Things I wish I had known 10 or more years ago

• For great skin, exfoliate daily...use a gentle exfoliating cloth and your favorite soap. Head to toe, but particularly any areas that you shave.
• If you shave, shave with the grain of the hairs...going against the grain tends to cause ingrown hairs.

For women only

• Diva Cup/Keeper/Instead...beats tampons and pads.

Out of curiousity on your last point I ask why? They've always come off as messy and less effective to me. Granted I've never used them myself, but I've seen them around.

I am one of those people who can never manage to know exactly when they start and then I tend to forget to carry tampons with me...one would think that I would have it figured out at 33, but apparently not!  Tampons are actually somewhat messy, they can have an odor, they dry you out and it's hard to tell when you need to change them.  Since I've started using a cup, I change it twice a day (morning and evening) in the shower in the morning so mess isn't a worry at all and there's minimal mess involved in the evening.  Compare it to tampons, which sometimes are insufficient or you forgot to have them handy.  I just got a friend to get one too and she's loving it as much as I am.

I still can't get the image out of my head of pulling a little cup out of my cooch, waddling to the sink with my pants around my ankles, toilet paper shoved between my thighs for fear of something leaking out, just to dump out a bunch of smelly blood in the sink, rinse it out, fold it up, and pop it back in again.

Tampons, you change it when you feel a little discomfort, or every four hours.  That mild discomfort means, "Yo!  I'm full, get me the hell out of here before I dribble on your panties!"

I've never had a problem with messes.  Put it in, wash your hands.  Take it out, wash your hands.

I'll stick with my love of Tampax Pearl but rock on if you like your Diva Cup.

Something I wish I would've known ten years ago, when you break a toe nail and it becomes ingrown, don't wait patiently for five or six years for it to painfully grow out on it's own.  Instead get drunk, get a metal nail file, dig the hell out of it, and shove cotton under it.  It hurt for a day but within two weeks, it looks like a normal toe nail.

Another thing I wish I would've known ten years ago, they really will pick on you in Juniour High School if you mention you enjoy re-runs of The Magic School Bus.

I like the Instead cups but they're hard to find around here.

I wish I had known that living in a mostly upperclassmen dorm as a freshman would suck because everyone else already knew each other. I should have just lived in the freshman dorm.

 

I hadn't heard about anything similar to a DivaCup before and found www.divacup.com to be extremely informative!

 (The following is directly from www.divacup.com.)

Isn't The DivaCup™ messy though?

 
Almost every woman's initial reaction to The DivaCup™ is "Ewww! That's gross!". When women first heard about tampons they had the same reaction. It took a long time before the concept caught on. Once you take the time to learn about The DivaCup™ and actually try it for yourself you will be shocked how clean and NOT messy it is.

The cup sits low in the canal and you can even avoid reaching inside the vagina by pushing the cup out slightly by bearing down on the muscles for removal. Most women find that once they start using The DivaCup™ that every other method is messy and gross! Just imagine a product that actually lives up to it's expecations; no leaking, no odor, convenient, comfortable, clean AND helps to save the planet! It's hard to believe that all this could be a reality, but try it for yourself and you will see that it is true.

"I would just like to say that I am in love with my DivaCup! Before I got it I wasn't sure if I would be comfortable inserting and removing it due to the mess and the general idea of seeing my blood. I thought that seeing it would cause me to gag. Boy, oh boy was I wrong. There is hardly any mess and I actually found it kind of interesting to see the blood in its natural form. But again, no problems. I must also mention that I LOVE the fact that now when I use the restroom I don't have to play around with a string getting in the way and then having to adjust it again and getting messy. What a relief!

I now understand the smile on the woman's face as she holds the DivaCup on the website. This thing truly makes me happy and I honestly don't know how I got by with tampons all those years. I am even going to go to a different forum and post about it to those ladies. This has truly made my life easier and more enjoyable.

Thank you DivaCup!"
-Emily, Omaha, NE  

the diva cups scare me... wouldnt they be tough to use if your a virgin? ahh..

• High school cliques don't mean ANYTHING in the real world.

Conventional tampons and pads are out for me, I'd rather not have ANYTHING that has been soaked in bleach near my girl bits.

 Edited to add: Not to mention how bad they are for the environment.

I'd check their website and see what they have to say about having a hymen.  The only trouble I can see is that you might feel awkward using it at first, but that's how I felt when I first started using tampons and I was a virgin.

There are two sizes, size one is smaller, recommended for those who have not given birth or those who are under 30. Size #2 is for the over 30 crowd or child bearers.

I told a girlfriend about it and she went and bought one and spent a week thanking me for telling her about it.  They're probably not for everyone, but it's great not to have to worry.  Yes, the first two days I checked constantly to make sure there weren't any leaks and there aren't.  I did try the Instead product (after the Diva cup because you can get a sample for a few dollars) and I just couldn't get it inserted correctly.