How to Clean a Menstrual Cup or Disc
It’s best to sterilize your cup between cycles, with more of a deep clean than you might do between wears. You can clean your cup in a few ways.
Many people boil their cups for a few minutes. You can do this using whatever you have lying around that is safe to boil water in — a pot on the stove or a microwave-safe dish.
While it’s technically possible to sanitize a cup in a dishwasher, don’t clean your cup with traditional dishwashing fluid; instead you can run a sanitizing cycle without soap. Many dishwashing pods or soaps come with abrasive granules that can damage the surface of your cup, such that it’s more prone to hosting bacteria.
Dishwashing soaps also often include harsher ingredients, such as bleach, that can similarly degrade the surface of the cup over time.
If you’re in a shared space where you do not feel comfortable washing your cup — a dorm room, for example, or some other shared kitchen — you can pour boiling water into a bowl and soak the cup in a private space.
Or, instead of boiling, you can use sterilization tablets. There’s no need to use ones made for sanitizing menstrual cups; many are made with the same ingredients as baby-bottle and breast-pump sterilization tabs, which often cost less.
Although we can understand the appeal, you don’t need to buy a specific steaming or sterilizing device for cleaning your menstrual cup.
These, and other cup-cleaning accoutrements represent “a lot of unnecessary stuff,” said Amanda Hearn, who runs Put A Cup In It, a website for menstrual-cup-related advice. “I don’t like buying a bunch of stuff that’s going to end up breaking and that isn’t really needed. And it’s really frustrating because it makes the switch even more overwhelming.”
