Tried a Menstrual Cup and Hated It?
Period Care · The Fit Problem
If the menstrual cup failed you, you probably decided the problem was your body.
It wasn't. In a 2025 study of 530 real-world cup users, 29% quit — and 40% of those quit after a single cycle. The variable that most determines whether a cup fits you is one that almost no sizing guide asks about.
You bought the cup for good reasons. The cost. The waste. A friend who swore by it. A video where someone said it changed her life.
Then you tried it.
Maybe it leaked — not once, but every cycle, through every fold you could find a tutorial for. Maybe it sat too low and you could feel it every time you walked. Maybe you got it in and then couldn't get it out, and spent forty minutes on a bathroom floor negotiating with your own body.
And somewhere in there, you stopped thinking this product doesn't fit me and started thinking something is wrong with me.
Here is a sentence from a participant in that 2025 study. She is describing exactly this:
"I kept being told the cup was a one size fits all and I really hurt myself trying to fit it in all the time and feeling anxiety that I was different somehow."
— Study participant, Hennegan et al., ANZJOG 2025
That anxiety is the point. She was told one size fits all. It didn't fit. So the only remaining explanation was her.
It's not your body. It's the seal.
A menstrual cup stays in by forming a suction seal inside the vaginal canal. That seal has to sit in the space below your cervix — which means the cup's length has to match the length of your canal. Premenopausal vaginal length varies from roughly 6.1 to 14.2 centimetres. That is more than a twofold difference between one woman and another.
One cup length cannot physically fit that range. When it doesn't fit yours, the seal fails, or the cup protrudes, or you can't reach it.
That is a mechanical mismatch. It is not a personal failing, and no amount of practice fixes it.
Cup failure has three shapes. You'll recognise yours.
Almost every woman who gives up on a cup gives up in one of three ways. None of them are about technique.
The Leak
You never got a reliable seal. It leaked through the day, or overnight, or the moment you exercised. You went up a size, then down a size, then to a different brand. You kept a pad in every bag anyway.
In the 2025 study, 54% of women leaked during their first cycle.
"The problem is that the Lalli or any other cup don't seem to work when my cervix is low. The cup seems to sit high but the cervix is still low, so I thought the cervix taking up all the space was the reason for the leakage."
— menstrualcupreviews.net
The Panic
You got it in. You couldn't get it out. You bore down, you tried to pinch the base, you couldn't find the base. Maybe you called someone in to help, which is its own particular humiliation.
In that same study, 45% of women could not remove the cup on their first attempt, and 17% needed someone else's help.
"The very first time I used it I couldn't get it out, I had no idea my cervix was so high and couldn't figure out how to push it down, I ended up having to ask my partner for help. Picture me standing, naked, in the shower, him on his hands and knees, I'm crying, he's saying he can't reach it either, I'm in a complete panic."
— Put A Cup In It community
The Disaster
One event ended it. It overflowed on a commute. It flipped upside down inside you. It shifted during a bowel movement and everything went wrong at once. You put it in a drawer and never touched it again.
"I ignored the 'full' signs because I wanted to catch a train on time. It spilled on the way to the station and I am a heavy bleeder. I was drenched to my ankles… I gave up on cups for a year or two after that."
— Put A Cup In It community
Here is the part that makes the self-blame so convincing: the cup genuinely works for most people. In a pooled analysis published in The Lancet Public Health in 2019, 73% of participants wanted to continue using their cup at the end of the study.
So when you're in the group it doesn't work for, you're surrounded by women it does work for. Of course you concluded it was you.
It wasn't you. It was a fit variable nobody measured.
Every cup sizing guide asks the wrong questions.
Go and look at one. They will ask you:
- How old are you?
- Have you given birth vaginally?
- Is your flow light, medium, or heavy?
Now notice what sits at the bottom of the page, if it appears at all.
Where your cervix sits.
Cervix height determines how much room a cup has below it. It is the measurement the seal actually depends on. Some brands mention it in a help article; some don't mention it at all. What almost none of them do is build it into the sizing quiz that decides which product you're sent — the questions that carry the weight are age, births, and flow.
The one measurement the mechanism depends on is the one treated as a footnote.
What varies, and by how much
| Vaginal length (premenopausal) | Ranges roughly 6.1 cm to 14.2 cm — a more than twofold spread |
| Retroverted uterus | About 20% to 25% of women — roughly 1 in 5 — per Cleveland Clinic |
| Cervix height | Changes across your own cycle, and can sit differently on day 2 than on day 5 |
There is no standard vaginal canal. There never was. The product was sized as though there were.
The gap is measurable, and it drove women out
This is the finding that should have been on the box. In the 2025 study, women who understood that different models suit different bodies had:
- 0.57× the odds of needing help to remove the cup
- 0.66× the relative risk of discontinuing use altogether
(Hennegan et al., ANZJOG 2025 — adjusted odds ratio and adjusted relative risk ratio respectively)
Read that again, because it reframes the whole experience: simply being told the truth about fit nearly halved the odds of the removal panic.
You weren't given that information. The outcome was close to predetermined.
In 1994, a triathlete solved this — and almost nobody noticed.
Her name is Audrey Contente. She was a competitive triathlete, and she had a problem that tampons and cups couldn't solve: she needed something internal that would stay put through hours of running, and neither option reliably did.
She filed a patent in 1992. In 1994 the product launched as Instead — the first menstrual disc.
Her insight was to stop trying to hold the product in place with the vaginal canal at all.
The disc doesn't grip the canal. It rests in the posterior vaginal fornix — the natural recess at the very back of the vaginal vault, past the cervix — and the front rim tucks behind the pubic bone, which holds it in position.
No suction. No seal. No canal length to match.
The shape had already been trusted for 150 years
Contente wasn't inventing a new place to put something. She was borrowing one.
The contraceptive diaphragm was invented in 1842. Per the Guttmacher Institute, "the diaphragm had become the most frequently prescribed form of birth control in America by the 1930s." It sits in the same location, in a similar size range — roughly 55–95mm across, per the patent literature.
So the placement has been used in the human body for more than 180 years. A menstrual disc simply uses that position to collect flow.
Important: a diaphragm is a contraceptive; a menstrual disc is not. Quilla does not prevent pregnancy and does not protect against sexually transmitted infections. The comparison here is about shape and placement only.
Why you never heard about it
The disc has existed for thirty years and stayed obscure for most of them. Instead was acquired in 1998 and rebranded Softcup. Flex acquired it in 2016 and popularised the name "menstrual disc." The first reusable silicone discs didn't arrive until 2018.
For most of the time you've been menstruating, the disc was a disposable niche product with almost no marketing behind it — while the cup got the influencers, the sizing quizzes, and the sustainability halo.
You didn't miss it. It was never really shown to you.
A disc is not a cup without a stem. It is a different machine.
If you've already dismissed discs — a lot of cup quitters have — it's usually because you assumed it's the same idea in a different silhouette. It isn't. They differ in the two things that actually determine whether a period product works: where it sits and what holds it there.
| MENSTRUAL CUP | MENSTRUAL DISC | |
|---|---|---|
| Sits in | The vaginal canal, below the cervix | The posterior fornix, past the cervix |
| Held by | A suction seal against the canal wall | The rim tucked behind the pubic bone |
| Fit depends on | Your canal length below the cervix | The pubic bone — a fixed landmark |
| Removal | Break the seal first, then withdraw | Hook the rim, no seal to release |
| If your cervix is low | It competes for the same space | It sits behind, not below |
A cup seals against the canal (left dynamic). A disc rests behind the pubic bone with nothing to press against (right).
The metaphor
A cup is a wine glass you're trying to balance upright in a canal that was never shaped to hold wine glasses. Every millimetre of length matters, and the seal has to be perfect.
A disc is a shallow bowl set into a recess that was already there. It fits because the anatomy came first.
The competition already admits this
You don't have to take our word for it. Watch what the cup brands do when a cup fails.
DivaCup now routes low-cervix customers to a disc, and describes the symptoms in their own words: "feeling as though you hit a wall when trying to insert your cup, feeling that it is too long or big to fit in."
Saalt concedes it directly: "if leaks persist despite proper insertion and placement, switching to a different size, firmness level, or product (like the Saalt menstrual disc) could be the solution."
These are cup companies telling you the cup has a fit ceiling — and sending you to a disc when you hit it.
Because the pubic bone is a fixed landmark rather than a variable one, the disc's position doesn't depend on how high or low your cervix sits. That's the mechanical logic behind why so many women who couldn't make a cup work get on with a disc immediately.
We'll be straight with you about the evidence: this mechanism is anatomically sound and it's how every disc on the market is designed to function, but we're not aware of an independent clinical trial that has tested cervix-height sensitivity between the two designs head to head. We're not going to dress up a mechanism as a study. That is exactly the kind of overclaiming that got you here.
Quilla Reusable Menstrual Disc
Designed for the women the cup left behind.
One piece of medical-grade silicone. Roughly 70–75mm across. A pull notch on the rim so removal is something you do, not something you attempt.
$29.99 — available in Small (30ml) / Large (50ml), Purple/Red.
1. No Suction Seal to Fight
It's not your technique. It's the seal — so we removed it.
There is no fold to master, no "pop" to listen for, no seal to break on the way out. You fold it, insert it, and tuck the rim behind your pubic bone. If you could never get a cup to open, there is nothing here that needs to open.
2. Sits in the Fornix, Not the Canal
Your cervix height stops being the deciding variable.
The disc rests in the natural recess behind your cervix, anchored at the front by your pubic bone. High cervix, low cervix, anteverted, retroverted — the pubic bone is in the same place regardless. That is the entire reason this works for bodies the cup couldn't fit.
3. Up to 12 Hours, Including Overnight
Sleep on it. Swim in it. Run in it.
Quilla holds 30ml (Small) or 50ml (Large), and there's no seal to lose when you change position or exercise. Very heavy flow may still need an earlier change — the first cycle will tell you your own timing.
4. Collects — Never Absorbs
Nothing is drawn out of you.
Medical-grade silicone with no chemical additives, no bleaches, no fibres. It holds flow in a reservoir rather than absorbing it, so it doesn't dry the surrounding tissue the way a tampon does.
5. One Purchase, Years of Periods
Cared for properly, a silicone disc lasts for years, not cycles.
You bought the cup partly to stop buying disposables. That goal didn't stop being worth it because the cup didn't fit. This is the same goal with a mechanism that suits more bodies.
One thing we tell everyone up front
A disc can partially empty when you bear down — during a bowel movement, or sometimes when you pee. This is normal and it is how the product is designed to behave. Some brands sell it as a feature ("hands-free emptying"), then let women discover it by surprise, which is how it earns one-star reviews.
So: it will happen, it's not a malfunction, and it's not the disc falling out. It reseats itself. Knowing this in advance is the difference between a shrug and a panic.
You already paid to find out a product didn't fit you. Not again.
The most common one-star review across every disc brand on the market says a version of the same thing: couldn't get it to work, couldn't get my money back.
We're not going to do that to you.
Haven't opened it? Change your mind within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. Arrived damaged, defective, or not what you ordered? We'll replace it or refund you in full within 30 days — no need to send anything back.
And we'll say the awkward part out loud: there is a learning curve. Most women need two to three cycles before insertion and removal feel automatic. Anyone who tells you it's effortless on the first try is selling you the same "one size fits all" story that got you here. Once it's been used, we can't take it back for a change of mind — that's true of any personal-use product — so if it's not clicking after a fair try, email us first and we'll help you troubleshoot fit before you write it off.
That's the honest version of a guarantee. We can't hand you a clinical trial proving a disc suits your anatomy better than a cup did — nobody can, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. What we can do is make sure you're never stuck holding a product that arrived wrong or broken.
Frequently Asked Questions
Isn't this basically just a cup?
No — and this is the most important thing to understand before you buy. A cup sits in the vaginal canal and stays in by forming a suction seal, so its fit depends on your canal length below the cervix. A disc sits in the posterior fornix, past the cervix, and is held by the rim tucking behind your pubic bone. No suction is involved. They are different mechanisms, not different shapes of the same one.
How does it stay in if there's no seal?
Your pubic bone acts as a shelf. The rim tucks up behind it, and the muscular structure of the vaginal wall holds the disc in place. It's the same principle that has kept contraceptive diaphragms in position since the 1840s. (To be explicit: Quilla is not a contraceptive.)
I tried three cups and none worked. Why would this be different?
Because all three failed for the same reason. Every cup uses the same retention mechanism — a suction seal in the canal — so trying a fourth is testing the same variable a fourth time. The disc changes the mechanism rather than the size.
What if I can't reach it? That's what happened with my cup.
Removal works differently. There is no seal to break first — that's the step that causes most of the difficulty and discomfort with a cup. To remove a disc you bear down gently, which brings the rim within reach, then hook a finger under the rim or the pull notch and draw it out level. Bearing down is what makes it reachable, and it takes a cycle or two to trust.
Is it messy to remove?
It can be, particularly at first, and anyone who tells you otherwise is overselling. The pull notch is there so you can keep it level on the way out. Most women find that removing it in the shower for the first couple of cycles takes all the pressure off while you build the muscle memory.
Will it leak?
Correctly positioned, a disc shouldn't leak — there's no seal to lose, which removes the cup's single biggest failure mode. What you may notice is a small release when you bear down (see below), and some residual "slobber" — flow left in the canal below the disc after insertion. That's normal and it isn't a positioning failure.
Why does it empty when I go to the bathroom?
Because bearing down briefly tips the rim forward. This is expected behaviour, not a malfunction, and the disc reseats itself afterwards. Some brands market it as "auto-emptying." We'd rather just warn you, so it isn't a surprise the first time.
Can I use it overnight and during exercise?
Yes — up to 12 hours, including sleep, swimming, and running. There's no seal to displace when you change position. On a very heavy day you may want a shorter interval; your first cycle will tell you.
What about public restrooms?
Easier than a cup, because you don't need to rinse it to reinsert. Empty it, wipe it with toilet paper, and reinsert. Wash it properly at home between cycles.
Can I use it with an IUD?
Talk to your healthcare provider first. Practice varies, and it's a conversation to have with someone who knows your history.
How long until it feels normal?
Two to three cycles for most women. That's why we say to give it a fair try before deciding.
What if I still can't get it to work?
Email us and we'll help you troubleshoot fit and technique first — most sticking points come down to placement. And if your disc ever arrives damaged, defective, or wrong, that's on us: we'll replace it or refund you in full, no questions.
Safety & Important Information
Quilla is a menstrual collection device. It is not a contraceptive — it does not prevent pregnancy and does not protect against sexually transmitted infections.
Wash your hands before insertion and removal. Do not wear for longer than 12 consecutive hours. Clean and sterilise between cycles per the instructions supplied. Discontinue use and consult a healthcare professional if you experience pain, irritation, or any signs of infection. Toxic shock syndrome is a rare but serious condition associated with internal menstrual products; seek immediate medical attention if you develop sudden high fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, dizziness, or fainting during use.
If you have an IUD, a history of pelvic surgery, a prolapse, or any gynaecological condition, speak with your healthcare provider before use. The information on this page is for general education and does not constitute medical advice or replace consultation with a qualified professional.
Individual experience varies. Anatomy differs from person to person, and no menstrual product suits every body.
Citations: Hennegan et al., Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 2025 (n=530) · van Eijk et al., The Lancet Public Health, 2019 · Cleveland Clinic — retroverted uterus prevalence · Guttmacher Institute — history of the contraceptive diaphragm · DivaCup and Saalt — publicly published customer guidance, quoted verbatim
Quilla — Made for the bodies the cup was never sized for.