I've Tried it All, and the Winner is The Keeper

I started out with pads. My mom never used tampons (or very rarely) so that was the only option available when I started at the age of 12. However, getting my period turned out to be a very humiliating and painful (bad cramps) experience for me overall and after I had my first one, it was something I didn't like to talk about with my mom. I didn't want her or anyone else to know when I was having my period so I never asked her to buy any pads or tampons for me (even though I wanted to try tampons very badly), and I was too shy to buy them myself.

To make a long story short, through my teenage years up until I was about 20 I mostly used makeshift cloth pads (from old clothing). Sounds pretty lame, I know, but it worked well enough for me & I was doing my own laundry since I was 14, so mom never knew. It wasn't until my early twenties that I finally starting buying disposable pads (I strongly prefered the thin ones, without wings) and then tampons, of which I preferred non-applicator (easier to stash & less wasteful)

Anyhow, my disposable pad & tampon phase didn't last long. I discovered menstrual cups when I was about 23 years old, and when I got one ('The Keeper'), I was VERY quick to convert. Wow, I loved that thing! Still do. And I went from hating having my periods to hardly minding them at all. Ten years later, I have well educated myself about the workings of the female fertility cycle and all the options for feminine protection. I still use The Keeper, as well as a small MeLuna Cup for my lighter days, and am a strong advocate of using reusable menstrual products. If I do need to use a pad, I have a stash of washable ones, nicely made this time, with the snaps and everything, not folded up pieces of cloth, haaa.