The earliest known feminine hygiene products date back roughly 3,500 years. Egyptian women in the 15th century B.C. used softened papyrus as internal menstrual devices, making them the first recorded example of what we’d now call tampons. But the disposable, commercially sold products most people think of today didn’t appear until 1896, and the modern versions took shape over the course of the entire 20th century.
Ancient Materials and Early Solutions
Long before anything was manufactured or sold in a store, women improvised with whatever absorbent materials were locally available. Egyptian women shaped soft papyrus into insertable devices. In the 5th century B.C., Greek women used lint wrapped around a small piece of wood, a method documented by Hippocrates. Roman women used wool. Across other parts of the world, the materials varied widely: paper in Japan, vegetable fibers in Indonesia, natural sponges in coastal regions, and grass in parts of equatorial Africa.
These weren’t standardized products. They were handmade, reused, and rarely discussed openly. For most of recorded history, menstruation was managed privately with cloth rags that were washed and reused, a practice so common it gave rise to the now-outdated phrase “on the rag.”
The First Commercial Pad: 1896
Johnson & Johnson released the first commercially available disposable menstrual pad in 1896. Called Lister’s Towels (also marketed as “Sanitary Napkins for Ladies”), they were a genuine innovation: a pad you could use once and throw away instead of laundering cloth. But the product flopped financially. Women were too embarrassed to be seen purchasing something so explicitly tied to menstruation, and retailers weren’t eager to stock it. The social stigma around periods proved a bigger obstacle than the engineering challenge of making the product itself.
For the next two decades, most women continued using homemade cloth pads or belted contraptions held in place with pins. The commercial menstrual product industry was essentially stalled before it ever got started.
World War I and the Birth of Kotex
The breakthrough came from an unlikely source: battlefield bandages. During World War I, Kimberly-Clark produced surgical dressings made from a wood pulp material called Cellucotton. It was five times as absorbent as cotton bandages and significantly cheaper to produce. Army nurses stationed overseas quickly noticed its potential and began using the surgical dressings as makeshift menstrual pads. Letters describing this improvised use made their way back to the company.
After the war ended, Kimberly-Clark pivoted. In October 1919, the first box of Kotex pads went on sale at a Woolworth’s department store in Chicago. This time, the product stuck. Kotex eventually solved the embarrassment problem by allowing women to leave money on the counter and take a box from a display without having to ask a clerk directly. It was a small social workaround, but it mattered enormously for sales.
The Modern Tampon Arrives in the 1930s
The tampon as we know it today was invented by Dr. Earle Haas, a Colorado physician. Inspired by the internal sponges his wife used, Haas designed the first tampon with an integrated cardboard applicator and patented it in the early 1930s. He trademarked the name Tampax. But his timing was terrible. The patent was awarded during the Great Depression, and after two years of struggling to market it, Haas sold the patent and trademark to Gertrude Tenderich, a Denver entrepreneur and German immigrant. Tenderich brought the commercial tampon with applicator to market in 1936, and it gradually gained acceptance over the following decades.
Around the same time, inventor Leona Chalmers was developing the menstrual cup, a reusable alternative made of thin, pliable rubber. Chalmers’ design was shaped to stay in place inside the body, made from moisture-proof material that could be folded for insertion. Her patent described a cup strengthened by resilient elements that helped it spring back to its expanded shape once positioned. The concept was ahead of its time, and menstrual cups wouldn’t gain mainstream traction for another 70-plus years.
From Belts and Pins to Adhesive Strips
For much of the 20th century, disposable pads still required a belt or pins to hold them in place. The experience was bulky and uncomfortable. That changed in the late 1960s and early 1970s when manufacturers introduced pads with adhesive strips on the underside that stuck directly to underwear. This simple change eliminated the belt entirely and made pads far more practical and discreet. It was one of the most significant usability improvements in the entire history of menstrual products, even though it rarely gets the attention that flashier inventions receive.
The Toxic Shock Crisis and New Safety Standards
The 1980s brought a serious reckoning for the tampon industry. A wave of toxic shock syndrome (TSS) cases, some of them fatal, was linked to super-absorbent tampon designs. The crisis forced regulatory action. In 1982, the FDA began requiring tampon packaging to advise women to use the lowest absorbency that met their needs. By March 1990, the FDA instituted standardized absorbency labeling, creating a uniform scale (ranging from 6 to 15 grams of absorption) that allowed consumers to compare absorbency across different brands for the first time. These regulations remain in effect today and are the reason tampon boxes carry terms like “regular,” “super,” and “super plus” with consistent meaning regardless of brand.
Period Underwear and the Reusable Shift
The 21st century introduced a new category altogether. Thinx, founded in New York in 2011, developed underwear with built-in absorbent layers designed to replace or supplement traditional pads and tampons. TIME named Thinx one of the best inventions of 2015, helping bring the concept into mainstream awareness. The company later expanded with a line for teens in 2018 and a quick-drying version in 2019. Menstrual cups also surged in popularity during this period, finally fulfilling the potential Leona Chalmers envisioned decades earlier.
The broader trend has moved toward reusable options, driven by both environmental concerns about disposable product waste and a growing openness about menstruation that would have been unimaginable when Johnson & Johnson’s first pads failed in 1896. The core challenge, making menstrual products that are effective, comfortable, and accessible, has taken over 3,000 years of incremental progress to reach where it is now.