Hello Cleanliness: Let’s Talk About How To Care For Your Menstrual Cup
Woo-hoo! You’ve finally switched over to the sustainable period product — a menstrual cup. Congratulations! Now that your Hello Cup menstrual cup has found its new home, there are a few pointers that we’d like to share with you to make sure your newfound bestie stays around in tip-top shape for years to come.
Before we dive into tips on how to clean menstrual cup, let’s cover a few basics with regard to how often you need to change your cup—which will be far less frequently than with those landfill-loving tampons.
Everyone’s flow is different. But, on heavy period days, you may need to change your menstrual cup up to four times a day. On lighter period days (or if you have a light flow in general), you may only need to take your menstrual cup out once a day. Ideally, regardless of flow type, you should empty your cup every 8 hours and you shouldn’t leave it in for more than 12 hours. But rest assured, you can sleep with your period cup through the night with no problem! And yes you can swim in your cup!
Hello Cleaning
Your Hello Cup will probably be the easiest relationship you will have to look after in your life (and let's face it, most relationships can get complicated ☺). First things first: wash your hands both for insertion and removal of your cup. We live in a dirty world and you don’t want to introduce bacteria or other pathogens into that precious foofoo!
After removal, empty your cup and rinse under the tap with cold water, which helps to prevent stains from setting in. If you choose, you can use a mild soap to wash your menstrual cup out—just make sure that all of the soap is removed before reinsertion. If a sink isn’t an option you can dump the cup contents into the toilet (we call it a loo), use toilet paper to wipe the cup out, and then reinsert.
If you are travelling and tap water is not safe to drink, we suggest you either rinse your menstrual cup with bottled water or simply wipe it out with toilet paper and clean it with soap and water when it is safe to do so. Alternatively, you can use Hello Go, our sanitising spray, which we will delve into in more detail further down in this post.
When ‘Aunty Flo’ has left town until her next visit in a few weeks, you will want to sterilise your cup before you store it away. We suggest boiling your Hello Cup for up to 3 minutes (no longer) or soaking your Hello Cup in a glass of cold water with a quarter of a sterilising tablet (Milton is the most common brand available in supermarkets or pharmacies) for 15 minutes. Do NOT leave your menstrual cup in the soak for longer than 30 minutes otherwise you risk damaging it. Once cleaned, make sure your cup is totally dry before you store it.
Goodbye Staining
Staining of your menstrual cup can happen. But don’t worry. We’ve got you covered! Prevention is the best way to keep stains at bay and that means rinsing your menstrual cup with cold water each time you remove it and empty the contents. Also, make sure that you flush out the suction holes as well as rinse the base and around the lettering on the cup. If you use hot water stains can set—so again, cold water is the best way to prevent staining.
So what do you do if you don’t heed our advice and find your menstrual cup stained? No worries—we’ve got you and your cup covered with tips on removing stain from menstrual cup! Soak your stained cup in a 1:3 solution of household bleach (that’s 1 part bleach and 3 parts water) for 15-20 minutes. Don’t leave the cup in the solution for any longer than the recommended time frame. Alternatively, you can soak your cup in a 50:50 mixture of water and lemon juice or you can swap out the lemon juice with white vinegar to help lift stains. Your cup should be as good as new!
Hello Go Sanitising
Oh, you haven’t heard of our amazing sanitising spray? Well, let us introduce you properly to Hello Go, a technology from the manufacturer, Zoono. When this versatile spray dries it resembles a layer of microscopic pins that attracts, pierces, and kills pathogens—similar to a pin popping a balloon—which means NO resistance to superbugs! Traditional sanitisers kill bacteria with the use of high alcohol content which can dry out your skin. Hello Go on the other hand is a food-grade, water-based sanitiser so it’s safe and gentle on your mitts.
Even cooler is that you can use Hello Go internally because it has a neutral pH similar to that of water (water has a pH of 7 and Hello Go has a pH of 6.9), which means that it won’t affect the pH of your vagina. Once Hello Go dries it forms an antimicrobial layer that lasts for 24 hours. While you don’t need to reapply Hello Go in a 24-hour period, should you want to or feel the need, you certainly can.
We might be biased, but we think our Hello Go sterilising spray is pretty rad! If you want to learn more you can check out the product page on our website or if you want to deep dive into the science you can read an in-depth Q & A here.
