LOLA tampon delivery service takes off

A new Manhattan-based startup is now delivering tampons direct to your door.

Jordana Kier came up with the idea while running to the store for the feminine products that she needed every month, but never seemed to have. Kier teamed up with Alex Friedman to create LOLA to make things easier for women and better for them, too.

LOLA is 100 percent hypoallergenic cotton tampons in a BPA-free compact plastic applicator, and nothing else. Friedman says they wanted their product to be simple, and made from a natural ingredient they understood.

Both Kier and Friedman said they had never really thought about what they had been putting in their bodies for the last 15 to 20 years. Once they started working on LOLA they realized other women hadn't thought about it, either.

The pair spoke to as many women as they could, and realized two major things: most women had never thought about what was in their feminine products and hadn't talked a lot about them before. But once they were prompted, they had a lot to say.

Kier and Friedman say they're both excited to be part of that conversation.

The pair launched LOLA online last month, but they've been working on the brand for over a year. They raised $1.2 million in funding from a combination of angel and institutional investors, many of them men.

Kier and Friedman would walk into investor meetings with their products, throw them on the table and start the conversation by saying "this is a tampon." Some of the men had never seen one before, but that didn't stop them from investing. Friedman says most of them got it and were excited about the business idea from the beginning.

Women are getting excited about LOLA too, like supermodel Karlie Kloss, who Instagrammed a picture of a LOLA box in her medicine cabinet as part of the brand's LOLA Shelfie campaign.

So how does LOLA work? You start by heading to www.mylola.com. There you can customize your box of 18 tampons to include as many lights, regulars, and supers as you want.

The next step is to decide how many boxes you want delivered: one or two. Finally you decide how often you want the boxes delivered: every month or every other month. You can adjust, skip, or cancel anytime.

And where did the name LOLA come from? Kier says they wanted something cool, sophisticated, and a little sexy, that reminded nobody of their period. They borrowed the name from a family member, telling her they were sorry, but her name was about to become a tampon brand.