Personally, I find pads feel bulky and I hate feeling wet at that time of the month, so when I heard about the Stayfree Contest, I joined to find out just how dry they could be. I received a couple of Stayfree Ultra Thin pads, some blotting paper and little bottles with 5ml of blue liquid and compared it to a sample of U by Kotex Ultra Thin Security. They promise fast absorption and a 3D capture core so I figured it would be a fair fight for this challenge.
The Stayfree pads have channels running through the centre with a quilted end while the u by Kotex has a 3D capture core that is a little lower than the area around it, but not quite as deep as the channels in the Stayfree pads.
Pour the 5ml of liquid on and you can see the u by Kotex pad looks darker and so more wet, but is it all in the way it looks? We all know looks can be deceiving. I tried to wet the same area on each with the liquid so it could not absorb quicker over a larger area, but the Stayfree pad pulled it along the channels while the Kotex pad just spread out a little around the 3D core.
Because we are moving around while wearing pads, it is not good enough to just check after pouring the liquid! The challenge kit recommended a book, but my books are already packed. So I grabbed a couple of cans of pasta sauce and rolled them on the pads leaving them sitting there for a few seconds with a piece of blotting paper to check how dry these pads would stay,
The Kotex pad showed some transfer even before adding the cans for weight. After the cans, you can see a small amount of transfer on the side of the Stayfree pad where the liquid absorbed outside of the channel. While the core of the Kotex pad remained fairly dry, the area around it was still quite wet and transferred easily.
I know which one I would rather have, you can see more liquid on the Kotex pad even after blotting and I am sure we have all had a heavy day where we need a pad to stand up to a little more liquid before a change, so you can imagine the difference when they are more wet.