Box of 10 Tampax tampons, regular

Box of 10 Tampax tampons (6 tampons and insert remaining), Regular, "An Average Month's Supply", featuring endorsements on packaging: "Guaranteed by Good Housekeeping" and "Accepted for Advertising by The Journal of The American Medical Association", Tampax Incorporated, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1939-1941

For millennia, various cultures have devised their own means of absorbing menstrual flow internally, but tampons as we would recognise them today only became commercially available in the early 1930s.

Tampax, developed by Colorado-based GP Earle Haas in 1931, was one of the first menstrual tampons (similar devices were previously used as contraceptives or for medical purposes). It consisted of a cylinder of compressed cotton with a string for easy removal, inserted via two telescoping cardboard tubes to avoid the need for users to touch it – or their genitals – directly. The product, a portmanteau of ‘tampon’ and ‘vaginal packs’, hit the shelves in 1936. A magazine advertisement from July that year invited readers to “Welcome this new day for womanhood”.

The first Tampax were sold in packs of 10, which the company considered “an average month’s supply” based on the principle that each tampon was capable of absorbing between one to two ounces, and the average flow “is only five to ten ounces”. The most absorbent tampons on the market today have a significantly lower rating of 18-21 grams (0.7 of an ounce). In 1939, the company introduced Super and Junior sizes alongside its Regular product.

Standardised absorbency testing was introduced in the 1980s after higher absorbency tampons were shown to be associated with an increased risk of developing toxic shock syndrome (TSS), a rare but life-threatening condition caused by bacterial infection.