In 1989 at the age of 40, Susie Hewson, a mother of two, disrupted the billion-dollar menstrual products industry by introducing the world’s first organic tampon. Her company, Natracare, offers plastic-free menstrual products that are also organic, chlorine-free, biodegradable, compostable, and come with recyclable packaging.
Being a female founder in the early 1990s was no easy feat. Banks wouldn’t take meetings without Hewson’s husband present. There was no social media with which to promote her products. Moreover, mission-based companies were not trendy.
Hewson forged ahead anyway, building Natracare into a global brand that is still going strong 30 years later. She never has swayed from her original purpose: To reduce plastic pollution and provide menstrual equity for all women. In June 2023, Hewson was awarded as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the King’s Birthday Honors List. In 2008, she won a Women in Ethical Business Award.
In the U.S. alone, approximately 12 billion pads and 7 billion tampons are discarded each year. A woman uses up to 17,000 period products in her lifetime, the equivalent of approximately 850,000 plastic bags. While many of these products end up in landfills, others clog sewers and contribute to plastic pollution in our oceans. Natracare drastically reduces this impact, especially now with the world’s first commercially compostable pads and tampons. A 1% for the Planet member since 2019, products are available in Whole Foods, Kroger, Amazon, and elsewhere.
Recently, Natracare launched Project #BeKind, a new campaign that encourages people to pledge only to purchase and use organic, sustainable products for 30 days. Those who join have chance to win a gift pack of eco-sensitive products. The campaign is intended to educate and empower consumers to live a non-toxic lifestyle, making healthier choices for both body and planet.
“I did not set out to be a business women,” Hewson said in an exclusive interview with me. “I was an environmentalist on a mission to challenge the unchecked ecological damage of period products and to offer a quality, honest alternative.”
Hewson grew up in Nottingham in the UK, a leading textile industry center. For years, she worked as a graphic designer in London, but always felt “it was a battle for women to be seen and heard as creatives in male-dominated industries.”
So, Hewson moved to Sweden to learn Swedish and weaving. It was there that, on daily bike rides, she would pass alongside streams running with unnatural colors due to wastewater from a pulp and paper corporation making period products that were sold across Europe. She became an environmentalist determined to take action to end such pollution.
In 1989, Hewson founded Natracare with a committment to use 100% chlorine-free processes and organic cotton, and to be free from super absorbent gels, which later were classified as microplastics. She has been passionately committed to running her business and helping protect both women’s health and the planet ever since.
To those looking to align their career with their life purpose, Hewson says, “When life options pop into your personal spaces that fill you with a drive not to gain personal wealth or promotional opportunities, but rather with the feeling, ‘I must act on this, I must experience this,’ be brave. Explore where that new felt sense of purpose will lead you.”
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