How The Crumps Built A Menstrual Brand From The Ground Up After The Mom Of The Family Experienced Health Issues

In June 2019, husband and wife Demond and Qiana Crump came together to create Reign Sanitary Napkins. The brand was catalyzed by Qiana’s own struggle with her monthly cycle and fibroids. Due to the severity of her pain, she was advised to have surgery that would require a partial hysterectomy.

In pursuit of helping other women not have to face similar battles, Qiana began to test natural materials for over a year to create a product that would especially support Black women.

Additionally, the push for change came from there not being many from similar backgrounds like her in the feminine product industry.

“Graphene is truly a wonder material,” Qiana told AfroTech. “It serves as one of the most promising nanomaterials due to the unique combination of its properties. Graphene is simply carbon. We all breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. So, carbon exists in all of us. Some of the great benefits of using graphene in Reign pads were to help with the issues that most women experience.”

“For example, graphene potentially helps with relieving painful abdominal cramps, graphene is antimicrobial, which helps to eliminate the bacteria that most women deal with that causes yeast infections and different bacterial infections,” she continued. “Graphene could also help with moving heat away from the core, as a woman’s body temperature rises during that time of the month, higher than normal, which is 98.6 percent. So, the graphene helps with moving heat away from the core not to cause more bacteria growth. In addition, to potentially help with the aroma or fragrance during her cycle.”

After creating the finished product, Reign launched during the peak of the pandemic. The Crumps credit spending money on top-quality infrastructure, the best software, staffing, and inventory as the reason they were able to survive their first year of business.

Another reason for its success was that the Crump family supported one another in building the company from its early stages.

For Demond, he took it upon himself to become educated on what women face during their menstrual cycles to be a part of leading by example for fellow men.

“I have learned that men in our ignorance do not understand or take the time to understand what the women in our lives are experiencing during that time of the month,” he shared. “This isn’t the typical conversation that men have amongst themselves but it is a necessary one in order to advocate for our wives and daughters. After all, they deserve the best this world has to offer and utilizing natural products is a great first step to living a healthier life. Through our work with Reign, I am constantly learning about the issues that women deal with in order to develop product offerings that address those complications head-on.”

As the Crumps have begun to build Reign Sanitary Napkins’ legacy, they hope to create a global impact by not only educating the masses but also as the industry model for creating solution-oriented products.

“My desire is to have Reign to be the first product a young girl experiences when starting her cycle,” Qiana said. “For me as a woman and as a mother, I understand that women share what was shared with them. Product use is a learned behavior and we are harming our young girls when we share toxic products. Our mission is to educate females about the products they choose to put on or insert in their body during that time of month.”