20 October 2026

It’s time to be honest about menopause and urinary incontinence

“I quite enjoyed the hot flushes to be honest. Felt like I was on a mini holiday,” the YouTube ad announces as it annoyingly interrupts a nostalgic watch of a 1992 episode of Farmhouse Kitchen. Ex-model Louise Boyce, ambassador for Proctor and Gamble’s new Always Discreet campaign, is joyfully letting us know she is happy to openly talking about her own bladder leak experiences as one of the 48 potential side-effects of the menopause, while using urinary incontinence pads.

The twenty second digital ad goes on to artful show us a box of pads peeping out of a shoulder bag placed on a stool within what is supposedly an artists’ studio. What we are to hopefully conclude from all this is that women aged over 45 should get over that damp knicker gusset feeling by living boldly, joyfully and entirely on their own terms by having their own renaissance. And using the products of course.

And what are my menopause superpowers meant to make of all this nonsense?

Well the let-it-all-out philosophy of women’s hygiene product advertisements of old has disappeared. Where is the pouring of the blue-coloured liquid so we can infer the effectiveness of this product?

We could look to the packaging. Proctor and Gamble has its own absorbency liquid drop rating: 2 drops is for light leaks while the mighty 9 drop rating is for the full flow. Unfortunately the number of droplets on adult incontinence pads isn’t standardised or regulated within industry.

Thankfully we can look to the scientific Rothwell scale which specifically measures the absorbency of incontinence pads using a salt water solution. Rated on a scale from 1 to 15 – the greatest absorbing products can hold just over 3kg of liquid while the lowest holds between 0 and 49g of this representative colourless liquid.

The charity Age UK has done its own testing of many High Street incontinence products and found the Normal Discreet pads held 137ml, while their Ultimate Night Pads could absorb 558ml. The supermarket own brands are just as good, if not better: Sainsbury’s Comfort Fit for Her Discreet Pads Normal came in at 291ml while Morrisons Discreet Pads Extra Plus measured in at an extra 596ml.

Urine absorption product advertisements are still stuck in the past - no yellow-coloured liquid appears. It’s enough to make the producers of the 2017 Bodyform menstrual sanitary towel ad, where red liquid is used instead of blue for the first time to represent periods, weep with frustration. Are we still not mature enough to understand what warm shots of liquid coming out between our legs at inconvenient times feels like and see represented accurately?

And who are the women who actually need these products? NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) estimates between 34 and 40% of UK women have UI (urinary incontinence). And despite myths that child birth makes the whole thing worse, those who are child-free (or in gynaecologist jargon, a nulliparous woman), can expect to experience it up to 42% of the time.

But there is a simple, and free, method that will help – pelvic floor exercises. This opaque jargon hides a simple muscle squeezing exercise – just sit on a chair and squeeze the muscles around your urinary tract as if you are trying to stop yourself having a wee. The British Association of Urological Surgeons recommends you do this exercise twice daily in bursts of six – one set of slow contractions followed by one set of fast contractions. After a couple of months the muscles will be stronger and able to withstand the coughs and sneezes that will be coming this winter. No more damp gussets. Hopefully. And let’s skip the annoying ads.