The Tampon Trials: Part 3 A comedy article
by Ball Saxbury 518 6 06/30/2009 08:50 AM 3953 views
My assignment was to discover which tampons are least absorbent, to protect women from the rare and fatal Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) and the even more rare and possibly nonexistent Exploding Vagina Syndrome (EVS). Both are caused by mega-absorbent tampons with names like "Super," "Super Plus," and "Big 'N' Thirsty." [Read Part 1 and Part 2 here.]
Now that I had bought eight boxes of tampons and spent four hours opening them, it was time to do some professional testing.
First, a couple of basic measurements for standard tampon properties: dimensions, weight, drag coefficient, etc.
That there's your standard 304 tampon, if you need something larger, you'll want a 202, or possibly a 944. They discontinued the 510, yup, that sure was a tampon. They don't make them like they used to.
I took one each of the four major brands, Equate, Kotex, Playtex, and Tampax, and performed highly scientific measurements of absorbency.
The first test: cranberry juice fruit punch.
The winner of this first test was the Playtex, absorbing much more of the red fluid than the other tampons.
I didn't rush any part of the testing. Indeed, I spent 45 minutes doing this.
The Score:
Equate: 0
Kotex: 0
Playtex: 1
Tampax: 0
Up next, tomato paste. This thick, red fluid would be a true test of the tampons' absorbent qualities.
The one on the right, the Tampax tampon, swelled so much it started to fall apart, making it the clear winner.
It's mind boggling how far one will go in the name of science. As it turns out, all tampons taste the same. Go figure.
The Score:
Equate: 0
Kotex: 0
Playtex: 1
Tampax: 1
Next, automatic transmission fluid. This stuff is extremely hard to get off your hands, smells awful, and is quite hazardous. In retrospect, I probably should have just used real menstrual fluid, but unfortunately I didn't have access to a uterus.
I think I took more safety precautions doing this than I would have had to for handling actual used tampons.
The Kotex ended up absorbing the most transmission fluid.
The Score:
Equate: 0
Kotex: 1
Playtex: 1
Tampax: 1
The final test yielded no results, as all four tampons proved to be very poor at absorbing the last substance I had prepared.
Because of the terrible performances by the four tampons in the meat-absorption test, I deducted one point from each of their scores, for a final score of:
FINAL SCORES:
Equate: -1
Kotex: 0
Playtex: 0
Tampax: 0
Since we were looking for the least absorbent tampon, the lowest score won, and the loser was the winner. Yeah, that's right, Equate brand tampons, you suck. (Or at least, you suck badly.)
Sadly, even if only one person buys the Equate tampon tomorrow, then even the worst-performing tampon will get into more vaginas than I do.
In conclusion to this whole experiment, tampons are more dangerous than pretty much anything out there, and you should never, never use them. But don't take my word for it:
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