
All Roads Lead 65 Max Radio, September 29, 2026
All Roads Lead 65 Max Radio with Pamela L Henderson Ending Period Poverty Through Reusable Menstrual Cups, Discs, and Underwear with Cherie Hoeger Host Pamela L. Henderson talks with Saalt co-founder and CEO Cherie Hoeger about ending period poverty, the reusable menstrual cups, discs, and underwear her company designs, and why she champions work-life integration over balance. A Warm Welcome And Introduction Pamela L. Henderson opens the broadcast on BBS Radio, describing All Roads Lead 65 Max Radio as a platform she built since 2011 around social growth and inspiring young people to become leaders. She invites listeners to join her broadcasts and directs them to journeyofasapphire.com and allroads65max.org. Henderson introduces her guest, Cherie Hoeger, co-founder and CEO of Saalt, a woman-owned B Corp founded in 2018 with a mission to end period poverty. She notes that Saalt has donated over 160,000 period products across dozens of countries and funded more than 1.3 million days of school for girls, and that Hoeger, a mother of six, believes in work-life integration rather than balance. Hoeger thanks Henderson for the invitation, and the two begin with easygoing small talk about Boise, Idaho, where Hoeger lives, its potatoes, rivers, skiing, and outdoor culture, before turning to the interview. A Family Story Sparks An Idea Hoeger traces Saalt's origin to a conversation with her husband's aunt in Venezuela, who described being unable to find food or basic personal care items, let alone pads and tampons, on store shelves. Investigating reusable options, Hoeger discovered menstrual cups, discs, and period underwear for the first time in her thirties and was startled that cups and discs hold four to six times more than tampons, can last up to ten years, and felt so comfortable she would forget she was on her period. Researching further, she learned the Venezuelan shortage reflected a global problem called period poverty, affecting an estimated 500 million women and girls who lack access to safe products and are forced to use banana leaves, torn mattress padding, paper, or soil and ash. She realized that school drop-out rates rise sharply once girls hit puberty without access to period care, and felt what she calls a moral obligation to act, which led her to found Saalt in 2018. A Live Look At The Products At Henderson's request, Hoeger brings her product table on camera and walks through Saalt's line: menstrual cups that collect flow after being folded and inserted, discs that sit higher in the posterior fornix and can hold up to six times a tampon's capacity, and period underwear built with a patented gusset technology as thin as a nickel. She explains that cups can be worn up to twelve hours on lighter days and need emptying every four to six hours on heavy days, while discs work well for people with a weak pelvic floor or an IUD and can allow for mess-free period sex. The underwear, she says, replaces pads entirely, wicking moisture away through channels that keep the wearer dry. Hoeger describes designing a teen line for her five daughters, who use discs and underwear together, and a postpartum boyshort she wore herself, adding that the underwear also helps with bladder leaks during perimenopause. Fourteen Prototypes And Safety Questions Hoeger explains that Saalt's products went through fourteen design iterations with a freelance 3D CAD designer before reaching the flagship cup, and that the patented gusset technology took four years to develop with textile consultants at NC State's Wilson College of Textiles and forensics experts who study blood and fabric. She addresses toxic shock syndrome directly, explaining that TSS results from staph bacteria entering the bloodstream, often through micro-tearing caused by the oversized super tampons blamed for outbreaks in the 1980s, rather than simply from leaving a product in too long. Because cups and discs are soft and moldable, she says, they cause far less micro-tearing than tampons, making TSS much less common, though not impossible with any product. Hoeger cites an internal study of 188 participants who switched from tampons to cups, in which fewer than ten percent found the switch difficult, and says nine out of ten users never return to disposable products. Stigma, Empowerment, And Integration Over Balance Asked about Saalt's biggest challenges, Hoeger points to marketing and stigma, noting her background as a technical writer for health and fitness textbooks helps her explain complicated products simply. She says advertising restrictions sometimes ban Saalt from using words like period or vagina, even in straightforward health messaging, though she credits Gen Z and Gen Alpha with being far more open about periods, fertility, and bladder leaks than earlier generations. Hoeger and Henderson agree that empowering individuals, more than government or corporate programs, creates lasting ripple effects, since one donated cup or pair of underwear can change a life, a family, and eventually a community. Hoeger also describes rejecting the idea of perfect work-life balance in favor of what she calls work-life integration, citing her company's in-office preschool, walking treadmills, and flexible scheduling that let her be present for both her business and her six children, including her four-year-old son. Closing Advice And Where To Find Saalt Nearing the end of the conversation, Henderson and Hoeger touch briefly on two questions drawn from prepared notes, about a health data platform and a guest named David Wilson, that Hoeger says do not match her own experience, and the two agree to move on. Hoeger closes with advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, quoting Oprah Winfrey's line that the biggest adventure is to live the life of your dreams, and urging listeners not to let imposter syndrome or a lack of formal credentials stop them from pursuing a cause they believe in. Henderson reflects briefly on her own path since founding her program in 2011 and her work with her grandson. Hoeger directs listeners to saalt.com and the handle Saalt Co on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn, and notes Saalt products are sold at Target, Walmart, Costco, and Amazon. Henderson closes the broadcast with a quote from Hoeger about underfunded women's health research and thanks her guest before signing off.






