Everyone deserves to live in a healthy and safe environment. That environment includes where you live, work, play, and pray. We reject and actively push back against racist rhetoric, actions, policies and institutional oppression that leads to state-sanctioned brutality, gun violence, and harm that again and again assaults communities, particularly communities of color. We are committed to working for justice and equity, and are in solidarity with social, racial, and environmental justice organizations to build community, understanding and honest dialogue to address the root causes of violence, harm and hate.
Because of new disclosure requirements coming out of New York State, our research has found the every period product user is getting way more information about these products than ever before. Some period products are a lot more complicated than we ever knew.
The laws include eliminating the menstrual tax, making menstrual products more accessible by requiring them in schools, prisons, correctional facilities and shelters; and addressing the safety of these products by requiring ingredient disclosure.
Systemic inequities in correctional facilities, like the inability to get period products, are critical in both addressing a healthy and safe quality of life and reproducing the dangerous hierarchies of power outside of prison walls.
In a preliminary search of fragrance ingredients reported to the program we found that between October 2021 - March 2022 there have been 38,000 new reporting submissions, which may sound like a lot, but doesn’t even come close to all the fragranced products that are covered by the law.
Upon approaching some of my friends with the idea of buying reusable products, I started wondering why no one at my school talked about reusable products. I sent out a survey to my school to see who would want to use reusable products and if not, why wouldn’t they use those products?
While Olaplex is the product currently in the news – it is far from the only problematic product to have contained Lilial. It is fully legal to sell cosmetics, cleaning products and any other fragranced items that contain Lilial despite what we know about its potential impact on fertility.
The hygiene products at public schools are either poorly made or there are none available at all. If you suffer from period cramps, the nurses’ best solution might be to just give you an ice pack and hope you feel better. That is the unfortunate reality we have in our schools today.