Changing a menstrual cup in public bathrooms is not that hard! “Yea but what if the public toilet doesn’t have a sink inside, how can I empty it then? I can’t go out with bloody fingers and pants around my ankles!”
Indeed you can’t…When women hear about menstrual cups for the first time, the first concern that usually comes up right after: “Ho my God that thing is so big” is “How do you do empty your cup in public bathrooms?” So let’s talk about menstrual cups and public bathrooms once and for all.
Unlike a tampon a menstrual cup can be kept up from 8 to 12h without any problems so either in the morning or in the evening you would be in the comfort of your own home to do your little business.
Now if you have a very heavy menstrual flow and you know that you fill your menstrual cup way faster than the average woman, you might need to empty it during your lunch break or more. Before I get into the 2 options when there are no sinks in the public toilet, be aware that it is very common to find toilets with a sink inside.
Now, if you have to change your menstrual cup and the public bathroom has no sink inside you have two options:
OPTION 1: more comfortable but slightly immoral
I knowwwww it’s bad but most places have toilets for disabled with a sink inside and plenty of space to put yourself in whatever position you want to remove and reinsert your cup. I find they’re usually cleaner too. You have to be willing to take the risk to have a woman in a wheelchair, burning a hole in your back as she sees you walk out the door. 99.9% of the time they are unused so you might as well.
And maybe in the future there will be a sign in public bathrooms “for handicapped, baby changing room and menstrual cup users” :)
OPTION 2: Just empty it and stick it back in
So that is the worst case scenario but it’s not near as bad as it sounds. Wash your hands in the sink outside, walk in the toilet opening and closing the doors holding a tissue in your hand not to let the bacteria go back in your hands.
Remove your cup, dump its content in the toilet bowl, wipe the cup with toilet paper if need be but it’s not necessary. The blood you see on your cup was in your vagina a a few seconds before that, so it’s quite useless to make it perfectly clean and stick it back up 2 seconds after. You’ll just get a bit of blood on your fingers as you would do removing your cup at home. So just do it! Wipe your fingers with toilet paper or a wet wipe if you want and go back out to wash your hands. Any other women using non applicator tampon does it and no one makes a fuss about it.
If you really want it to be clean before re-inserting it, then take a small water bottle in your bag and wash it quickly on the toilet bowl. That’s it! There is a great little thing called Intimo by Me Luna that you can hook into a regular water bottle to wash yourself and your cup.
Having said that, have a little practice the first few times to be comfortable with the insertion and removal of your menstrual cup. Think about all the garbage you are not dumping in public bins and how your body will thank you for choosing menstrual cups over tampons and pads. Not mentioning all the cash you’ll be saving. Calculate how much money you are saving using a menstrual cup.
So there, you are now qualified to deal with your menstrual cup in public bathrooms.
