Wholesale Tampons from the Factory: All Formats & Grades

We manufacture menstrual tampons and supply them wholesale, direct from our own factory in China — not through a trading desk. Our tampon programme covers four formats — digital (applicator-free), compact, and plastic or cardboard applicators — across the standard absorbency ladder, supplied three ways: bulk wholesale, your own private label, or one of our established brands (o2, glory-girl, m-beauty, sparklecare, flowx). Tampons can ship alongside our sanitary pad, liner and adult-incontinence lines on one programme. Tell us your market, grade and pack format, and we will confirm what we can commit to.

Samples come first: request them against your specification, test them in your market, then place the production order.

The facts buyers check first

What We Make: Digital, Compact and Applicator Tampons, Regular to Super Plus+

What the grades mean in grams (the regulatory ladder)

Absorbency words only work when tied to a number. In the United States the label terms are set by regulation (21 CFR 801.430), which also fixes the gram bands behind each word. That gives the industry a common scale — but a word on a box and a specification on a purchase order are two different documents:

Those are the US regulatory terms. They define what a label may say in the United States — nothing more. Your own SKU ladder is a separate thing, and this is where most enquiries go wrong: Ultra is a US label term, not a product we list. Our top grade is called Super plus+, and it covers the same 15–18 g band. If your market is outside the US and you brief us on "Ultra", we will quote Super plus+ against the same grams — but say the grams, not the word.

Two rules matter more than the words.

A grade is a range, not a number. A tampon labelled Super must absorb more than 9 g and no more than 12 g, and the factory is expected to run sampling that keeps at least 90% of individual tampons inside the labelled range with 90% confidence. Which test method, which sample size and which tolerance apply to your order is what the specification has to state — so put the gram band and the method in writing before the PO, not after. Buying "Super" means buying a tolerance band plus the ability to hold it lot after lot. State no tolerance and you inherit the factory's default.

Above 18 g there is no standard term at all. A buyer asking for more than the top of the ladder is asking for a custom construction — a development conversation, not a catalogue order.

See our tampons product page for the digital (applicator-free) and applicator formats we list.

"Super plus plus" and "super super plus": what buyers mean

Many enquiries — including customized and OEM briefs — combine absorbency words in ways no standard defines: what happens when the same five words describe different products in different countries.

The rule for a purchase order: specify grams and the test method, not the word. "Super Plus, 12–15 g by Syngyna, target mean 13 g" is an instruction a factory can be held to. "Super plus plus" is not.

Which grade sells where

Grade mix is a merchandising decision, not only a technical one:

• US and Canada — the deepest ladder, Regular through Super plus+; plastic applicators dominate and multipacks (Regular plus Super) outsell single grades. Note that applicator formats stop at Super, so the heaviest grades here are digital or compact.
• UK and Ireland — Super and Super Plus carry the volume; cardboard and applicator-free packs both hold shelf space; light/mini is a stable teen segment.
• European Union — "Normal" rather than "Regular" on pack, compact applicators, a strong pharmacy and organic tier.
• Sub-Saharan Africa — Regular and Super dominate; price per unit drives pack architecture, so applicator-free formats and smaller counts move faster. Registration is usually the importer's: agree early who carries it.
• Gulf, South and Southeast Asia — Super and Super Plus for Gulf modern trade and pharmacy, with Arabic labelling planned in; India is applicator-free, while Malaysia and the Philippines support applicator SKUs at a premium.

Slim, mini, soft and travel: four words that are not absorbency

• Mini / lite — an absorbency grade (6 g and under).
• Slim — a diameter specification. A slim tampon is narrower for comfort and insertion and can be produced in more than one absorbency; order "slim" with no grade and you get the default fill.
• Soft — a feel claim produced by cover material and compression. Specify it physically rather than as a word on a pack.
• Travel — a pack format (small count, compact or single-wrap), not a product.

This matters in the beginner and teen segment — buyers searching for tampons for first time users — where a beginner product is not a category but a combination: Light or Regular grade, slim diameter, forgiving applicator or well-finished applicator-free tip, small pack count.

Applicator vs Non-Applicator, and What Buyers Mean by "Waterproof"

The formats

An applicator buys insertion comfort and shelf familiarity, and costs material, pack volume and money per unit. Applicator-free buys cost and pack efficiency and asks more of the user — which is why it dominates price-driven markets and is a harder first purchase for a teenager.

"Long applicator" is its own export request: easiest to insert, and the most expensive to ship per unit because the air inside the tube is freight you pay for. Compact formats solve that at the cost of a more mechanical insertion.

"Waterproof tampons": the phrase, and what it means

Tampons are absorbent by design. Nothing about a tampon is waterproof in the literal sense, and a supplier who says otherwise has either misunderstood the request or is selling something that does not exist.

When a buyer asks for a "waterproof tampon", they normally mean one of four things:

1. Leak protection — no leak before the rated wear time.
2. Swimming — swimming without leaking. A tampon works here because it sits internally and holds fluid; the protection is placement and absorbency, not a coating.
3. A water-resistant wrapper or film — for damp storage and travel, not for the product in use.
4. A non-wicking withdrawal cord — the cord should not carry fluid out to a liner.

Leak protection comes from matching grade to flow, from cover material and aperture pattern, from compression type (radial expands more evenly than axial), and from a pack that stays sealed until use. Swimming comfort is mostly grade plus correct insertion. Cord wicking is cord material and treatment. Wrapper resistance is a film specification.

So the useful question is not "do you make waterproof tampons" but "which leak failure am I stopping — at two hours, overnight, or while swimming?" That produces a specification; the other produces a brochure.

A compliance note: "waterproof" is a strong claim in most markets and a regulated one in some. Check it before it reaches artwork; unless it can be substantiated, describe the construction and say "leak protection" instead.

Materials for Sensitive & Organic Markets

Hypoallergenic, organic and sensitive-skin requests are usually written as adjectives rather than requirements. What actually drives irritation complaints: fragrance and deodorising additives, dyes, chlorine bleaching residues in rayon, synthetic cover friction, and fibre shedding from a weakly bonded cover. Each is a specification:

• Fragrance-free / dye-free — a formulation instruction, verifiable in the bill of materials.
• Chlorine-free pulp — elemental chlorine-free (ECF) or totally chlorine-free (TCF). Ask which; they are not the same claim.
• Organic cotton — needs chain-of-custody certification covering the cotton itself, not just a supplier declaration. Chain-of-custody documentation for the cotton is available on request — ask for the certificate covering the specific grade you are buying.
• Cover material — nonwoven versus apertured film changes feel and how fluid is drawn in. Both 100% viscose and 100% organic cotton constructions are available. Applicators are BPA-free.
• Hypoallergenic — in most markets a marketing term with no fixed legal test; defensible only with raw-material specifications and dermatological testing. Dermatological and raw-material documentation is available on request; any "hypoallergenic" wording on your pack should be tied to the report we provide for the exact construction you order.

Certifications are what make those claims auditable. Certificates are issued per destination market and released on request, so that what you receive matches the market you are selling into rather than a generic pack.

Market requirements pull in the same direction in both regions you are likely selling into: the EU places documentation and chemical-compliance obligations on the operator placing the product on the market, and Gulf markets increasingly expect conformity documentation and Arabic labelling. Both go faster if the pack is designed for them from the start; our notes on sanitary pad quality standards by country cover the market picture, and the logic applies to tampons too.

Bulk Wholesale vs Private Label: Two Different Deals

Three ways to buy, and they are not variations of one order.

Bulk wholesale — product in our standard pack or unprinted bulk, with no artwork work. Lowest MOQ, shortest timeline, least control; it suits distributors testing a market, repackers and institutional buyers.

Private label / OEM — product under your brand, with your artwork, pack counts and label. Packaging becomes a project: film artwork, print cylinders, carton design, label compliance, approval rounds. Higher MOQ, longer timeline, and you carry the label liability. Read our private label tampons guide before requesting pricing, because those decisions are what the quote is built from; the OEM/ODM process explains the development stage.

Our own brands — if you would rather skip label work, we own brands you can distribute: o2, glory-girl, m-beauty, sparklecare and flowx. Tell us the market and we will confirm which brand and format fits it. This is the middle path, and how a number of our distributors started before moving to private label.

Tampons are rarely bought alone: adding them to an existing pad basket is cheaper than launching standalone, because freight, registration and accounts are already paid for. Our pads vs tampons market data covers the category balance.

MOQ, Lead Time & What a Factory Quote Includes

Where MOQ comes from

MOQ in this category is usually set by the packaging — printed film, cartons, inserts and the machine setup that runs them — not by the tampon. Three consequences:

1. MOQ multiplies across SKUs. It is quoted per SKU, and a SKU is grade × pack count × artwork. Four grades in two pack counts is eight SKUs, and eight times the minimum. New buyers routinely plan that matrix and then discover the arithmetic.
2. Standard packaging is the fast lever. Accept our standard pack or unprinted bulk and you can start at a fraction of the custom quantity. Standard transparent film starts at 500,000 pieces per grade. Custom printed film is quoted by film type and construction, and starts higher — from around 350,000 pieces per size and design for short-applicator PP and biodegradable film, up to 10 million for tear-strip formats.
3. Artwork restarts the clock. Every new printed film or carton means plates or cylinders plus proofing. Plate charges run from RMB 4,000 to RMB 11,000 per colour per design depending on film type (USD 600–1,700); German paper and long applicators carry no plate charge. Sampling fees and turnaround are confirmed with your quotation.

What a complete quote contains

A quote should let you compare landed cost, not just unit price. Ask for each line separately:

• unit price at your specification, with the incoterm named (FOB Jiangmen, CIF, EXW or DDP)
• packaging cost — inside the unit price, or billed separately
• tooling: printing plates, cylinders, moulds; one-off or amortised
• sampling cost, and whether it is credited against the order sampling cost where a custom build is involved
• testing and certification costs, and who pays for market registration
• freight and insurance, and how duties and destination charges are handled
• payment terms (our standard is 10% deposit plus full plate charge, 75% within one week of production completion, balance within 30 days of shipment), currency, quote validity

Two traps: a unit price that quietly excludes packaging, the commonest way a cheap quote becomes expensive, and an FOB price with no port named. Reading a sanitary pad quotation walks through the same line items — identical for tampons — how MOQ is calculated explains the packaging arithmetic, and how to choose a tampon manufacturer covers the checks worth doing before a deposit.

First-time importers

Shopping for a beginner product is a specification exercise: Light or Regular grade, slim diameter, forgiving applicator, small pack count. A first import order follows the same logic — start with the smallest configuration that proves the market:

• one or two grades rather than the full ladder, usually Regular plus Super
• one pack count, one artwork, standard film where possible
• a quantity that tests sell-through instead of filling a container
• registration started in parallel, not after the order — it is often the longest lead item
• a written specification and a retained sample, so order two can be checked against order one

If you are pricing a production plant rather than placing an order: we quote product, not turnkey lines, and contract manufacturing is the realistic route to your own brand. A factory in China against a domestic manufacturer usually trades MOQ and unit cost against lead time and paperwork; the answer depends on your volume and restock speed. Our lead times do not change by season: stock ships within a week of payment, made-to-order private label runs 45–60 working days from digital proof approval, and unlabelled bulk runs 30–45 days. Our manufacturing overview explains how we run production.

Certifications & Export Documentation

Tampons are not a commodity in regulatory terms. In the United States the category is Class II — unscented tampons sit under 21 CFR 884.5470 (product code HEB), scented ones under 884.5460 — and the category is not exempt from premarket notification, so a 510(k) is part of bringing a tampon to market there. Labelling is prescribed separately under 21 CFR 801.430, which fixes both the absorbency terms and the toxic shock syndrome warning. Other markets treat tampons as consumer products under general safety rules, and several require the importer to register the product before sale. Which route applies to your order — and who carries it — is a question to settle before pricing, not after.

Documentation normally travels with a shipment: commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading, certificate of origin, and test reports for the specification you bought. Beyond that, what a supplier can hand over is a factual question, and this is where we do not guess:

Who registers what. This is the part most first-time importers get wrong, and it decides your timeline more than price does:

The practical consequence: ask any supplier — including us — to state in writing which of these they hold and which sit with you. A supplier who answers vaguely on registration will cost you weeks later.

We send documents rather than describe them. Tell us the destination market and the construction you are buying, and we will send the certificates and test reports that market asks for — a document you can read is worth more than a logo on a page. The sanitary pad certifications guide explains how those documents feed into importer registrations.

HS code. Tampons and pads share one international heading: HS 9619.00 — sanitary towels (pads) and tampons, napkins and napkin liners, and similar articles, of any material. Below six digits, countries split the heading by construction and material: in the EU Combined Nomenclature, tampons of non-textile materials fall in a different subheading from tampons of wadding of textile materials, with different duty treatment. Classify from your actual bill of materials, not a competitor's paperwork, and let your broker set the national eight- or ten-digit line. We declare under HS 9619002000 and can share how we classify our own shipments, though your broker sets the national line. Our HS code and import duty notes cover the tariff side.

How to Order: Samples First

1. Send your specification — grade, format, pack, quantity estimate, destination market.
2. We confirm and quote — including the specification and MOQ we can commit to.
3. Sample — stock samples are free and ship within 1–3 working days; you cover the courier. Custom builds carry a development fee, confirmed before we start.
4. Approve — you approve the physical sample and artwork; it becomes the reference standard for production.
5. Produce and ship — production, in-line QC, documents, shipment.

What to put in a sample request

Send all eleven of these and you will normally get a usable sample and an accurate quote in one round instead of three:

1. destination country and sales channel
2. absorbency grade, or absorbency in grams
3. format: applicator-free, cardboard, plastic long, plastic compact
4. pack count and pack format (single wrap, multipack, bulk)
5. estimated annual or first-order quantity
6. bulk wholesale or private label
7. artwork status, if private label
8. registration status in your market, and who holds it
9. material requirements: fragrance-free, dye-free, chlorine-free, organic
10. certifications or test reports you need
11. incoterm and destination port

Leave items out and each becomes a question we must ask before quoting — and that round trip costs you a week.

Samples let you check absorbency, cover feel, expansion and pack quality in your own hands, and give you a physical reference to hold a factory to. Request free samples here, or send your specification to our contact form.

From Process to Purchase Order: Where Quality Is Decided

Buyers who ask how tampons are made are usually working out where cost and quality are decided. Five steps decide nearly everything you can specify:

• Fibre blend and opening — cotton, rayon or blends; sets absorbency, expansion and cost.
• Compression and forming — radial versus axial expansion.
• Cover bonding — prevents shedding; a weak bond shows up as lint.
• Cord attachment — safety-relevant and a common field complaint.
• Wrapper and packing — hygiene barrier and packaging cost driver.

End-user complaints are therefore a useful specification tool. Most are fit or grade problems rather than defects — but a cluster inside one lot is a manufacturing signal, and each maps to a purchase-order clause:

For the consumer-facing side, our guide to common problems when using tampons covers causes and fixes in plain language — useful for your customer service team when a complaint reaches your desk.

Next step: send us your specification and we will confirm what we can commit to, quote it, and get samples moving. Request free samples · Contact our export team