When I saw this Elanee Menstruationstasse (that’s German for menstrual cup) I knew I had to try it. You can’t buy it and ship it to the US so I used my German connection. After many months at sea on what I can only imagine was a tug boat… it arrived. I performed an Elanee Cup review while camping to up the difficulty level a bit.
Elanee Cup Sizes and Details
Elanee comes in two sizes, a size 1 and size 2. The cup is made from medical-grade TPE, not silicone. The small is designed to be a softer firmness than the large size. I noticed that Elanee was influenced by Intimina in their color scheme; size 1 is a light pink and size 2 is a darker pink.
The small is quite petite but the heart tab does elongate it. They say you can trim off one heart, if you cut the second heart the stem wouldn’t stay tucked in and would flop about. Ask me how I know… (watch the video!) The Elanee Cups are on the menstrual cup comparison chart – visit to compare it to other cups.
Since I fall into the size 2 category I tested their largest size. Before I share my experience though, let’s explore the WHY of the unique heart stem.
The Elanee Cup Stem Design
My theory, though I can’t find it explicitly stated by Elanee, is that the intent of the stem being attached at the rim is to break the suction. That concept is similar to the patented removal pull tab of the Flex Cup. The Flex pulls from the inside, the Elanee stem seems to tug from the outside by visual design. If this is not the intended purpose of the stem then it makes no sense whatsoever to design it in this way. Due to the thickness of the cup’s body and the lack of suction holes, it was hard to break the suction even with fingers.
Inexplicably, other than the instructions saying that the stem makes removal more “discreet,” there are no other notes as to why the stem has this unique and baffling design. I do recall seeing this in writing elsewhere – was it in a group, on their website but no longer there?
The cup caused a sharp suctioning pain to my cervix that readjustments didn’t fix. The curved heart stem, which I’d hoped would actually be ok and follow that natural curve the way an ergonomically shaped cup such as KIND Cup or Fun Factory would (but doubted it would), instead just stabbed my vagina. It was in for about an hour before I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to remove it so that I could sit without pain or discomfort.
A Design Fail or ?
Even when I doubt that a cup will work I always approach it with the hope I’m wrong! For most cup designs, even when they don’t work for me I assume they had to have worked as intended for others. Or else why did it get past the R&D and testing phase? I’m really not sure about this one, especially after testing it in the vacuum for removal when intense pain isn’t at play.
The Elanee Cup falls into my weird novelty cup category, joining the ranks of the Amy Cup Vitality and the Femallay Valve Cup. Someone thought it was a good idea on paper but it passed the IRL test for me. But at least +2 points for trying to cutesy up the stem with hearts that don’t look like testicles.
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