Why Lilyflow exists

People ask how Lilyflow started, and the honest answer is that it started with a problem the founder could not get rid of by shopping differently. She has told it in her own words:

I had always suffered from side effects from using mainstream sanitary products even after changing brands so many times. Until I started to pay closer attention to the ingredients used in making these products, I soon realized the importance of ensuring these products to be “toxic-free”. This was what led me into launching Lilyflow with the number one priority of providing sanitary products with NO SECRETS & SIMPLY 100% ORGANIC to raise more awareness in my community and offer a more convenient and healthier option.

Changing brands is not the same as changing product

The part of that account that gets skipped over is the middle: she changed brands many times first. That is what most people do, and it is a reasonable thing to do. It only stops working when you notice that the brands you are moving between are made of the same things.

Reading the ingredients was the step that changed the answer, and it was harder than it sounds, because as often as not the ingredients are not written down anywhere. There is no equivalent of a food label on a box of pads.

What no secrets actually commits us to

The phrase on the front of every box is not a slogan that was arrived at afterwards. It is the constraint the rest of the business has to fit inside.

In practice it means the materials are printed on the packaging rather than only on the website, so they cannot quietly change. It means the pads are the colour of unbleached cotton rather than the colour a bleaching step would make them. And it means the range stays short, because every product added is another set of contents to stand behind.

What came out of it

A small range rather than a broad one. Pads in a day size and a night size, ultra-thin liners, a medical grade silicone cup, reusable period pants, and a keepsake box for a girl's first period.

That is the whole catalogue. There is no scented range, no whitened range and no cheaper line made of something else, because any of those would need a different answer to the question this business exists to answer.

The part that does not sell anything

There is also a free webinar for girls aged 8 to 14. It runs for an hour online, a parent registers, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.

It exists for the same reason as the printed box. A girl who understands what is happening to her body is better off whether or not she ever buys anything from us, and a company that only talks to people at the point of sale is not really raising awareness in its community.

Two kinds of customer

Most people arrive here one of two ways. Either they have had the same experience with mainstream products that she did and are looking for something made differently, or they are a parent buying a first period kit for a daughter and would like the first experience of this to be a good one.

The second group is the reason the kit is a ribboned box rather than a bag of supplies.