Women’s hygiene during her menstrual is really an important safety issue. Sustain and Save’s enthusiastic and workaholic co-founder and an entrepreneur by profession, Pranati Shroff Munot interviewed the founder of Noraa,Hemender Hoon and discussed the solution for this women hygiene.

“Sanitary napkins are an essential part of your personal hygiene troupe. Since we’re all looking for shampoos, conditioners and beauty products sans chemicals why not have a sanitary pad that’s absolutely organic and safe for you? 

Uncover the issue – #GETHERAPAD”

- Noraa

Hemender Hoon, graduated in 2015 from IMS Noida. He worked with an NGO and in a span of 3 months he visited many schools bothinurban and rural areas. In 2016, he founded himself in the advertising sector and worked with agencies like JW2, handling prestigious clients like Hero MotoCorp, Hero cycles, Faber and Maruti Suzuki. In 2018, working on a freelance project for a travel company known as RL Group where he was offered a job of Marketing Business Development Head. He worked there till 2019.

 Launching  of Noraa

He shared his story saying that when he worked with the NGO, they used to put up camps in the urban and rural schools for menstrual hygiene. Everyone knows that how difficult it is to talk about menstruation for people and how menstrual hygiene is carried out in rural areas as well as urban areas. A lot of women are suffering from rashes because of using pads and other issues that occur due to the plastic and the chemical content in the pads. He made a research where they can control the quality of product, the kind of elements used and make it chemical-free and natural, so that women are so comfortable that they don’t have to worry about their periods. They looked after everything starting from the cloth to the complete packaging which had to be sustainable. In India there are almost 400 million pads which are annually consumed, and these pads have more than 90% of plastic which requires more than 6-7 years to degrade. Considering these environmental factors, Noraa came into existence in October 2019. Noraa meaning “THE SHINING LIGHT”.

Challenges faced by Noraa

Hemender when put forth his thoughts before people, a lot of eyes used to be in surprise and asked ‘Are you sure, you want to do this?’. ‘Why are you doing this?’ Most of them suggested to take up other topics entrepreneurship. ‘To build those Taboo’s and put people wrong, these kind of criticism is must in entrepreneurship.’ said Hemender. Currently Noraa is the only brand in providing organic biodegradable pads. Perfecting the pad without a background of 20-30 years of ‘NO CARBON’ which was difficult, when it comes to garment sheet, the design, the kind of material to be used was a tough challenge initially. 

Vision, thoughts and mission for coming years

Noraa would not stuck in the ides of only sanitary napkin brand but will look into the menstrual hygiene as a whole. Menstrual hygiene is not just related to the urine, periods or the pad. Menstrual hygiene starts from daily routine like soap should not be used to clean intimate areas and having a balance pH .On a holistic approach, Noraa wants to be a support system. Women never go to a gynaecologist directly. So Noraa wants to make it more comfortable.

Noraa's products and its rates

Noraa wanted to bring in competitive prices in market. But due to R and D and all other factors like quality, prices got increased. Considering biodegradable market, Noraa would be 10% more expensive than the rest. Marketing of the products are done through Omni Channel through website but Noraa is getting into retail segment and now will enter in other E-Commerce websites. Noraa’s Biodegradable products- These pads sometimes have plastic content in it, but usually come under Oxo-biodegradability and other various forms of biodegradability. Noraa uses materials which are completely organic from the top layer to the last, that is, chemical free. Process to see the layers are known as “Thermo-bonding”, that is heat oriented. These products start degrading in 6 months and they get completely degraded by 24 months. Initially, covering layers degrade then the core layers within one or one and half year. 

Panty Liners – Panty Liners have less layers, material used is as same as the sanitary napkins(pads). But these are usually made for spotting, but the quality remains the same.

Today, when it comes to Sanitary Napkins, it’s a product which moves from mother to daughter.Every woman buys organic and safe facial products, then why not for menstrual hygiene? We know a lot of health problems are associated with it, when women do not focus on their menstrual hygiene, like UTI. RTI, or PCOD/PCOS.So, Hemender Hoon, a male founder of a women menstrual hygiene product company advices every woman to follow proper hygiene. To the woman out there, use organic menstrual hygiene products and to the males out there, #GETHERAPAD that is organic.

By : Mitali S. Sarlashkar