The eco-friendly and cost effective answer to periods?

19th September 2019

The story of Practicups menstrual cups all started in 2016, a great example of what TLR and its talents can do for local entrepreneurs even before TLR Agency was founded. The year 2006 was when Mariví, originally from Málaga, started thinking about better ways to manage her period. She had enough of pads and tampons and she realised that periods can actually be made a lot simpler, more cost-effective and be better for the environment.

Mariví: “I started to notice a change in my periods which meant I never knew when I would be getting my period, or how long it would last. Following on from this (at times very awkward) situation I started to research other options which were more reliable than the mainstream and expensive tampons or sanitary towels. Menstrual cups proved to be the answer to all my problems!”

Mariví and me working on the launch of Practicups at The Living Room Coworking.

Even though menstrual cups were actually invented in the 1930s (just like tampons), they have recently become a hot topic of conversation for women around the world.

So what exactly is a menstrual cup? Well, it’s a bell-shaped cup that gives you comfortable, safe, odourless and eco-friendly periods for up to 12 hours a day. Additionally, it’s reusable and lasts several years. Basically, it saves you money and those awkward trips to the work toilet sneaking a sanitary product up your sleeve are long gone!

The 7 benefits of Practicups:

  1. Up to 12 hours of protection: it can last 3-5 times more than a tampon.
  2. Will last up to 10 years, saving the purchase of 4,000 tampons!
  3. Does not dry out your down below region ;o)
  4. Does not cause irritations, unlike tampons or sanitary towels.
  5. Prevents unpleasant odours.
  6. Two cups: Instead of 1 cup you receive both sizes menstruation cups immediately.
  7. Total freedom! From sleeping, dancing, exercising and swimming to stress-free holidays: everything is possible with Practicups!
The boxes we now ship the product in were design by my dear coworker Carlos Santaella, head of talents at TLR Agency nowadays.

Mariví decided to launch Practicups in 2017, together with my employer Jasper, a Dutch businessman with loads of experience in foreign markets and e-commerce. I was already working for Jasper’s company when they approached me about getting involved with the project. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity!

We are based at The Living Room in Málaga and we each have a different role to play within Practicups.

It goes without saying, Mariví is the brains behind the whole idea. She doesn’t only want to make Practicups a success; her goal is to stop menstrual taboos that still exist all over the world. On the contrary of what people might think, there aren’t only prejudices about periods in third world countries, but also in the western world.

Jasper is our businessman. He has been successfully running his own company for years so he is very experienced, especially when it comes to selling product online. He knows all the ins and outs of the e-commerce business world and has a perfect strategy in mind for putting Practicups into the market.

My main responsibilities are writing blog posts for the Practicups website, keeping our Instagram account up-to-date, handling customer service and trying to find websites and bloggers to collaborate with.

Working on this project has been awesome as we have also collaborated with other people in TLR which has been great to form synergies in our own coworking space. All the graphics for Practicups have been developed by Carlos Santaella, who is a graphic designer and also the Soho coworking office manager. He is incredibly talented and we are very happy with all his beautiful designs. Furthermore, a fellow TLR family member Tijs has helped us out a great deal with our website. He is a freelance web developer and it is great to have his expertise.

Our brand logo designed by Carlos Santaella.

All in all, working on such an eco-friendly yet practical project such as Practicups has been an invaluable experience and it has been great to work so closely with so many talented people. Our journey has no way near ended yet though! I look forward to continuing my work with Practicups and to help make women’s menstrual woes a thing of the past!


Originally Clariska is an art historian and has spent three years teaching English before she started working for Mr. Anti Snore and Practicups. Clariska’s main job is to write blogs for Mr. Anti Snore’s and Practicups websites and she is also responsible for customer service.