Menstrual tampons — HMTc Standard

How limits are set

Feminine-care products contact the vulvovaginal mucosa, which is markedly more permeable and bioavailable than intact skin; the standard is written on a mucosal basis and never on a dermal or dietary basis. The category splits into two instrument families that share this basis but are never conflated. Device forms — tampons, pads, cups, discs, period underwear — are regulated as medical devices for biocompatibility (21 CFR Part 884; EU MDR 2017/745; ISO 10993), but no government sets a per-metal numeric content limit for a menstrual product.

Rather than leave those cells blank, the standard reads a limit across by analogy: for each analyte it adopts the strictest health-based limit a government has set for an article in comparable prolonged mucosal contact, and holds the device to that number. The read-across is disclosed and deliberately conservative, so every device cell is a read-across to a named government limit and never a number HMTc originated, with inorganic arsenic and methylmercury bounded by their parent totals and measured every lot.

Cosmetic forms — feminine wipes, deodorants, douches, intimate washes — are cosmetics, so sovereign cosmetic contaminant limits apply, adopted at the strictest mucosal-contact tier a government draws. Lead reads across the German BVL 2017 toothpaste tier (500 µg/kg, stricter than the general-cosmetic 2000 because vaginal mucosa is more permeable than the oral mucosa that limit was written for); cadmium (100), total arsenic (500) and total mercury (100) bind the strictest general-cosmetic value directly; and nickel binds the only sovereign cosmetic nickel content limit (Korea MFDS 2025, 10000). Occurrence establishes materiality — a metal a routed survey measures present cannot be recorded not-material — but never sets the number.

This is Method v2. Why Method v1 was retired is on the method page.

Master Limit Table

All values in ppb (µg/kg), as-sold basis. 9 of 11 analytes carry a firm ceiling; the remaining 2 are toxic species bounded by their parent totals (species ≤ total, measured on every lot), so every analyte carries an enforceable ceiling. A brand meeting every value on a like-for-like basis qualifies for the mark.

Every claim analyte is equal at the gate. A product is certified only when every analyte is at or below 100% of its published government floor or disclosed read-across; above the limit, on any metal, it is not certified and carries no mark.

Derivation

For Menstrual tampons, each HMTc limit is a disclosed read-across to the strictest health-based limit a government sets for a comparable mucosal-contact article, named in the Binding column. Cosmetic forms bind a cosmetic limit that applies to the product directly; device forms, for which no government sets a per-metal numeric content limit, carry the same value by read-across by analogy. Inorganic arsenic and methylmercury are bounded by their parent totals, and no number is originated by HMTc.

Occurrence and derivation rationale

For each analyte on the panel: what the peer-reviewed and survey literature measured in this category, cited one way to the Heavy Metal Index, and the Method v2.0 reasoning behind the certification limit — including, where no government sets a number, why the program sets one anyway. Occurrence figures are literature findings; the derivation is the certifier's.

Risk Flag

On the published occurrence literature to date, Menstrual tampons shows no systematic gap between typical market levels and the limit — the limit being the strictest government maximum for the product (Method v2.0). Certification is decided on a product’s own tested result, not on a distribution; an individual lot or supplier can still exceed a limit.

See the cross-category summary of the ingredients that most often struggle.