Blood, sweat and—corn? The Singaporean menstrual health startup rewriting the rules with plant-based pads

Afflicted with debilitating period cramps, Tan Peck Ying co-founded menstrual health company Blood and developed sanitary pads made from corn to foster real and “uncute” conversations about periods

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When menstrual health company Blood launched in 2014, vendors’ reception to its sell was, to put it politely, lukewarm at best. Recalling a meeting with a major retailer, co‐founder Tan Peck Ying shares: “When we first met a major retailer, the buyer looked at me and my co-founder and asked, ‘Is this a school project?’ We were told to sell our products in mom-and-pop stores before going back to them.”

Undeterred, Tan and her co-founder Caleb Leow—now husband—knocked on more doors determined to prove that menstrual health deserved more than just a cursory glance.

Eleven years on, what started as a dismissed idea has since grown into a movement. Blood’s period care products are stocked at more than 7,000 locations. In its infancy, the company was called PSLove, but with the launch of its corn sanitary pads, the company rebranded to Blood to challenge societal taboos about periods.