The menstrual cycle is a special characteristic of female maturity that brings both blessings and possible problems for women. The menstrual cycle will go on for about half the life of a woman, i.e. at least 2,000 to 3,000 days. Surveys have shown that 73% of the women would feel itchiness and pain on some parts of the skin during menstruation. The side effects of sanitary napkins are that if worn for more than three hours it can cause lumps on the vaginal area which might lead to irritation and other infections. Some of the microbes residing in the human vagina cause the skin infections leads to irritation, soreness, redness and swelling in the vulvar area. These are mostly caused by the use of sanitary napkins which are not air permeable and water proof. As such, it is of critical importance to choose suitable sanitary napkins to ensure safety during menstruation.
To overcome this problem, our main aim of project work is to develop a sanitary napkin which can address this problem. We have approached the problem in 2 ways. One is to apply anti-rash finish on the Poly propylene (PP) outer cover stock of the sanitary napkins to prevent the rashes formed during menstruation. Second approach is to use Bamboo as the absorbent core of the sanitary napkins, a fiber which has antimicrobial property inherent in it.
 A variety of herbal leaves with antimicrobial property were sourced and tested for their anti microbial activity. Three herbal leaves namely Thespesia populnea (Poovarasu Tree Leaves), Curcuma longa (Turmeric Leaves) and Barbados Aloe (Aloe Vera leaf) were found with better antimicrobial activity. Solutions were extracted from these leaves and were applied on the poly propylene nonwoven cover stock by means of pad-dry-cure method using a wetting agent suitable for poly propylene, one sample each for each of the herbal leaves and one sample applied with all the three herbal leaves combined (4 samples). In order to increase the functionality of the sanitary napkins additionally a chemical cool& soft finish also has been applied on the above 4 herbal finished cover stock to balance the body temperature which is generally high during the menstrual period. The impact of herbal leaves was analyzed by comparing the comfort properties of the prepared 8 cover stock samples with the 2 control samples viz; one unfinished cover stock sheet and one cool and soft finished cover stock sheet.
Curcuma longa (Turmeric Leaves) herb finished cover stock sheet was found to have better comfort properties (anti-microbial, moisture absorbency properties) than other herbs. The cover stocks with both the herbal treatment cool and soft and finish were found to have a lesser anti microbial activity when compared to that of the cover stock treated with the herbal leaves alone, but can still be used to give multiple functionalities to the cover stock.
Finally 5 varieties of sanitary napkins were assembled with varying cover stock/absorbent core compositions namely unfinished PP/bamboo, unfinished PP/wood pulp, Curcuma Longa finished PP/ bamboo, cool & soft and Curcuma Longa finished PP/ bamboo and cool & soft finished PP/ bamboo. Finally the performance of the prepared sanitary napkins have been tested and analysed.