Life

Introducing: The Period Fairy

by Doyin Oyeniyi

Here's something young girls could have used before we started our first periods: a Period Fairy. And HelloFlo, the company that provides a monthly delivery of period survival materials while working to break the stigma surrounding your first period, your last period, and "all the weird stuff that happens in between," imagines a world in which such a creature exists with its latest video.

HelloFlo’s already made hilarious waves with their “First Moon Party” and “Postpartum: The Musical" videos. Their latest video, titled “The Period Fairy,” once again tackles the topic of periods and how we talk about them, while also taking shots at the advertising industry and male-dominated workspaces.

A Department of Mythical Creatures made up mostly of old men? The female tooth fairy struggling to break through the glass ceiling? Rumors of a rivalry between the only two female fairies in the game? For mythical creatures, none of that sounds too far-fetched. I bet the "male period fairies" who deliver hammers and aftershave were also the ones who decided period ads would use blue liquid and avoid using the word “vagina.” HelloFlo not only challenges some of the stigma surrounding periods, they also just give us the word "vagical."

I can’t be the only girl who, before I got my first school lesson on menstruation, didn’t make the connection between periods and the pad commercials I saw on TV. The sterile nature of the commercials made them just vague enough to not make any sense to premenstrual me. When there’s not enough open conversation about menstruation, childbirth, menopause, and everything else women’s bodies go through, there’s room for misinformation.

So yeah, “long live the Period Fairy!”

Image: HelloFlo/Youtube