This Black-Owned Brand For Tweens And Teens Is Leading The First-Period Revolution
It's a reasonable assumption: of course the impetus for two women starting a menstrual care brand for tweens and teens would be their own first-period stories. But in the case of RedDrop's co-founders, educator Dana Roberts and Dr. Monica Williams, you would be wrong. When the two set out to build a holistic safe haven for young girls and their parents, their sole motivation was the next generation.
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'Red Drop was started out of my classroom,' Roberts, then a fifth-grade teacher recalls. 'I was teaching in a single gender environment, and so I had a classroom full of 22 fifth-grade girls and my daughter was in the fifth grade at that time. More than half of them started their periods with me. And it was crazy, it was insane. In particular, there was one story where a girl asked me if she was dying. So that really changed the whole dynamic of my classroom.'
Roberts's response was an early iteration of what would become RedDrop's signature period kits. Initially dubbed 'First Purse,' the makeshift set included a pair of underwear, pads, tampons, wipes, a disposable trash bag and small calendar. But Roberts knew her curated approach needed to extend further, so she looked to tap her sister-in-law, Dr. Monica Williams.
'Monica is a serial entrepreneur. So I went to her and I was like, 'Hey, I have this idea,'' says Roberts. 'She was knee-deep into her own company and she couldn't see it at the time, but that was because my niece McKenzie was only a baby.' Buying into RedDrop took a few more years, but Dr. Williams eventually returned to the idea once she realized her own daughter's first period was looming. 'As a physician, still not being really clear on how to have that conversation without making it sound like a lifelong disease was really tricky,' she admits.
All of a sudden, Roberts's initially-forgettable idea was a close-to-home need for Dr. Williams, and the two joined forces to create the RedDrop brand in 2019. The origin story underscored an idea that would become essential to their undertaking. 'No matter the profession, no matter how educated you are, it has to resonate,' Roberts notes. 'It has to sometimes literally be like, 'Oh my God, my baby's 10, it's coming.''
With new-and-improved period kits, specialized smaller-fit pads, hygiene wipes, educational resources and a newly-released swimwear line, Roberts and Dr. Williams are changing the period game for children and parents alike, offering a range of resources that remains rare amongst larger-scale feminine product brands.
For now, it's still a revolution. But they're both hoping it won't be one forever.
Dr. Monica Williams: Let me ask you a question. Do you remember your first period?
MW: Yes, I would love to hear your story, but what I'll tell you is, it is a keystone memory for 99 percent of women. And that right there is why we do what we do. Let's hear your story.
Dana Roberts: I think about when we have these conversations, especially—and I'm very unapologetic when I say Black women and Black girls will experience higher rates of sexual exploitation. Black women also experience higher rates of medical systemic racism. So I often think, what if we could have this conversation to start advocacy on how you navigate your relationships with your body and not just sexual or love relationships? I'm talking about your relationship with your doctor, your relationship with your coaches, your relationship with yourself, your parents. The more and more and more I become immersed in this work, it is just so super important, especially to a demographic of women and girls who just face so many challenges in trying to empower themselves and advocate for themselves about their bodies.
Trauma's usually passed down, for the most part. And so how I look at it is, our parents and our caretakers did the best that they could do. And now, for us, it's just shifting the whole narrative, like not sexualizing periods and really just talking about it as a biological function. This is what's going to happen to your body. And I really do believe that if we would've had some better conversations, I'm talking about we, me and my mom, that even though she prepared me, that I would be so much better prepared for the stage that I'm in right now, which is menopause, and I'm so unprepared.
MW: I don't know if I can say it was intentional from the beginning, but definitely medically, learning to advocate for yourself is huge. And I think some of the tools that we provide, really help with that. So with the period tracker, if you are able to articulate that 'I've had this many days,' or 'My cycle is this irregular' or 'Now it's regular,' and you have physical proof, you can speak about that with real clarity and get better care.
Another piece of this story too, that I often forget, is to whom I'm married. He was also a single dad at the time, and your story kind of reminded me of that. And I remember during our first meeting, he recalled his daughter getting her first period and him literally not having any idea what to do. He was picking up the phone, calling his sisters, calling his mom. They came over, swooped in and kind of took care of things. But I do think this kit and the way that we started was really based on a lot of those experiences that I heard about, I didn't personally experience, but were really integral and critical to the formation of this partnership.
DR: Actually, I think Monica really led that one.
MW: Honestly, that came from when me and another former partner visited Douglas County. It was our first engagement and the two of us did a meeting and they mentioned bathroom passes. And so we're like, 'Sure, we can make 'em.' And that's honestly how that happened.
DR: I mean it has to go hand-in-hand. I think what Monica and I have realized through this journey is that there is a very real lack of understanding. And I will say, there is a real thirst for understanding. We get in front of girls a lot, and honestly the parents are the ones that are shy and don't want to really have the conversations. But the girls are asking very pointed questions about their body, about everything. Literally when they feel comfortable, the sky's the limit with their questions. When you realize that girls are learning about their bodies sometimes through trauma-induced conversations with their parents by no fault of their own, or they're learning from their friends, or unfortunately now they have the world kind of at their fingertips and they're learning through Google, it just makes sense for us to be able to explain it in a way that they can understand it.
MW: So Growing Up Powerful is actually in partnership with Rebel Girls. So Rebel Girls reached out to us and said, 'Hey, we have this Growing Up Powerful book and we really have a real concentration on puberty and periods.' And so what we partnered with them with is, that particular section all based on puberty and periods. We wrote the foreword and then sprinkled some of our advice and education through there, especially as it relates to using products and making sure that you're prepared for camp and spend-the-nights and all those things. So it was actually really a blessing, because we really wanted to write a book, but it's only us. And so to be able to partner with them to get it curated and out there was really a blessing. And it's actually, I would say one of our best sellers, we've had to keep it in rotation, which lets you know that people, parents, caretakers, girls, they want to learn about the overall, like you said, holistic experience of puberty and periods.
MW: I really enjoy the in-person events where we get to interact with girls. Some of the interactions with moms, I think a lot of them are digital, but where we get to really interact with girls — I think Dana really underscored it earlier in the conversation about how open they are, how thankful they are that they can talk about this freely. Some moms are not present in the room and they can ask questions that maybe feel a little taboo. 'Am I still virgin after I use a tampon?' It's really rewarding. I think it's also refreshing because I feel like moms are the most afraid of this situation, and it's refreshing that the girls aren't and that they embrace their bodies. So I feel really rewarded by what we're doing and I'm hopeful that we are really making a long-term impact because what we're doing for this generation of girls hopefully transforms the next generation. I think it's really, really exciting.
DR: I tell people when I leave this earth, my goal is if my children have daughters, it will resonate through my granddaughters and through my great-granddaughters. And that's the goal: preferably, this won't even be a conversation for them. I do think, like Monica said, we do get the most feedback, I would say from girls, but we get a lot of feedback from parents digitally. They'll do some reviews, they'll send us emails. We did a couple of focus groups and I think it's honestly sometimes a sense of relief. They're just relieved that they're there, that we are here, and that they kind of have a partner in this journey. Unless you had this amazing experience with your own mom, there's no guidebook to this. You have to figure it out. And so to be able to go to YouTube or to be able to look at our digital classes or whatever, just helps them help prepare their girls.
DR: Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure I can speak for Monica on this. What we hope for is that this isn't even a real thing, it's just a normal conversation. We know that we are not going to be the anomaly on products or on this experience, and that's okay. So what we hope for is that eventually this will become such a normal process that girls have multiple options to figure out what is best for their bodies. When you say 'revolutionaries,' I have become really grounded recently in—and a lot of people don't realize— the fact that a Black woman created the sanitary belt. Mary Patrice Kenner created the sanitary belt. She got no money from that. She got no recognition except for now. Now people Google her during Black History Month and they give her props, but generationally, her family didn't get generational wealth from that, you know what I'm saying? And so it is a revolution for us to be able to continue her work on her shoulders. It's revolutionary for me. I assume too, for Monica as well, it is destined, to really catapult this Black woman because we wouldn't be here without her.
DR: I would say to her that she has the opportunity to wake up every day and still do whatever she wants to do in her period journey because of the intentionality of Black women. Because we are very intentional and we believe that she deserves that holistic positive experience. What we want her to do is to take those tools, products, education, empowerment, advocacy and live her best life, whether she's on her period or not.
MW: It's a mix of things. Part of me feels like this is only the beginning because kind of like Dana said, I'm also in the menopause phase, and now at the other end of this arc, you really realize how many changes our bodies go through, and that it's really just the beginning. And I think it's just important to embrace those changes, embrace your body and get ready for the next ones. But that's a hard message to give to a 10, 11-year-old kid. So what I anticipate is they're feeling curious, anxious, scared, nervous, happy, excited. There's this whole range of feelings and I think that that's all normal and that I think it's also just really important to know that you're not alone. This is happening to half of the population on this planet. So in the best way possible, feel empowered, feel a part of a huge community and embrace it and just get ready for the ride.
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