Sanitary napkins raise quality concerns again? Learn about the new standard GB 15979-2024

As a necessity in women’s lives, sanitary napkins are of great importance. China Business News reported that women have a menstrual period of 2,535 days in their lifetime, which is nearly 7 years. A rough calculation shows that if a woman uses 5 sanitary napkins a day, she will need about 12,675 sanitary napkins in her lifetime.

Since the penetration rate of China’s sanitary napkin market gradually approached saturation in 2015, the growth of the market has been mainly driven by consumption upgrades. As a result, more and more high-end products have emerged, with prices twice that of ordinary sanitary napkins. However, consumers feel that their real needs are ignored. For example, the length of sanitary napkins is generally produced by brands based on the most basic standards such as “complying with national standards”, and there is no ideal length that meets consumers’ expectations. If you want to know more about this topic, you can read our previous article – Things about sanitary napkins that are ignored .

What standards are currently involved in the testing of sanitary napkin products? What do these standards specifically stipulate? Let’s talk about the current national standards for sanitary napkins.

GB 15979-2002 Hygiene Standard for Disposable Hygiene Products

This is a mandatory national standard and the most basic national standard. It can be said that products that do not meet this standard are substandard. The standard stipulates sanitary napkin (including sanitary pads) product and production environment sanitation standards, corresponding inspection methods, raw materials and product production, disinfection, storage, transportation process sanitation requirements and product labeling requirements.

GB /T 8939-2018 “Sanitary napkins (including sanitary pads)”

This is a recommended national standard that updates and specifies the performance requirements, hygiene requirements, raw material requirements, test methods, inspection rules and marking, packaging, transportation, storage, etc. of sanitary napkins. This standard applies to products that are specially machined and used by women. They usually consist of a surface layer, an inner absorbent layer (which may contain fluff pulp and/or superabsorbent resin), and an impermeable bottom film.

The new standard GB 15979-2024 mainly modifies five aspects:

First, the scope of application of the standard was adjusted, the definition of “disposable sanitary products” was adjusted, and terms and definitions of categories such as “sanitary wipes”, “antibacterial agents” and “antibacterial agents” were added;

Second, the hygiene requirements for raw materials have been refined, and the requirements for banned substances in raw materials and production water have been added;

Third, the hygiene requirements for the production process have been optimized, and the production environment hygiene indicators, disinfection effect biological monitoring and evaluation, and “initial contamination bacteria” in the product hygiene indicators have been merged and adjusted into the hygiene requirements for the production process;

Fourth, the product hygiene requirements have been strengthened. According to the health risks of different disposable sanitary products, the physical and chemical indicators of pH value and residual amount of migratable fluorescent whitening agents have been added according to the risk level. At the same time, the microbial contamination indicators and toxicological safety requirements have been adjusted;

Fifth, relevant detection methods have been updated and supplemented, the fungus detection method has been adjusted, the ethylene oxide residue detection method has been optimized, and new physical and chemical indicator detection methods and some antibacterial (inhibitory) test methods have been added.

Image source: State Administration for Market Regulation

Equipment used for sanitary napkin testing:

Test items:

• Absorption Before Leakage (ABL) Test
• Walking Test
• Syngina Test​ 
• Air permeability test
• Water vapor transmission rate test
• Pressure comfort test

Scope of application: female care products, adult incontinence products, baby diapers, diapers, children’s pull-up pants, etc.

Libero provides comprehensive testing equipment solutions for all absorbent hygiene products, including feminine hygiene products, baby hygiene products and adult incontinence products, helping customers provide safe, high-performance and high-quality products. Welcome to contact us~