Inside the First Period Kit

The kit is a box with a ribbon on it, and that is a decision rather than packaging. A carrier bag of supplies says something has gone wrong. A keepsake box says something has happened and it is worth marking.

Her own description of what it is for is shorter than anything we would write:

Created to take away the stress from your daughter at the start of her first period. Periods should hold no girl child back from achieving greatness, and a first period should be celebrated.

The six things in it

• Lilyflow organic pads
• Lilyflow pantyliners
• A Lilyflow softy period pant, for confidence during sports at school
• An all-you-need-to-know booklet about menstruation
• A special affirmation card
• The reusable string bag

The pads and the liners

The same organic cotton pads and ultra-thin liners sold in the shop, not a junior version of them. There is no reason a first period needs a different product from a fifteenth one, and a girl who likes what is in the box can reorder exactly it.

The pant is in there for PE

The softy period pant is included for one specific reason, which is sport at school. It is the lesson girls most often sit out, and the reason given to the teacher is usually not the real one.

A pant that is doing the job on its own removes the calculation of whether a pad will survive a games lesson, which is most of what the worry actually is.

Why the string bag matters more than it looks

It is a small jute bag with a drawstring, and it solves the real logistical problem of a school day: getting a pad from a bag to a toilet without carrying it across a classroom in your hand.

Printed on the front, under the lotus, it says optimum wellness, love and kindness to your body. It outlasts everything else in the box, which is the idea.

The booklet and the card

The booklet is there for the questions she would rather not ask out loud, which is most of them, and it can be read in private as many times as she likes. That is something a conversation cannot offer.

The affirmation card is there for the same reason the box has a ribbon. It is the part of the kit that is not solving a practical problem, and leaving it out would have made the whole thing a supply drop.

When to give it

Before, rather than on the day. The kit works best sitting in a drawer already understood, and the version of this that goes badly is the one where the first conversation and the first period happen in the same hour.

That is also why the kit can be bought with a place at the free webinar. Order that way and the box is posted after the session, so she has heard it all explained before she opens it.

First Period Kit

£29.99