More than two decades ago a small family business in Kitchener changed the global conversation about menstrual products.
Now, Diva International is looking to do the same for other aspects of feminine care.
Prior to Diva’s rise menstrual products were largely limited to disposable pads and tampons, which are bad for the environment and contain potentially harmful materials.
Though menstrual cups had existed since the 1930s, none had solved the design challenges that prevented them from competing with disposable alternatives.
From a young age Francine Chambers believed that there was a healthier and more sustainable answer.
After discovering one of the few cup options on the market, the entrepreneur secured the rights to be the Canadian distributor for a Cincinnati-based menstrual cup maker.
Chambers spent more than a decade selling the product across Canada and around the world.
But it wasn’t until her daughter Carinne Chambers-Saini graduated with a business and economics degree from Laurier in 2001 that the pair began working on their own design.
Through trial and error, the mother-daughter team discovered solutions to the traditional cup’s design flaws.
Introducing a new category of menstrual products while competing with multinational incumbents, however, proved an uphill battle.
“We’re in a category with a lot of stigma and taboo and discomfort, and most of the buyers we were talking to were grey-haired men,” company CEO Chambers-Saini says. “Some could not make eye contact with us — their faces would turn red just saying some of those words.”
Despite pushback from traditional retail gatekeepers, the product developed an organic following.
After a decade, the company landed its first national retail partner, Shoppers Drug Mart, in 2013, fuelling a period of growth that would land Diva Cup on shelves around the world, in pop-culture and atop global entrepreneur and product innovation competitions.
The rapid growth, however, proved too much for the small family-run business, which struggled with operational growing pains that were exacerbated by the pandemic.
Now, the recently rebranded Diva International is ready for its next cycle, expanding from a single product to a new intimate care category consistent with its tradition of sustainability, innovation, health and safety.
The Star spoke to Chambers-Saini from her home in Kitchener about the company’s rise from small family business to household brand, the challenges that came with its rapid ascent, and how Diva International is building a healthier and more sustainable future.
Where did the idea for Diva Cup come from?
My mom grew up in the Sixties with all brothers, and when she started getting her period she was devastated, because she could no longer do things with them.
She remembers sitting on the beach watching her brothers play in the water, unable to join them, wearing this massive pad, thinking there had to be a better way.
She had dreamed of this cup back then, and when I was 14, she saw a classified ad for that exact product. She ended up calling the company, getting the product, and dedicated the next 10 years of her life to promoting it.
Both of my parents are entrepreneurs, and they worked on the business together. My mom ended up selling the retail stores she owned to become a Canadian distributor, and my dad, who was a tech entrepreneur, helped her develop an online store all the way back in 1992.
She dedicated her whole life to promoting menstrual cups around the world from our kitchen table.
When did your family start its own business?
I started using menstrual cups when I was 13, and by the time I graduated university I had a lot of experience with them. We had a lot of ideas on how to improve it, so we started to work on our own design.
We found a company in Bolton called Silcotech, founded by Michael Maloney, an expert in design and tooling. We showed him our ideas and he helped us design a prototype, which completely failed, but we continued to work together on it.
What made Diva Cup unique?
It took us years of gathering feedback from my mom’s customers to modernize the menstrual cup.
The early versions were made of latex rubber and looked like mini toilet plungers. They even used the same hard rubber.
We moved to a medical-grade silicone and made it more comfortable by smoothening out the hard edges around the rim.
The biggest issue that nobody knew how to solve for at the time was that you need air holes to release the pressure to allow it to unfold and open properly, so we found a way to make the ventilation work.
We added ridges on the outside at the bottom to allow easier, no-slip removal, and the overall shape was slightly longer and narrower, with a shorter stem.
How did you introduce this new product to the market?
We were selling online mostly, and at consumer trade shows, because retail buyers wouldn’t even look at us.
Tampons and pads bring customers into the store every month, and we were threatening that.
And honestly, a lot of people we talked to were completely freaked out and thought it was disgusting.
One retail buyer literally told us nobody would ever buy this, and we should give up, but we knew better, because it had already changed our lives.
We were working around the clock, dedicated to getting this out there, no matter how much time it took.
When did the tide start turning?
It was through a series of serendipitous events that sealed the deal with our first national retailer.
In early 2012 a Carnival Cruises boat sank, and they decided to give up their billboard in Times Square.
The sales rep happened to be a woman in Hamilton who reached out to us to offer an incredible deal on the ad space because she loved our product.
It was a huge investment for us, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
That digital ad ran four times every hour, twenty-four hours a day, for a whole year. That was before we had significant distribution in New York, so it was a big risk.
We had been trying to reach a buyer at Shoppers for several years, and they kept saying no, but then they got a new buyer.
She had seen our banner in Times Square and agreed to give us a meeting.
That buyer took a risk because our budgets were nothing compared to the multinational conglomerates that spent hundreds of millions a year advertising pads and tampons, but women were tired of what was out there and interested in trying something new.
When we started out nobody really cared about sustainability — nobody was carrying reusable water bottles and grocery bags or talking about health and wellness — but by then the conversation had changed.
When did you feel like you had made it?
Pretty soon after Shoppers we got into major American retailers, like CVS, and before you knew it, we were in 60,000 stores across the United States.
We were featured on a Larry King show about sustainable innovation, and we started seeing the Diva Cup in pop culture.
The first time was in 2014 in the Adam Sandler movie Blended, and since then it’s been mentioned in Modern Family, Amy Schumer had a whole bit about Diva Cups; people send us Diva Cup songs, poetry and artwork.
In 2016 we won two EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards — one in the sustainable products category, and another for being an industry disrupter — and we kept winning awards after that.
Our growth quickly became exponential, in the hundreds of percentages each year, and we were no longer this scrappy underdog.
At one point we were selling in 38 countries, and we were spreading ourselves too thin. Between 2016 and 2020 we were really struggling to manage all the business we had won.
What was the breaking point?
In 2020 we faced a lot of different challenges, from the growing pains of a rapidly scaling business to new competitors, and then the pandemic hit.
Ironically, we were selling online in the beginning, but when we signed deals with retailers, they required that we shut down our online sales, because they didn’t want to compete.
So, when COVID happened, many of our competitors were strong on eCommerce, and we weren’t.
After that we started to lose our retail base and decided to take a step back and work on strengthening our brand.
What changes did you make?
In 2022 we rebranded from Diva Cup to Diva International — makers of Diva Cup — and changed our logo for the first time.
That has really helped us solidify our position as our consumers’ care partners through all different cycles of life.
I’m in my late ‘40s and into another period where things change in a women’s body, and there aren’t a lot of resources; a lot of the products that are out there are full of toxic chemicals and perfumes that I don’t want to put in my body.
We’ve introduced new innovations in the menstrual care category with the Diva Disc and Diva Underwear, but vulva care is our first expansion into the wellness category.
One in four women experience vulva dryness and itching, so we developed a line of products that are safe to use, including a daily moisturizing wash, a cleanser, a refresher — which is an on-the-go cleaning spray — and a lubricator.
We’ve created this legacy around leading conversation on menstrual care, breaking stigmas, and pushing for equity, so this really makes sense as the next evolution for Diva.
