20,000 Pairs to Save the Period Aisle
UPDATE: WOW. We just saved the period aisle! Yesterday we officially hit our goal of selling 20,000 pairs of period underwear!!!
As our campaign to #savetheperiodaisle comes to a close, I wanted to send a quick note to say how grateful we are for your support, comments, referrals, love notes, and undies purchased! Our team still has a lot of work head of us to ensure that Aisle remains a force for good in the period aisle and now more than ever we're feeling confident in our ability to execute on that promise.
What we've been able to accomplish these past couple months together is nothing short of incredible. We've watched our community come together in a way that has profoundly moved us and we're just overwhelmed with gratitude and awe. THANK YOU for being here and for supporting our small, women, queer and independently owned B-corp period care company! We can't wait to share what's next for this little store that did!
Thanks again for being on this wild ride with us.
Big big love,
Lux Perry
Period Aisle CEO
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If you’re a supporter of small, sustainable businesses, you know that it’s been a struggle out there. The recent closure of many sustainable fashion brands has been a shock to many, but the reality is that we’re all struggling, and Aisle is not immune.
We know that relentless consumption is trashing the planet and leading to the abuse of workers around the world, but with the rise of fast-fashion and homeware brands like Fashion Nova, Shein and Temu, convenience and low cost have put a spell on consumers. Couple this with inflation, downward pressure on wages and the high cost of housing, people are finding themselves less able to save, and less able to afford quality, sustainable goods.
So where does that leave Aisle? Since our rebrand launched on March 12th 2020 (yes, that’s the very same day that COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic) we sold out our first few runs of period underwear, and things were going pretty good despite, well everything. We got some good PR from our size range, and Life Cycle Analysis, and our customers seemed to really resonate with what we were trying to achieve. But when we looked around at the competitive landscape, our competitors' prices seemed to be getting lower and lower. Eventually they started being bought up by the big disposable brands. The very brands that we were trying to offer alternatives to, were now making profit off the product category that we built!
Then the PFAS scandal happened, and despite the fact that Aisle’s products were, and have always been safe and found to have no detectable levels of PFAS, it seemed like customers' trust in the whole concept of period underwear was damaged forever.
As for us, we haven’t given up hope. We still think that safe, sustainable menstrual products are necessary, and that ethical manufacturing is the only way to do business on a planet that is burning. Aisle is committed to making it work, but as with any small business, we can’t survive without customers buying our products. In the spirit of radical transparency, we are asking our community to “Save the Period Aisle” by helping us sell 20,000 pairs of underwear in the next 60 days. It’s an ambitious goal, but one that will help us get out of debt, address some of our supply-chain inefficiencies, move through our inventory and set us up to develop new, even better products.
When you purchase Aisle products you’re also supporting our mission to provide access to menstrual products to individuals experiencing period poverty. Every year we donate 2% of sales to our Dignity Project partners who work with communities across Canada. So follow along on Instagram and Tiktok for daily updates and behind the scenes content, tell your friends & get your pair today.