Around 15,000 tampons or sanitary towels use menstruating people in the course of their lives.

That costs money and creates rubbish;

in addition, many tampons and sanitary towels are chemically treated.

The Taynie company from Wesseling near Cologne offers menstrual underwear as a sustainable alternative.

Through several layers of fabric, liquid is channeled into the inside of the panties and safely trapped there.

The briefs have a suction strength of up to six tampons (60 milliliters).

Founder Monika Müller was looking for an alternative to pads and tampons when she came across menstrual underwear in 2014. She discovered the US company Thinx Inc., founded in 2013. However, the products were expensive and contaminated with harmful biocides. Lingerie from Germany has not yet existed. In 2015 she and a seamstress friend sewed the first Taynie under the name “Saubertage”. In 2017, the company had its first large collection tailored and sold it on eBay and regional retailers. In 2019 Taynie was able to set up an online shop.

According to its own information, the company has the largest selection of period panties in Europe.

"Since our founding, we have been able to double our sales per consecutive quarter," reports Managing Director René Müller, Monika Müller's husband.

For 2020, they expected sales well into the seven-digit range.

There is a lot to suggest that Taynie is the most successful provider in Germany, says Müller.

There are no figures yet.

Also for people with incontinence

The briefs cost between 20 and 40 euros, depending on the suction strength and the associated more material-intensive production.

With good care, they should last two to three years.

Taynie does without additives such as silver and zinc pyrithione, which other suppliers use because of their antibacterial effect.

"Thanks to our know-how, our period panties meet the highest hygienic requirements even without the addition of such chemical additives," says René Müller.

With a membrane and four-layer technology, odors and liquids are to be safely enclosed.

The Taynies can also be washed at 60 degrees.

They are 100 percent vegan because they are made of organic cotton and not merino wool.

In addition to menstruating, the customers also include people with incontinence.

Taynie wins new customers through advertising, test reports in search engines and social media. One of these test persons is Vanessa Gödecke. In 2019 she presented Taynie's menstrual underwear on her YouTube channel “Naverya”. She is always on the lookout for sustainable alternatives for everyday things and has been using menstrual underwear for a year, says Gödecke. The avoidance of waste is the most important argument for them, but also the money saved through the one-time purchase.

However, she had heard from people with very heavy bleeding that they had to change their panties quite often.

Tampons or menstrual cups are perhaps more suitable for these, "simply because they catch even more blood and nothing can go wrong," explains Gödecke.

Since changing the menstrual underwear is associated with taking off all of the panties, she resort to organic or fabric sanitary towels when she is out overnight.

Taynie also works with social institutions and schools and supports the education of young people about monthly hygiene.

René Müller hopes that in five years' time Taynie will be one of the leading menstrual underwear brands in the world.

Of course, it is no longer the only German company on the market for period underwear.

Balvea eK from Karlsruhe offers the Femtis brand.

Ooshi GmbH, founded in 2018 (renamed Ooia in 2020) from Berlin, has sold 200,000 products by the end of last year.

And the Kora Mikino - sustainable femcare UG from Berlin supports the fight against “Period Poverty” (menstrual poverty) with its “The Period Pledge” initiative.

She makes her pattern available to non-profit organizations so that every menstruating person in the world has access to menstrual products.

The article comes from the school project “Youth and Economy”, which the FAZ organizes together with the Association of German Banks.