• by Les Luchter , August 18, 2021

 

Procter & Gamble’s Always menstrual hygiene products line has teamed with Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global behavioral change technology company to launch Always You, an extended mobile app version of a popular period tracker found for years on the Always website.

In addition to helping women track their menstrual cycles, the app adds Thrive’s Microsteps, which encourages users to develop a new, healthy habit by stacking it onto an existing one, like planning priorities for the day while applying deodorant.

As an incentive for users to register and use the new app, Always said it will donate up to 1 million pads to Feeding America and other partners to help #EndPeriodPoverty, which it describes as the ongoing inability to afford period products, which also puts “confidence, dignity and education at risk.”

App users earn 20 donation points for every period or bladder leak event tracked (up to 200 per month), 10 daily donation points for completing Microsteps, and five donation points for each piece of content consumed, including articles and videos.

Through June 30, 2022, Always will donate one period product per each registration and one product for every 100 donation points earned by its app users.

“Giving is one of the most effective and proven ways to boost our well-being, transforming the giver as much as the recipient,” noted Huffington in the app announcement.

Such boost in well-being is especially needed these days, according to both Thrive and P&G.

A survey of 10,000 people conducted for Thrive Global by nonprofit international aid organization CARE found 80% of women reporting that the pandemic had a bigger negative impact on their stress than any other event over the past year.

P&G cited an Always Confidence and Puberty Study from 2019 that showed nearly 20% of American girls had missed school due to lack of period products.

Since then, noted Laura Magon, P&G’s senior director for Global Fem Care Innovations, “the pandemic has also spotlighted how women are disproportionally impacted by mental health and wellness concerns.” According to the CARE survey, women are almost three times as likely than men to report suffering from significant mental health consequences including anxiety and inability to sleep.

Always has also teamed up with such partners as Walmart for its #EndPeriodPoverty program, which was launched in August 2020.