Geschiedenis van de tampon

What did the first tampon look like? And who invented it? The Atlantic wrote an extensive article about the history of the tampon. It goes way back, is very thorough, and is a lot of fun to read. Read the full article here . Don’t have much time? Read a summary of the highlights below.

Wool and grass

Women in ancient Rome made tampons out of wool, while in Africa they used rolls of grass. In Hawaii they worked with the hairy part of a fern, and ancient Japanese women made tampons out of paper surrounded by adhesive bandages. So when did the commercial tampon come into being? Legend has it that in the 1920s, a Kimberly-Clark employee named John Williamson poked holes in a condom and filled it with the soft, absorbent stuffing used in commercial sanitary napkins. He showed it to his father, a Kimberly-Clark medical advisor, who exclaimed, “Never would I insert such foreign objects into a woman!” The world was not yet ready for the tampon.

The first commercial tampon

A decade later, the tampon finally found its origins, as Tampax recounts on its website. Colorado-based family physician Earle Cleveland Haas heard from a friend that she had inserted a piece of sponge during her period. Thinking of his wife (probably a ballerina) and her struggles with the bulky sanitary napkins of the time, Haas developed a version made of compressed cotton. Wanting the tampon to be able to be inserted and removed without being directly touched, Haas designed a casing made of several paper rolls. And voila, the applicator tampon was born.

This is just a small part of the article. What would you like to know about the history of the tampon? Let us know via the box below and we will gladly find out for you.