certain blue liquid. I'm not really sure what that is to start with. It's like gaming or animation. They have to make it PG-18 or PG-16 by switching the color of blood into blue. Ah, that might be the reason. But

I'm saying here. I'll give advertising, I'll cut them some slack. But when they're doing the experiment, definitely we should not be using water because water does not have the problem of clotting. We all know blood clots. And with clotting, there's the issue of whether or not they can absorb the actual amount of volume they experiment with water and also whether or not it's comfortable and the problem of cleaning it. It's just

What I'm trying to say here is that... You can't get the necessary information just by watching the TV commercials. No, no, no. What I'm saying here is because of the erasing of the stigma, we are seeing more and more scientific experiment done on these pads. And also...

on some, for example, social media advertisement and social media, even like homemade little experiment done by women or done by these bloggers, they're using the kind of made up blood type of fluid so that it's more, it's more scientific for these kind of experiment. And also, I think when it comes to the comfort of using this path, there is another element with personal feelings like I

It's not about only the liquid, but also it's getting in touch with your skin. So when the materials they use is also very important. We want, you know, consumers or women to feel comfortable when using them, especially we're thinking about, we're talking about we are using them 24 hours a day. Of course, we change clothes.

probably five times within those days, but it's like touching the skin all time long and it's very important to use comfortable materials. And I think it's good for consumers to come out and talk about this because

You know, thinking about 10, 20 years ago, women can be very silent when it comes to their feelings, you know, their feedback, their reviews of these products. There are a number of issues surrounding that. You may get acne from using wrong products.

Some people are very sensitive. Yeah, you have very sensitive skin and you have very uncomfortable feelings. And some people may feel itchiness from using certain products. And they don't really talk about them. We don't hear our mothers talk about how they feel. And maybe for young girls, they will think maybe it's not okay to talk about it. Or it's natural to feel uncomfortable using these pads.

But now I think women are coming out saying that, you know, you need to speak out when you are feeling uncomfortable. And that feedback is very helpful to these manufacturers to think about using new materials. And I do feel that, especially in recent years, these pads are getting better when it comes to the comfort level when we are using them. They are advertising, for example, using very high quality cotton pads.

And that can make you feel better. And then they are also talking about, of course, it can be controversial for some companies to launch products with refreshing elements within it. Mint. Yeah, some people like that. But me personally don't get the point of selling mint products.

I don't know. Well, okay, here is the issue. I think people, again, I think it's a very personal thing. I agree with you. People have different preferences when it comes to this. Some women find it embarrassing to have certain smell during that period. And if they can find the proper additions to put into the pads, for example, certain kind of mint extract that is not harmful for the human health, then fine. I'm

I'm totally okay with that kind of product. What we're saying here is that with a new national standards, we want to make sure the comfortness and safety of these products while providing enough varieties and enough possibilities and different choices for women.

So what we're saying today and what the internet users are talking about over the internet is that essentially this is a product that goes beyond the purview of a consumer product. Like, for instance, a smartwatch or a smartphone. We're happy just to get the top brand and top quality brand and something that functions well. But this is something, the sanitary pads, this is something that

that's connected to women on a more personal level. And it's not just...

something that affects their economic decisions. I mean, I know that they can be very expensive. They add to a huge amount over the lifetime of a woman. Thank you. That's for sure. But even on top of that, it really matters to how they feel. Do they feel they're being cared about? Do they feel that the industry has paid enough attention to what they need?

be it the general standard of the length or pH value, or whether some particular group has particular needs for a particular product. So this is a much more personal and much more emotional product to deserve a much more in-depth and emotional discussion. Well, since Lai Ming talked about the economic value within these products, I think pricing is also a

very, very important part when we are talking. And it can be personal too. Yes. And if we look at, you know, throughout the international scope, pricing is, I think, the most important element when we are having these discussions surrounding sanitary pads or other similar products.

For instance, here in China, there have been certain companies do the calculation for us. They roughly calculate how much money a woman would spend on using these products, and it comes down to over 500 yuan a year.

And yes, it may not sound that much on the appearance of that, but we are talking about all women in this society. Actually, yes, actually the market value here in China, the Chinese market, it's 13 billion US dollars. So it's a huge market. And with a market this huge, with a need this essential, we have all the right to...

to ask for all the big players in the market to do a better job. Especially if you consider their gross profit margin of the industry. Some reports have revealed that the gross profit margin of the sanitary napkin industry can reach to 45%.

That means when the factory price of a certain sanitary pad is, for example, around 0.3 yuan per piece, when they are selling that in markets, when the consumers are trying to buy it, it can be priced over 1 yuan per piece, which jumps over 3 or even 10 times per piece. That means these big players in the market, they can do a better job with these big products

very profitable business they are looking at right now. And some extra attention needs to be afforded, not

like we can take for granted that there are women in every position throughout every industry. I'm sure there are women in the industry of sanitary pads manufacturing, but it's different. I mean, when you are running a business, when you are responsible for a particular product, a line of product, whether it's going to make money, whether it's to be economic success,

It's different than whether it is going to be a popular product loved by potentially a huge number of female consumers as such. So we should...

Make our voice louder. Yeah, we should make more considerations, in fact, when we are developing products and rolling them out in the market. Yes, and one way of making our voice louder is to give your advice and your suggestions to the new national standards. Currently, it is still in the drafting process, but when the draft version is done, it will be publicized on the national standard website

official website and then you can take a look at it and see whether or not there's any advice you'd like to give and be a part in giving us better sanitary pads.