Stains in Menstrual cups can be annoying! You start out with a gorgeous new cup in your favorite color and months later it start to look dingy…
What causes the stains?
Two types occur in menstrual cups:
Temporary stains are simply deposits of blood and can be removed by cleaning the menstrual cup.
Permanent stains are a discoloration of the menstrual cup material itself and will be difficult to remove.
The colorant in blood, hemoglobin, is what tints the menstrual cups permanently.
How can I get rid of menstrual cup stains?
Permanent discoloration in menstrual cups can be very difficult or impossible to reverse.
You can give it a try by submerging the menstrual cup in hydrogen peroxide for up to 10 minutes.
Another option to try is stain removal with Milton tabs. You can find them on our website here.
Removing temporary stains is easy with a mild detergent, water and our little menstrual cup cleaning brushes.
Have a look at our demonstration of how to use the air hole brushes:
How can I avoid them in the first place?
Since removing stains can be so difficult, it makes sense to avoid them from the start.
Let’s assume you really wanted to use the hemoglobin in your blood to stain your new menstrual cup a nice shade of brown, what would you have to do?
- Heat
- More heat amplified by oil
So to avoid them we will do exactly the opposite:
Clean your cup with regular cold tab water and a mild detergent to remove all traces of blood before boiling the cup. This is crucial. If you skip this step and boil a dirty cup, you set the stain.
Do not use things like coconut oil as a lubricant with your cup. It is next to impossible to remove the oil residue from the cup before boiling. When a dirty cup covered in oil is boiled the effect is amplified. We have seen cups turned completely black by the combination of coconut oil, insufficient cleaning and boiling the oily, blood stained cup.
You can read more on the subject of what not to put on menstrual cups here:
